Category: Writers Block
Here is part of a term paper I wrote last year. I couldn't post the whole
thing because it's 8 pages and it won't all fit, so if you want to see more of
it, please let me know!
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California. The
founders of Apple were Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. As
of October 2014, Apple has 437 stores in 15 countries. Apple is served
worldwide, and the key people are Chairman Arthur Levinson and CEO Tim
Cooke. They have many have many products such as the mac computer,
the iPhone, and the iPad. They have many services such as the IOS and
OS app stores, apple stores in person and online, and iCloud, a backup
software. Apple is one of the best technology companies.
Apple is the second largest information company after Sampsong
Electronics, and the world’s third largest cell phone maker. On November
25, 2014, Apple became the first US company that was valued at 700
billion dollars.
Apple was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak,
and Ronald Wayne. The first product they sold was the Apple I computer
kit. This was a very basic computer. It did not have a keyboard,
speakers, or a monitor. The Apple I was built by Steve Wozniak; he built
this product by hand. They were first showed to the public at a club
called the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as just a
mother board with a CPU (Central Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access
Memory), and some basic textual video chips. This is less than what is
considered a personal computer today, and Apple has come a long way
since then. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976, and was priced at
$666.66.
Apple was incorporated on January 3, 1977. It was operating
without Wayne. Wayne sold the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for
$800.00. Mike Markkula, a multi-millionaire, provided essential funding of
$250 thousand during the incorporation of Apple. During the first 5 years,
revenues doubled every 4 months by about 700%. The Apple Ii was also
invented by Wozniak. It was introduced at a computer fair on April 16,
1977. It had multi-colored character cell graphics and an open
architecture, so this made it different from other rivals. While earlier
versions of technology used cassette tapes for storage, this device used a
floppy disk. The drive interface was called disk 2. The Apple Ii was
chosen to be the first desktop platform for the business world.
By the end of the 1970’s, Apple had lots of computer designers and a
very good production line. The company introduced the Apple III in May
1980. They were doing this to try and compete with IBM and Microsoft in
the business and corporate market. Jobs was immediately convinced that
all future computers would use a Graphical User Interface. Development of
this interface began with the Apple Lisa.
On December 12, 1980, Apple went public at $22. They were making
more capital than any other company. They were also creating more
millionaires in history.
The Mac was introduced in 1980. They began working on the Apple
Lisa in 1978. Jobs was removed from the Apple Lisa team due to some
problems in 1982. Jobs took over Jeff Raskin’s project, the Mac computer.
Both teams were arguing over which product would ship first. The Apple
Lisa shipped first in 1983, and it became the first personal computer for the
public. It was a failure though because of the high price tag and limited
software titles. Apple released the Mac computer in 1984. It was the first
personal computer that was sold without a programming language. The
computer was beginning to sell well, but as the sale progressed, the sale
was not strong. Particularly, the Mac was powerful desktop publishing
market because of its advanced graphics capability. This was built in to
create the Graphical User Interface.
So you didn't cite any of your sources in here? You do that throughout the paper after paraphrasing material, then conclude with the works cited page. It just looks like you threw all this together without telling anyone from where you acquired your information, which, I believe falls under the topic of plagiarism and academic misconduct.
hmm, interesting but you don't say according to... or quote something. it's
good to paraphrase but you should say whare you get this info from. Just
saying. I have done simular things.
I'd say that an essay without any kind of citations on it is akin to plagarism.
When I was in university back in the 1990s, if I had turned in an essay without any
reference citations or bibliography, I could be assured that the paper would receive a Zero
grade for it and risk having it affect my acacemic record.
Perhaps things have changed in the last 20 years and the world of academia has relaxed
somewhat, but I highly doubt that... I submitted a 10-page research paper for a not-for-
credit continuing education course I took through the University of British Columbia and
the instructor reminded us all that she expected a full bibliography and complete
notations for all works referenced... all this for a non-credit course.
wow, kate, I think that deserves a 0. sorry but true.
Kate they have not. She must have not got a good grade if she submitted this with no sitations. a 0 indeed. You are expected to site in MLA or APA depending on the subject.
Apple, are you still in college or have they kicked you out by now?
Total fail. And I'd say that even if I hadn't known you from other threads you've posted here. Aside from the lack of citations, this is total shit!! I mean, did you even try to edit or revise this? You have words repeating themselves millions of times; there's no point to the paper really, beyond it's simplistic foundation...
Shit, if I wrote this kind of paper for college, I'd be afraid to turn it in, much less proudly post it onto a web site for all to see.
Go back to remedial english, sweetie. If this is how college kids write and think these days, I'm eternally depressed. Shoot me now. Seriously.
MMM the professors are out in force.
Hopefully this was written for her pre English class.
It is a learning experience, correct?
lmao!
Bernadetta,
Bashing her ruthlessly isn't going to teach her anything. Your inner snob is showing. I'm sorry but I'm getting tired of it.
ApplePeaches, this snippet of a term paper is informative, but suffers from a few problems.
1. There are some repetitive phrases and unclear anticedents present.
2. You repeat the founding of Apple after already telling us once.
3. You have some issues with subject-verb agreement, and sometimes use "they" when you should be using "it".
4. Unless you're citing facts like "The capital of Canada is Ottawa" or "water boils at 100 degrees celsius", you would do well to cite your sources. Many of the things you've mentioned here are probably very easy to look up, and most of them are facts. I would not call this plagiarism so much as laziness. You are not trying to claim that you invented Apple, or that someone else did. You're not trying to claim that you and only you know when Apple was created. However, you're dealing with specifics, so mentioning where you got your information would be good.
And as a general reminder, let's keep something in mind, folks:
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Even a poster known for silly or ridiculous posts may deserve to be treated with courtesy when a post is not silly or ridiculous. This term-paper sample wasn't precisely overflowing with literary merit, but nor should it engender scorn and ridicule. I think some of you are making the grave mistake of attacking, dismissing or reviling someone universally on the basis of other irrelevant details.
I'll put it a different way. It doesn't matter that this girl has problems with an ex-FWB, put soup back in the pantry after opening it, bit her book bag, got lost trying to get to the bus, and generally seems to like attention, not when she wants to show off her term paper. If you don't like it, don't read or don't post. Ridicule is counterintuitive.
You need to ensure you include sitations. Even if it isn't required for this class, it's good to get into practise because most of the time it will be required in order to pass.
Also, I noticed you included the year, and who the founders of Apple were a couple of times. Once you've already said that, you don't need to do so again.
Make sure you go over your work a few times, for example, this sentence:
They have many have many products such as the mac computer,
the iPhone, and the iPad.
You repeated the phrase "have many", twice. So, a quick read over your paper could have solved that.
Anyway, hope this helps somewhat for your future work. Just be mindful that professors will expect more of you as you progress.
yeah, agree with Holly. and thanks for the advice, holly! Seriously though,
just put some citations in there, and fix your errors. it'll make this a lot
better! :)
Thank you Gregg
You also need a thesis. There's no thesis or argument to this. The sentence
structure is basic. Its basically nothing more than a series of copy and pasted
facts. There's no interpretation, no analysis, just facts. I could get that from a
wikipedia page.
Also, Greg, this is the very definition of plagiarism. No, she isn't copy and
pasting someone's exact words, but she is claiming facts that she didn't create
as her own. She found that source somewhere, so she needs to cite it so that
someone can go and find where she got it from and fact check her. If I turned
this in to my professors as it is here, they'd seek to have me expelled for
cheating.
I really hate writing sitations. They are painful.
But my school provides us with a guide to the referencing system they use. It's great, you can look up all kinds of things, like referencing a book, an article, a lecture, a newspaper...and it will give instructions for them all.
If you are confused about this I would ask your school if they do the same. It is so incredibly helpful!
I mark a distinction between citing facts and citing theories. This stuff about Apple is a matter of pretty public record. It doesn't matter who wrote it first. I mean, if you stretch it out, do I have to cite state capitals or baseball world series statistics? I'd argue not. And if I didn't, I'm not plagiarizing. I'm not actually saying that I'm the only one who knows. I'm not saying that I was the first to find out. I am, frankly, regurgitating information.
Now, regarding theories, it's different. If I explained some sort of psychological theory and didn't name its creator, or if I referenced a study but didn't tell anyone who actually did it, then yeah, that's plagiarism.
Both are bad. The former is not as ugly as the latter.
Guys, I did cite my information. This was a sort of "rough draft" so in the
final draft, I did fix my mistakes. I wrote the paper and I remembered where I
got the information, so I added the citations later. If I can find my flash
drive, I will post the final draft. I can't post the whole thing though as it
won't fit, but I can post this part. Also, the 8 pages of it that I have on my
computer wasn't the whole thing. There was more that I added to the final
draft. I did have a works cited page at the end. At the beginning I had a
cover page with my name, the professor's name, and the course, but for the
sake of posting it here, I took that out.
Yes Greg, you do have to cite those if that is the subject of your paper. If
you're writing a paper about baseball, and you cite a stat, you need to say
where you got that stat from so that it can be fact checked and you can
demonstrate that you didn't make it up.
Yeah, and even if you're stating general knowledge like smoking is bad for
your health, even though you know it off the top of your head, you need to
find a source that will give it to you.
Never mind that stuff like world series statistics can be found, like, everywhere. It's not as if you're going to have differing theories on the score of game 6 in 1993. If I was citing any sort of analysis of the game, then yes. But just the score? Not so much.
Regardless, I agree with the consensus that it's good practice to cite properly.
ApplePeaches, I don't know what sort of grade level your term paper is being marked at, but just shoving all your sources in at the end is not generally the way to go. Look up MLA, just as an example of guidelines.
Doesn't matter Greg. You still have to cite any fact you put into the paper
unless it is general knowledge. For example, the civil war started in 1861 would
be considered general knowledge. The number of home runs Babe Ruth hit in
1947 is not. One is taught in school, one isn't.
When the Civil War started even though that is general knowledge, you still
have to find a source that would give that to you.
I didn't know when the civil war started. It's not taught in schools here. Contrarily, I do happen to know that Babe Ruth was well out of baseball by 1947, and actually died that year.
Demonstrates an interesting point. On whose authority is something considered general knowledge? Because you assumed that the start date of the civil war is general knowledge...maybe it is for an American, but Americans don't make up the majority of people in the world.
Most fans of the Toronto Blue Jays will know that their last world series win was in 1993. This means it's common knowledge for Jays fans, but might not be common knowledge for the average person in the world.
However, in both the case of the civil war and the case of another statistic - Babe Ruth's homers, or the last year the Jays won the Series - it can be looked up, validated and verified by multiple sources.
This really is a thorny question.
I suppose if we want to be really, really safe, we assume that common knowledge is limited only to things like natural laws. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Helium is lighter than air. The earth orbits the sun. Stuff like that. And absolutely everything else, no matter how long it's been around, must be cited because it might not be considered common knowledge.
The bottom line, site your sources!
Yeah, here pretty much anything needs a sitation. Obviously, a lot of students won't site literally everything. And professors will mark differently, some more strictly than others.
But in general if I'm unsure I just go for it because it's easier than losing marks.
Yeah, even when you paraphrase, you have to be very careful because it
could be close to what articles say.
again, she states the obvious. No shit, Sherlock. Really? Wow ... *insert sarcastic face*
You should cite paraphrases also. a paraphrase is just a quote you didn't copy
directly. You shortened or changed it around a bit, but you're still taking it from
somewhere.
Let me see if I can outline this a bit more greg. If you are writing about
baseball in canada, you should cite all baseball facts you state in your paper.
You don't have to cite what the capital of canada is, that's considered general
knowledge of the subject. Not everyone will know it, but its assumed that you
will or could find it by asking siri. If you're writing about the civil war, you don't
have to cite that it started in 1861. You do have to cite the number of killed at
the battle of seven groves. Does that clear it up a little?