Reading Response 8

In his article, "Intertextuality and the discourse community," James Porter questions the conceptions in our culture about plagiarism arguing that all text are interdependent because "all texts contain 'traces' of other texts" (86). This principle known as intertextuality places the writer in a community of discourse or forum which is a "group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate trough approved channels and whose discourse is regulated"(91). As Greene in "Argument as a Conversation," Porter shows that a text is not an individual thing but a part of an ongoing conversation about a particular subject.
Porter also emphasize the rhetorical aspect of texts arguing that "the writer has freedom within immediate rhetorical context" (93) because every text that is admitted into a discourse community changes its constitution. He thinks that students need to learn to know what can be presupposed in the discourse community they choose to join.
From Porter's point of view, the writer's "success is measured by the writer's ability to know what can be presupposed and to borrow that community's traces effectively to create a text that contributes to the maintenance or, possibly, the definition of the community" (96).
I found this text really interesting because every time I had to do a writing assignment I was afraid of falling into plagiarism if I used to many traces from my sources.

GETTING READY TO READ

An Author is a person who creates something new. This could be a painting, a text, a piece of music, etcetera. A writer is the author of a text.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND JOURNALING

4. In my experience, every time I wrote in my life, my writing was evaluated by my teachers. This means that my writing was looking for my audience acceptance because that would mean I would get a good grade in my writing assignment.

5. His work reflects the principles he's talking about because he uses both types of intertextuality: iterability and presupposition. He uses Iterability by means of quotations, explicit allusions and references to other writer's work. And he uses Presupposition by assuming that his audience is familiarized with concepts like rhetoric, heuristics, etcetera.  

APPLYING AND EXPLORING IDEAS

2. I think plagiarism is using someone else's work and taking credit for it. I thought that if I took to many traces from my sources into my text I would be falling in plagiarism and unoriginality but now I realize that creativity lies in know how to use those traces to contribute to the discourse community I'm writing for.

META MOMENT

I think my way of writing is changing influenced by the texts we've read in this class. Ideas like arguments as conversation, rhetorical meaning and the voice in writing have been really helpful. Porter's contribution is also important because it helped me solve my doubts about plagiarism.