Blog 10 Answer to Survey Question

The Finding Forrester is a though-provoking movie which makes audiences think more. And the three question in the survey tried to find out what students think about some parts in this movie.

Question 5 asked if Jamal understand why he should not submit anything wrote with Forrester. 3/4's of students believes that Jamal didn't understand that.Which suggests that he don't know his behavior can be plagiarism.  But i don't agree with the majority because from the movie we can see when Jamal was told he plagiarized Forrester's article he asked Forrester why didn't he tell he earlier. That means if Jamal know Forrester had published that article he would not submit it.

Question 6 asked whether Jamal intentionally missed the two throws or not. According to the survey, more than twice as many students though that he deliberately missed the shot. His glance at Claire and Crawford suggests he was thinking about he would feel guilty about miss the shot and sorry for let others down. 

Question 4 asked should the decision of plagiarism effect Jamal as a good writer. Seven out of ten students deny that Jamal's good writing should be important in the decision. In the movie we all know that Jamal is talent in writing and wrote many good articles. So the decision won't block Jamal as a good writer.

In conclusion, these three question above helped me thing more deeply about those issues raised in the movie . 

Blog 10 Answer to Survey Questions-Yuhang Yi

There is a survey addresses several questions about the movie Finding Forrester. They are deep-thinking questions and some of them are even though-provoking.

For the Question 5, the Column 5 shows that over 70% students in the survey don’t think Jamal understand why Forrester told him not to submit anything he wrote with Forrester. This can be the right answer. Jamal probably basically understands it. He may think the reason is that those work are Forrester’s properties so he can not take them instead of considering plagiarism. According to the setting, Jamal comes from a black public school where doesn’t have excellent education which could be the reason that he is lack of correct writing skill.

On Question 6, the chat shows that 7/10 students believe that Jamal intentionally miss the two free throws in the championship game. This is reasonable. Before shooting those two free throws, he has glanced Claire and Professor Crawford. This should be the hint for why he misses two free throws later. Jamal wants to prove his writing by himself instead of using school’s sympathy. And also earlier in the movie, Jamal makes 50 straight free throws and that means he should be good at shooting.

Finally back to Question 4, the data indicates that there are as twice as many students think that plagiarism doesn’t matter Jamal as a very good writer. Jamal is being talented in writing but that doesn’t mean everything he writes is correct. Talent is inborn, but he still needs to be educated to use his talent and follow the rules. Even there’s only 32% students vote for “Yes”, but in my perspective, I will stand on their side.

In general, those are good questions which help me think and understand this movie much better.

Blog 10

Finding Forrester, directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Mike Rich in 2000, describes the story of a typical black American high school student, Jamal Wallace, who shows talent for playing basketball and writing. In this movie, Jamal unavoidable involves plagiarism and six related controversial survey questions are brought out.

For the first question, Jamal does plagiarize with no doubt as he copies a paragraph from a Forrester’s publish article without giving the credit. In the second question, considering his different background, I defend against the plagiarism charge. Jamal comes from a poor public high school, which students even do not listen to class carefully. Therefore, Jamal is not familiar with the rules of plagiarism and his charge is forgivable.

Another question is about Forrester’s consent to Jamal. The consent is very necessary because it is Forrester’s appearance in the classroom and his speech persuade faculty of board to withdraw the plagiarism charge. Another controversial question is whether Jamal’s high-quality writing affects the final decision. Although the data shows that there is 70% students deny that Jamal’s good writing is necessary to the decision, my answer to the question is positive. Jamal’s article for the competition is the most important part in Forrester’s speech to persuade people in the classroom. Thus, the high-quality writing of Jamal is important in the decision.

In the fifth question, Jamal do not understand why Forrester told him to stay any writing which was created in the apartment. The data, about 72% students responding that Jamal do not know the reason, in the column supports my opinion as well. If Jamal could understand Forrester’ positive intention, he would not hand in his article, which brings tons of trouble to him. In the last one, the movie drops several hints showing Jamal miss the two free throws in the basketball championship game on purpose. One of the most significant hints is the time out before shooting, Jamal’s coach tells him about using the victory to exchange the withdrawal of his charge, but Jamal keeps silent for it. When he prepares for shooting the throw, he stares to Claire and Professor Crawford meaningfully for a while.

In summary, Finding Forester is a really good movie and that is the reason why people have great interest in discussing these six controversial questions.

Blog 10

•   Jamal definitely plagiarized when he copied words from Forrester’s early work. Without proper citation, the final result of copying can only be accused plagiarism.
•   For me, I will not defend for Marita either Jamal. Although Jamal was not a professional writer that time, he should know copying is not an acceptable choice for academic writing; however, Mrita’s assignment was a scientific essay and it is her first time to write about scientific issue. She get her source from library but she copied it to support her essay. They both plagiarized and should receive punishment.
•   If Forrester gave his consent to Jamal, Jamal should not be accused plagiarism because he had permission from original author. Therefore, I chose “yes” to this question.
•   Forth question examines whether a writer’s ability will be affected by plagiarism or not. 7/10 of students thought Jamal’s ability will not be affected by plagiarism. In the movie, Jamal‘s work showed great talent of writing, he submitted plagiarized essay because of Crawford’s distrust; however, Jamal proved his ability in the end of the film with another remarkable essay. Therefore, most of students make their choice.
•   Fifth focus on the Jamal’s understanding of Forrester’s request. 72% of students doubt Jamal’s understanding and chose “no”. Jamal broke the promise and submitted his writing to professor. He just want to show off his ability. Without Forrester’s help, he will definitely receive punishment.
•   Final question is to find out if two free shots was intentionally missed. About twice as many students thought Jamal missed these two shots because of some reasons. Before he threw, he glanced at Claire and his professor Crawford. If Jamal helped school win the game, he will not be accused plagiarism because of his basketball skill; however, Jamal wanted to prove his writing ability but not save himself with two shots. He missed two shots and hoped Forrester would come.

Plagiarism and Finding Forrester

   There are six questions asking the relationship between main character Jamal in the movie Finding Forrester and plagiarism. Although, there are all thoughtful  questions for the plagiarism, I want to discuss two of the interesting questions in this blog. First of all, the question whether the Jamal's plagiarism influence the decision that Jamal is a very good writer. In terms of myself, the answer is no, because plagiarism is just a part of the Jamal's academic career. Specifically speaking, in the movie, Jamal hand in his final paper with some paragraphs copying from the Forrester's works in the situation Jamal do not know Forrester's work has been published in the New York Times before. Furthermore, a good writer is defined as a author who have an unique view towards the society or can expertly use his own words to encourage people. Due to this point, Jamal absolutely is a good writer because Jamal has his own unique opinion towards some of the societies' issues and use expertly words to show his opinion.

   Secondly, other question is that in the basketball championship game, whether the Jamal is intentionally miss the two shoots or not. In my opinion, Jamal miss the two shoots on purpose. Specifically speaking, before this game begin, Jamal acquire a punishment that can no longer stay in the school. This punishment may give Jamal a thought that the winning of the game is not his matter, so he can treat this two shoots unceremoniously. Moreover, before Jamal throw his ball, he has a eye contact with his professor who gives the punishment for Jamal and his best friend Clare.

  Finally, although there are several aspect talking about the plagiarism, this is not a good movie to discuss the plagiarism. The reason why this is not a appropriate movie is its main thesis is the changes in Forrester and Jamal instead of plagiarism.

Blog 10

In the movie Finding Forrester, there is a main character Jamal who is involved in plagiarism issue in his school.  Plagiarism is lying with the original writers of ideas or sentences; therefore, discussing on plagiarism should be done when someone submitted the papers that include other’s writing.  Simply copying others’ writing by oneself is not plagiarism; however, when they submit others’ writing as their own paper, it should be a problem.  I would defend Jamal against charges of plagiarism because he did not fully understand plagiarism rules.  He was involved in plagiarism in his school; however, it can be legal if Forrester give permission to Jamal.  One of the reasons that plagiarism rules are existed is to protect originators and respect their efforts.  Therefore, if Jamal received Forrester’s permission, he can liberally use the writings.  The fact that Jamal was once involved in plagiarism should be a matter to the decision that Jamal was a good writer.  In my opinion, a writer should have great skills and ability to write wonderful book; however, a writer also should keep the writing rules and should not use other writers’ work in a wrong way.  To be a good writer, he should respect others’ work as their own and use them with care.  In the movie, Jamal took a paper that he wrote out of apartment even though Forrester told him not to bring anything out of the apartment.  I do not think Jamal understand the intention of Forrester because he finally took the paper from the apartment to his school.  Jamal did not consider that his paper contains a part of Forrester’s writing and it makes him get into trouble.  The final scene of the movie showed that Jamal miss two free throws in a row in the basketball game.  I think Jamal missed them on purpose because he watched Claire and his professor before he shot. It seemed like he wanted to tell them something with his eyes.  In this sense, he missed two free throws intentionally.  

Blog 10

       There are some survey questions about the film, Finding Forrester and one of the question is related to the plagiarism. Jamal got involve in plagiarism because his poor high school education background. It seems that Jamal keep the secret to protect Forrester that he will nit let other's know about the Forrester. According to the data in survey. Almost 3/4 students believe that it is no matter that plagiarism affect Jamal as a good write. In my opinion, Jamal is a good writer even he didn't know the academic writing code.
      For the question 5, most of students think that Jamal is failed to understand why Forrester told him not to submit anything he wrote with Forrester.  Jamal turn in his writing passage without Forrester's permission. It seems that Forrester don't want to let other's get his information. In my view, Jamal didn't know Forrester's purpose.
    At the question 6, there is also near 3/4 of students chose No for Jamal intentionally miss the two free throw in the championship game. I think he is intentionally miss the free throw not only the film shows the detail that he look at the Crawford but also he is in talent in shot free throws with competition with other boy of the basketball team.