Tag: Issue 7 Volume 19

In search of an honest citation

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By: Jamison Wagner, Staff Reporter

Citing sources for an academic paper can be difficult at times, and students can find themselves needing assistance on appropriate sources for any given topic or course, said Stephanie Avila, Nursing major.
Some resources available in addition to the CNM library database are the free tutoring services provided on campus. Most teachers can help with resources during office hours.
One of the challenges that Avila faces is the English class she is attending this semester that requires sources be from the database administered by CNM, she said.
“Sometimes I cannot find things in there and then I am like, ‘Oh no!’ This can be really frustrating for me,” said Avila.
Students shouldn’t use Wikipedia because the website is not a recommended source and just about anyone has access to edit the website which it is not peer reviewed said Xing Yu, English instructor.
“Wikipedia pages can be good for starting a search, but the writer of the page could be biased. Therefore, his or her selection of the cited material to back up the page may be biased as well,” she said.
In order to find good resources for citations, students should use the many databases available on campus, she said. Google Scholar is also a resource but can show sites that charge for cited source materials. Research Gate is a science-based search engine that students can sign up for to find peer-reviewed articles with, she said.
One of the resources CNM has that students can access is located on the CNM website in Student Resources under Libraries.
The page allows a CNM student to search for books in the CNM database and if the book is available as an eBook, the student can then open and read the book or search for specific words or phrases for citation purposes.
Students can receive assistance with their English papers at the tutoring center on campus, said KC McKillip, English and writing tutor.
“We have the MLA handbook for how to cite sources here at the tutoring center, but it can be confusing at times and one of the tutors can help with that,” she said.
The most common issue students will face is plagiarism. Sometimes it is on purpose; other times it is completely by accident, she said.
“The biggest mistake that students make is either looking at the source while writing the paper or copy/pasting from a source and thinking, ‘I am going to rewrite that,’ and then the student forgets to do so. That is what I see is a bigger problem than citing correctly,” she said.
Students have to be careful to avoid plagiarism—even by accident–as a student can get a zero on a paper that was written for a class if there is any plagiarism, even if it was accidental, she said.
“Even if a student does not attribute correctly, if he or she shows it was obtained from somewhere else, that is better than not showing and trying to pretend it is the student’s own work,” she said.
One of the recommended websites for learning how to cite sources properly is Purdue Owl, McKillip said. Purdue Owl offers articles that cover everything from the writing process to grammar and also how to write graduate school applications.
For more information on CNM tutoring center locations for assistance with writing English papers, visit cnm.edu/depts/tutoring or go to http://www.cnm.edu/depts/libraries/services-and-resources/database.html/ for a list of database sources.

"Welcome Matt" student movie

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“WelcomeMatt”

By Adriana Avila

Senior Reporter                                                                             

The heartache of romance and the pains of job hunting and interviews makes way for dark humor in a student film based on true events. Lane Luper, producer and cinematographer for “WelcomeMatt” and owner of the production company Signal One Three Media, said the short film looks at a whirlwind of dreadful and awkward situations.

“It’s a comedy about the similarities between looking for a job and going to job interviews and dating and how they can be one of the same. It follows a character as he loses his job and loses his girlfriend and he kind of goes into a little bit of a craziness where most of the dark comedy aspect goes from. It’s a really hilarious script and it’s got a casting crew the story is really great and really funny,” Luper said.

The unexpected project grew out of the conversations with the executive producer who wrote down some of his own unfortunate stories along with some he heard, he said.

“Our executive producer Tony Gene Colla came to us totally out of the blue with a script, we were talking about making films, I’m personally writing one right now for a feature, and he came to me with this short and I thought I it was absolutely hilarious. I kind of just told him I want to shoot this and make it into a short,” Luper said.

Jonathan Cottrell, former Liberal Arts major and one of the producers of “WelcomeMatt” and chief lighting designer and co-writer for the film, said the film is scheduled to begin shooting in the last two weeks of August and will continue into September.

It is expected to be finished around March 2014 and pre-production of the film has been underway and near its completed stage, he said.

“We have the story boarded, we’ve got locations locked down. For the production itself we’re ready to go all we need to do is buy insurance for the production and make sure we can pay our skilled actors, we’re ready to roll,” he said.

After much debate and time among the producers and the director, the title of the film was chosen to reflect the main character and the struggles of his daily life, he said.

“After a little while one of them said ‘Matt’ and I said, ‘We can go for Matt, it fits the character and doesn’t immediately evoke some kind of emotion that we don’t want to already,’[ and there’s a line in the film where the main character says that he wants to scrub this welcome sign off of his forehead and we were like ‘WelcomeMatt.’ ‘WelcomeMatt’ is not only a pun but also what we feel to be the strongest image in the film,” he said.

Once completed, Cottrell and company hope to submit ‘WelcomeMatt’ to either the Sundance or Cannes Film Festival and to run a film circuit throughout the film community, he said.

The film is mostly financed out-of-pocket and the producers have set up a Kickstarter account in hopes of raising enough money to move forward with production, Cottrell said.

“We have managed to put together a lot of the cast and crew and the equipment that we need for film so mostly the producers have shelled out money out of their own pockets to try to go ahead and get the film off the ground. Once we hit the wall of we really don’t have any more money that we can actually pour into ourselves so that’s when we went ahead and started a Kickstarter,” he said.

Kickstarter is an online funding avenue where individuals can fund creative projects using pledges from the users.

“We’re pushing about a thousand dollars. Our goal on Kickstarter was $3500. The primary thing was that we wanted to be conservative; we only wanted to ask for as much money that we actually needed because there are a lot of deals that we worked out with our crew and actors’ to pay to do this project, a really cool project. A lot of people are doing this just for the love of it and that’s why I’m doing it and anyone of us because we signed up for it,” he said.

The film’s Kickstarter account expires in about a month and the proceeds will pay for some of the major expenses like production insurance and actor and key crew pay, he said.

“We’re all having a really good time doing this thing. A lot of us are working really hard and taking on multiple roles. We’re really doing this out of love and that’s a big thing, we have a lot of support out there and everybody’s turning their heads to see how we’re going to go ahead and do this thing,” Cottrell said.

For more information about the film visit the “WelcomeMatt” Kickstarter page, contact Cottrell at jon@signalonethreemedia.com and Luper at lane@signalonethreemedia.com, or visit the Signal One Three Media Facebook page.

Skills USA 49 annual National Leadership and Skills Conference

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June 22 to 28 in Kansas City Mo. students from CNM competed for national level awards in their fields of study. “Skills USA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce, Skills USA helps all students excel in their training programs and future technical, skilled and service careers, including health occupations. Nationally, Skills USA serves more than 300,000 high school and college/postsecondary students and their chapter advisors who are professional members,” according to SkillsUSA Champions at Work.