January 11 response

GRR
I get ideas, advice, feedback and assistance in my writing from other Colleges, professors, my Dad, other articles or pieces of information, songs and quotes.

Summary: In Porter's Article, Intertextuality and the Discourse Community, He explains that all texts contain traces of other texts and that no work is completely original through the concept of intertextuality. He provides examples such as Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration based off of the ideas of many people and that documents should be accepted by a discourse community.

QD

2. I partially agree with Porter that intertext makes individual writers less important because their writing is a collaboration of others ideas and information making the thoughts borrowed.  I believe because there are so many thoughts and ideas on a topic it is nearly impossible to write an article with all original thoughts and statements. But, there is so much information that sometimes it needs to be explained in a more clear fashion or like Jefferson, the ideas all need put together in an orderly way wether they are the direct ideas of the author or not.

3. According to Dictionary.com, autonomous is self governing, independent, and subject to its own laws only. On page 88 paragraph 4, Porter describes the romantic image of a writer as free, uninhibited spirit, independent and a creative genius.  Therefor, an autonomous writer could be described as romantic.

4. I understand the importance of having acceptability within the reader's community because many of the readers have similar ideas or contributing information and knowledge.  My papers have been evaluated by pier evaluating, my dad and my teachers.  I thought my writing should be evaluated by a grade or how a teacher responds. I think that my papers need to be accepted by those interested in the topic and not by a grade or a certain way a teacher wants me to write.

5. I believe that Porter is right about intertextuality because the idea of intertextuality and all the terms that he talks about have been thought and written about by other authors and writers. At the same time, someone has to be the first to talk and think about something, but it is possible that at the same time, someone else could be thinking about the same thing. In his text, Porter is displaying the idea of intertextuality because he isn't talking about anything that hasn't been thought of before.  He may explain examples differently, but the examples have also come from someone else.

6.  There is much harm in imagining writing as individual, heroic and isolated because it most likely isn't. For students, it is impossible to create a paper and information without having some past knowledge. Also, Porter says it is important for students to know that documents like the Declaration of independence was the result of a large group of people rather than just one person. I completely agree.

MM- My idea has changed about writers being people who work to get their ideas on print because now I realize that all information is borrowed. I think that readers have different styles and ways of comprehending information so the writers help the readers understand by the way they collaborate information. I see writers as not completely original but "effective borrowers of traces" as Porter describes Jefferson in paragraph 8.  Now i am challenged to better collaborate information (much more information) in a way that makes sense to argue my point.

REFLECTION

I thought this article was really long to explain the point of intertextuality and discourse communities.  I am still a little confused on discourse communities but I liked the examples such as the Declaration that helped to explain intertextuality. My views have changed on writing by the concept of intertextuality and it has motivated me to bring many sources into my writing so that I can develop good collaborating skills.