Lopez 1

Litzet Lopez
Grey
ENGL 5
21 October 2016

Collaborative Group Project

When I came to the realization that my classmates and I were going to be assigned into
certain groups to work together for a collaborative group project, I was honestly not looking
forward to it. I felt very hesitant because of past experiences that I had throughout high school.
My group mates in the past lacked the real effort that we needed to complete a project. Many of
them even bailed in times that we needed to work together. They would also not provide the
information that was deemed necessary in completing the project which would leave me to
complete the project on my own. After experiencing this, I dreaded being a part of a group
project. However, once I was set into a group with the members for this class, I noticed that we
all had the same intention which was to work together and to present helpful information to the
class.
My contributions to the project included gathering not only my information but as well as
my group members information and putting it together on the poster. I set the information on the
poster in a way that I felt was easiest for the audience to understand. Nevertheless, when it came
to researching, I found several incidents that related to the topic that my group members and I
chose which was plagiarism. The incident that stood out to me most however, was one of Martin

Lopez 2
Luther King Jr. who was said to of plagiarized much of others work in his doctoral dissertation.
King Jr. was wrong for not giving credit to the those who deserved it.
Ultimately when it comes down to asking what role I played, I would not say I was much
of the group leader because it is not something I do naturally. Although, I did take charge in
making sure that we had everything we needed in order to complete the assignment; I made sure
the information we had was valid and was strong enough to prove our points for our
presentation. Overall, I wanted to have an informative presentation and poster.
During the presentation, I was responsible for presenting the stance that my group and I
had on the issue of plagiarism. I was determined in explaining to my peers about how my group
members viewed the issue of it as well. Even though I was very determined in making those
points to the class, I feel that I did not make it clear enough. I rehearsed what I wanted to say
beforehand, but as soon as I stood in front of the class I became extremely nervous. In times like
these, I tend to have trouble of speaking and especially having to explain the points I want to
prove. Nevertheless, I hope that what I said throughout my presentation was clear enough for
my classmates to understand the stance on the issue of plagiarism that my group mates and I had.
Firstly, I defined the phrase "academic honesty" as a way of being truthful. I then defined
"academic integrity" as a way of owning up to something and as well as following a certain code.
Lastly, I defined "academic plagiarism" as a way of taking the work of others and not giving the
credit that is deserved. Throughout the course of the assignment, I came to the realization that in
order to have integrity, a person needs to be honest. In better circumstances, it is notable that
those who admit to plagiarism need to have the integrity and honesty to own up to the truth. I
will now say that I do not believe that these definitions changed throughout the course. My

Lopez 3
definitions were close to those of my group members. I consulted the Merriam-Webster
dictionary.
As a group we selected two main issues that we believed were the best to describe why
plagiarism is wrong. We spoke first of the incident that involved Donald Trump's wife Melania
Trump who plagiarized Michelle Obama's speech from eight years ago; Melania Trump chose to
use the speech at the Republican National Convention. Many defended Melania Trump by saying
that she really did not plagiarize Michelle Obama. It was also said that what was spoken about in
the speech could have been said by anybody. Even though many believed she was innocent, she
was not and should have given credit where it was due. (Ballhaus 2016) Secondly, my group and
I agreed on using an article that based sixty out of five hundred guilty of plagiarism at the
University of Virginia One student brought up an unfair grade that she had received and
compared it to others who had cheated and from then on all the students were caught cheating.
(Schemo 2001) I see these issues as both great examples of what plagiarism is and why it is
illegal. It is entirely wrong to claim the work of others as their own; it is wrong.
Once reviewing the course syllabus, I chose three goals in which I felt closely embodied
the collaborative group project. I chose goals one, two and as well as five because I believe that
it helps us as students, understand the ways of writers and readers, the process of reading and
writing and the understanding and engagement in reading and writing. The project helped us as
students understand extra-textual contexts that shape reading and writing, we set pruposes and
goals for reading, writing, and research and lastly, we integrated our own ideas with those of
others.
Throughout my research, I mainly used the Article and Database Research from the
CSUS Library for this assignment. I felt it was the most helpful in searching for information

Lopez 4
because it had several articles that were extremely useful. There were many articles that included
issues of plagiarism.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I learned a lot in this course. I strongly believe that
my writing as a process has changed but improved since the last assignment that we had which
was the literary narrative essay. I learned the proper way in citing and also learned how to work
with others. The collaborative group project gave me a better experience in working with people.

Lopez 5
Works Cited
Ballhaus, Rebecca; O'Connor, Patrick, Republicans Try to Move On After Plagiarism
Accusations at Convention; Melania Trump's echoes of Michelle Obama fuel concerns
about the organization of Donald Trump's campaign.
http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/docview/1805350656?
OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&accountid=10358 20 July 2016. Accessed 12 October 2016
Schemo, Diana. U. of Virginia Hit by Scandal Over Cheating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/10/us/u-of-virginia-hit-by-scandal-over-cheating.html.
10 May 2001. Web. 9 October 2016. Accessed 14 October 2016