Personal Citation Usage

When I first started writing papers of a serious nature in high school my citation practices were very cut and paste. I had the belief that I was able to take exactly what the author of my research said and paste it right into my document without citation or quotes. This practice continued with me through high school. Many of my research papers were made up of a lot of smashing and grabbing of info and placing it into my own work and claiming it as my own. This past year, during my senior year my writing style was forced to change. I had to take information from research and write on the documents them self before I was able to begin writing my own paper. During my freshman year of college I have begun to read the research that I am doing and formulate my own opinion or belief based off of that research. In my future I hope to be able to not paraphrase at all and to take only my own opinion from my research.