Dakota Dyer

A response to Kantz
In Margaret Kantz helping students use textual sources persuasively she
brings to light many good points. She is educated on her topic of research
due to her current role as a profession of her specific topic. The basis for her
claims is that, we as students have not been taught how to properly
synthesize, or distinguish facts from claims, and are therefore unable to
properly create or synthesize our own papers that are credible and
absolutely plagiarism free. I believe that she has a very good and argument
worthy claim here. Going through high school, I was never taught these basic
necessities for writing and un-plagiarized paper. We focused on endless
subjects and predicates and comma splices and verb, adjectives and
adverbs. Also we focused on literature in English class. I feel that our time
could have been better spent during this class. Because if we had focused on
synthesizing papers and distinguishing facts from claims, maybe I would not
be having to write this paper on the subject. Therefore I blame my school for
not teaching us these necessary skills when they knew that one day I would
come to college and have to write a paper such as this very one that I am
writing now. It is very painful and hard to come up with four hundred words
about this subject with the limited prompt given. I believe that Kants
research problem is why have students not been taught to synthesize
papers. Also why have students not been taught how to determine the facts
from a mere claim? She wants to know what can be done to solve this
problem. Personally I believe that the only thing that can be done to remedy
this problem, is that schools and teachers alike are going to have to bind
together and come up with a way to integrate the teaching of these subjects
into the current curriculum. It may not be easy because it may cut into the
all-important math and sciences, but it nevertheless needs to be done. These
days colleges have had to crack down on the students over plagiarism. This
is like treating the symptom not the disease. The problem starts in the
elementary schools and the middle schools and the high schools where
students are not being taught how not to plagiarize. If these schools would
begin to teach how not to plagiarize, Kant would not even need to write her
article.