Let’s begin to look some at authorship and citation. While the example of plagiarism that we looked at on Friday connected specifically with fictional works, we are more likely to be engaging in non-fiction, academic work. Avoiding plagiarism in this particular situation is much different that in Viswanathan’s. But, the damage that could be done to your academic ethos is as grave. 

But, before we get to traditional, academic citations, let’s look again at how we give credit more broadly. If you recall, last Friday we discussed Mode and Medium – remember?

MODE: a way or manner in which something occurs (is expressed, experienced, or facilitated). The five rhetorical modes of communication (as defined by the New London Group) are : Visual, Linguistic, Aural, Spatial, and Gestural (Ball and Arola).

MEDIUM: a means of effecting or conveying something, or a way of communicating information (OED).

So, if the mode is visual, then a photo may be the medium; if the mode is sound, perhaps the medium is song, or sound effect. Make sense? 

Now, when we begin to use these modes and media ourselves, how can we keep the integrity of our work intact? What if we have images that we need to cite, or what if we need to use citations in a non-linguistic mode? This can be tricky, but it is doable. And, even though we are not doing particularly complex multimodal work in this class, looking at how other people might do it will help us understand how, when and where we might want to include citations. 

1. Okay, let’s go out on a limb and look at artistic citation first in the example of “Flawless” from Beyonce; she does some citation work here (some might argue more than a little) both in the song and in the video – how does she (1) use her sources and (2) cite them? Remember, in the arts, this can look a bit different, but she does some good, old-fashioned academic citing here, too. (For more on the extent of collaboration and citation done in this video, check out the Atlantic article, “Beyonce’s “Flawless”: The Full Story.”
2. One of the clearest sources of popular citation can be found in Adam Conover’s series, Adam Ruins Everything. Let’s look at a clip. As we do, notice the ways in which sources and citations are included. Make a few notes about how he includes sources – is it clear? Interesting? Helpful? What might the limitations of this be?
3. How about a website? We are engaged most fully with those in this class, and we have discussed some of the advantages to writing on a website. But, let’s take a look at this article from Teen Vogue and see if you can spot how they identify sources and citations. What is different between this example and the last?

Now that we have looked at some of these multimodal examples, let’s discuss some of these notes. On your website, in a post under class notes, consider the following and write down your answers- we will discuss these on Friday in class:

1. Where do you see similarities in citation? 
2. Are these sources varied? Are they all trustworthy? What makes them trustworthy?
3. How does the way they engage with their sources and share their sources affect your experience of the text? Do you feel more comfortable, less comfortable, meh?
4. what clever things do they do to ensure they cite their sources ethically?
5. As an author/scholar, what are your goals for citation?