Citing vs. Paraphrasing
Sometimes I wonder whether I have really learned anything from studying History for two years. Obviously, I don't remember any of the plethora of tiny little factoids about Stalin, Mussolini, or Hitler. I certainly don't remember anything about the Korean war, the Crimean war, the Vietnam war, or even the Gulf war for that matter. Personally, it raises no concern. But it makes me wonder because I'm always used to taking something concrete out of the courses I take. I was able to take something concrete from two years of IB Physics. I was able to take something concrete from two years of IB Chemistry.
I have written elsewhere that the study of History and Astronomy serves, if nothing else, to expand our intellect in the z-dimension. I say this because even if we remember nothing from these courses, they make us enormously humble when it comes to considering how little an impact we have on the things that surround us.
So even if history itself did not teach me anything memorable, it taught me what I really needed for the rest of my life: exceptionally good reading and exceptionally good writing skills. In academic writing especially, I find most of my colleagues struggle when it comes to citing and paraphrasing. We don't really know or understand the difference between the two. Or maybe we just don't care. But we should. Because good writing means defensive writing. And defensive writing means you somehow show that other smart people in your field are also thinking the same way you are.
Here has been my observation so far on matters pertaining to citing and paraphrasing:
- The absolute amateur uses citations all over the place because his high school History teacher taught him that citations make a paper more "credible". Indeed they do, but taking quotations straight off a book and giving them their own paragraphs serves little in the way of adding "credibility" to your essay. The absolute amateur further understands that citations are far easier than paraphrases, because he can simply copy and paste other people's sentences so long as he ensures a pair of double quotation marks surround them. Or perhaps paraphrasing is just too hard because he doesn't comprehend the citation itself in the first place. The 'citations can't possible do any bad to me, so why not' kind of mentality.
- The novice is far better. He understands that generally speaking, paraphrasing is better than citations. He realizes that paraphrasing illustrates his own understanding of the idea being paraphrased. He's also sure that a paraphrased idea can never be attributed as a plagiarized idea. His more experienced high-school teachers have said numerous times that "one or more cited sentences themselves don't show any of your own insights." Even better, if he paraphrased well, he may not always need to cite the original author. This gives our novice an opportunity to pass the idea off as his own, and while he's at it, he can also leave out those words that don't really support his own argument.
- The expert writer is the best of all. He understands that poor citations are worse than no citations at all. He also understands that even the best paraphrase does not lend his paper as much "credibility" as does a well-integrated citation. He knows that a citation well-integrated in his paragraph, or even better, his sentence, demonstrates his personal insight quite dramatically, and puts his argument in the expert category. He leaves the interpretation of the citation to his readers because he knows his readers are smart and don't need to be spoon-fed. The citing draws attention because people are not always interested in what you have to say but rather what other smart people have already said about what you are trying to say. Go figure.
Citations, when you're anywhere near the expert range of the writing spectrum, are far better than paraphrases. They preserve the pristine nature of the quotation, and allow very little room to morph the meaning or the original intention of the author being cited. How many times have we seen paraphrases that selectively choose only those words that are in support of our argument, and too cleverly leave out the rest because you're sure your reader is not actually going to take the pain of looking up the citation. And who is to say that our interpretation of a quotation is correct? Paraphrasing inherently comes packaged with bias, and bias—according to our high-school History teacher—is certainly bad, right?
Mysterious Amplifications
He loved his parents beyond limits. He was their only son. He would do anything for them. Why, he'd even die for them. To him, his parents were everything. So much was his belief, so much was his trust, his confidence that it was because of them that he had gotten so far in life. The simple thought of a day without his parents was unbearable. He just couldn't fathom such a horrific life.
When his dad died, he could shed not one single drop of tear. He was aghast with disappointment. So many years, so much emotion. All those years of forming bonds out of pure love and trust — all gone in one split second. Yet, there was nothing he could do. He felt so despondent, so powerless. His dad, his loving dad, was gone for ever.
A month later, his mother too passed way. She simply couldn't bear the loss of her dear husband. But he, oh he, as much as he tried, couldn't cry one bit. The disappointment was over powering. The sadness was so powerful, he felt his heart would explode into shards if he didn't cry. He knew he could relieve himself of the grief if only he could shed some tears. Yet, there was nothing he could do.
One year after, his cat, his dear cat, developed a rare case of pulmonary pneumonia. One night, she put her paw on his knee, coughed twice, wheezed once, and then went away to find her quiet corner. Two minutes later, the cat was gone. It was a quiet yet swift death. The grief was overwhelming.
There was little to say.
Only cry.
Thirty Hours a Day
My dad and I always run into this argument. I say that I work most efficiently if my day was divided into thirty-hour segments as opposed to the usual twenty-four. He says I'm just making that up to sound cool.
Stipulating that my hypothesis is right, this means that I sleep an extra two hours each night but work for an additional four hours each day. Note that I am not working any longer or sleeping any shorter than the common man — my ratio of work to sleep is exactly the same as most healthy individuals: 2 is to 1. Yet I find that this longer period before when things repeat themselves increases my work efficiency quite drastically.
First, let's talk about why I need such high levels of efficiency. I'm not even twenty years old. I'm not the President of India. I'm not some religious missionary who has daily appointments across eight corners of the world. You're probably already crying out loudly: "Come on Rajesh, give me a break!"
I may not be the President, but I am someone who is, at least in theory, much more busier than him: I am a university student.
Allow me to explain.
When I first noticed this rather astounding phenomenon that I was able to be more productive than usual by simply extending my work day by a mere six hours, it had me as confounded as a sumo wrestler who'd woken up to find his underwear had shrunk. I thought I was being ludicrous. I thought I was suffering from psychological problems, or more religiously, "psychosomatic disorders". I first explained the problem to my room-mate Neil. He too thought I was trying to crack a bad joke. But then, as I explained and unveiled pieces of irrefutable evidence, he began to see the point.
What point, you ask?
Let me tell you, university life is a party. Last term, I took a full six-course workload when most others were only taking four. Three of these were solid courses: advanced calculus 1, quantum chemistry, and operations research. Twenty-seven hours each week just in lectures, tutorial and labs. I had to manage my own food. I didn't cook because I believed in Neil's philosophy: You only have x hours per day. You can either spend them cooking, or studying. I had to come back home and complete lengthy assignments. I had to peruse giant textbooks for further clarification. I had to respond to the countless number of emails I was receiving each week. As part of the photography club at school, I was attending their weekly meetings. Also the AI club. I was the WEEF rep for our class. As well, the PDEng rep. I played ping pong twice a week. Watched movies biweekly. I had to do my own laundry. Manage my banking and loan affairs. Help friends out with their assignments and answer their telephone calls. Vacuum my residence. Maintain my photography website. Write blog entries. Call home each week. Keep up-to-date with my blogroll. Attend grad seminars twice a week. Finish up pre-labs and lab reports. Sit on lounge meetings with rez-mates. Complete long-term projects. Write cover letters. Apply for jobs. Attend interviews. Chat with people to build social connections. Midterms, exams, oh my. This and that and more!
I had to keep up to the Waterloo standard. There were too many smart people over there. Twenty four hours just wasn't enough.
One particular week looked like this:
(the astute reader will have noticed that the times in the calendar above are in pacific standard, while the actual times are eastern — biochem labs at 5:30 AM ?!? you gotta be kiddin' right?)
I followed Steve Pavlina's Do It Now principle to great amazement. I was basically redefining the whole concept of time management. It was not as much time management as it was time government!
Efficiency is a measure of the amount of work done per unit time. The common unit of time is the hour. So the more you get done per hour, the more efficient you are. What surprised me most was not that my efficiency increased the longer I was awake, but that after a fixed amount of time it just dropped to zero. For me, that fixed amount of time was a magic number: twenty. It was like pedaling down a slope on a bicycle. The longer you're on the slope, the faster your speed increases. So at around 11 PM, when you efficiency peaks and you're at the pinnacle of your parabolic efficiency curve, it seems unfruitful to just wind-down and go to bed. The more I worked during the high efficiency period, the more work I got done for that particular "day".
Efficiency basically boils down to the following three things:
- Doing things as speedily as I can
- Doing things without making mistakes
- Doing things without repeating yourself. That is, no redundancy whatsoever.
Because we always focus on efficiency, simply stating how much you get done or how much time you worked is of marginal importance. It is how much you get done per unit hour that really matters.
I always like to finish off my anecdotes by drawing an analogy to my favorite pass-time: walking. It doesn't matter how long you walk or how much time you spend walking. It's how many kilometers you walk per hour that eventually counts if you're trying to lose a few pounds.
Perhaps now I can convince my dad to see my point.
