Research Writer Interview With Gwen
Citing and Communicating
Welcome, Gwen! As you know, we have some questions for you today. Our first question is, What interested you in working for Term Paper Writer?
Good question! I guess the most important factor for me was having the opportunity to use my experience to teach others how to write more effectively. Like many seeking assistance from Term Paper Writer, I started college without any real understanding of what was required by my professors, in terms of writing. Although I succeeded in high school writing, during my first year of college and at the start of graduate school I felt unsure of what was expected or preferred by professors. Even as I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I sometimes felt like there was something specific my advisor wanted me to write, but he wouldn't tell me what! Of course, this wasn't the case. Rather, one knows good writing when one sees it, yet it is difficult to define in a way that makes sense to those still learning the ropes. I have also found in my work editing others' essays that intelligent people are not equally apt at expressing themselves in essays. So I think that from the outside, it appears like there is a uniform way to write, and there is: effectively. But what that means for every individual is different, and by modeling effective writing, I hope I can help others to gain insight on what good writing is in concrete settings.
You touched on this previously, but can you please discuss briefly what qualifies you to write custom term papers?
Sure. To start, I've successfully completed my own academic program in philosophy, a writing-intensive field, and I have also taught academic writing to college freshman, upperclassmen, and graduate students. Additionally I have published my work in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. So I have a lot of experience writing and teaching writing. Finally, I have assisted in editing academic essays for a few leading journals in my field, and also served as a reviewer. So I think I am able to take a broad yet pragmatic view of what is important in academic writing at any level.
That's great. We are nearing the end of our time today, but I wonder if you could tell us your thoughts about plagiarism in academic writing.
Absolutely! I think it's important to make some distinctions in discussing plagiarism as an ethical issue. For instance, one crucial issue in learning how to write essays without plagiarizing is learning how to cite one's sources and communicate their significance in one's own words. Yet I think it is often opaque to beginning writers how to go about expressing one's own point of view while also referring to five or ten articles or books, and why it matters that one has done research related to their point of view - that researchers must survey a field in order to persuasively put forward their solution to a problem or interpretation of a situation. So one's views must connect to others' in a very specific way. Second, why it is important not to plagiarize often goes unaddressed in discussions of plagiarism: you are learning how to stake a claim for yourself within a wider field, an important skill related to demonstrating your ability to think critically. It is never in one's self-interest to dismiss the importance of learning how to express oneself in this way. So, I think the problem of plagiarism should be understood less as a matter of stealing others' ideas - informed ideas don't come out of individuals' heads-and more as a matter of robbing oneself of the experience required to become an effective communicator, which is crucial to being autonomous in society.
Thank you for your time, Gwen. It has been a pleasure!
It has! Thank you!