Blog #8 - Yupeng Yang

This picture is about experiment of food analysis. I use it to illustrate what I did in my previous university, majoring in food safety. I downloaded it from the PCAS (Pacific Coast Analytical Services) website (http://www.pacificcoastanalytical.com/Chemistry.htm). It is published resource, and it is used for education in a digital story video as an in-class presentation, which should be legal to use with a proper reference. It gives the viewers a visual explanation to help them understand my previous study. The utilization of image is similar to that of citation in my writing, because it needs to consider nature of material, purpose of usage, amount and breadth of usage. On the other hand, it is different since the citation in writing requires in-text citing and quotes or paraphrases, while it does not exist in the video obviously.

The digital storytelling assignment helps me better comprehend intellectual property and plagiarism. Now, I can use the resource from Internet to make a video without getting trouble in plagiarism. I put the pictures together, in the order of my story script, making them meaningful and organized. Other than the copyright, I have to take the culture into consideration when composing, because people who read my article or watch my video may be confused when it refers to a culture different from theirs. Thus, I did not mention too much subjects evolved in Chinese culture. When I have to, I explain it in a general way. For example, I stated that it is legal in China to download resource from Internet for free, so that it would not confuse the viewers why I claimed the situation is different in different countries.

Plagiarism may be found in academic writing and digital storytelling. Both of the two genres need some materials either to support the arguments or to enrich the story. Appropriate citation is probably the best way to create an excellent academic writing, digital storytelling, or even some other literary form.