A graduate student in gender studies
Source text:
The characteristics of the capitalist market described by Wood lie at the heart of the exploitation that emerges in a capitalist system. All market agents – whether workers, small-scale farmers, or giant TNCs – must compete in a sink-or-swim environment where they must continually exploit others…or themselves…While the ethical aspirations of fair trade have been able to mitigate somewhat the worst effects of these imperatives, the fair-trade network has not been able to escape the power of the global capitalist market which has imposed strict limits on its development project. (2007, p.96).
Source:
Fridell, G. (2007) “Fair-Trade Coffee and Commodity Fetishism: The Limits of Market-Driven Social Justice,” Historical Materialism 15(4) : 79-104.
Writer’s text:
These scholars hold that by giving consumers information regarding the production and processes by which their goods are created, fair traders de-commodify the good and enable a connection to be made with the ‘worker’ at the other end of the value chain. However, others like Fridell argue that these assertions inaccurately aggrandize fair trade, and that it remains subject to the structural imperatives of the historically situated system of capitalism in place. (p.5)
Writer’s comment:
I simply just rephrased it. He says “while the ethical aspiration of fair trade…strict limits”. So what I said, I’ve interpreted this as saying that fair trade is inaccurately aggrandized. He doesn’t say it directly but I say that this means that it is inaccurately aggrandized.
In the original text, the author points out that fair trade practices have, to some degree, been able to alleviate the stifling effects of the capitalist system. However, despite these efforts, the trade’s development and growth remain limited due to the powerful impact of the capitalist market’s exploitation practices. In the citation, the writer uses the phrase: “inaccurately aggrandized” to interpret what the author meant in the original text. In my opinion, this two-word interpretation implies that fair trade efforts barely make a difference and that there is an exaggerated perception of it doing so. This usage does not reflect the fact that fair trade efforts have been effective in lessening the capitalist market’s impact as portrayed by the author. Finally, I would paraphrase the author’s words into the following: Despite ethical fair trade attempts, the results remain disproportionate to the impact of capitalist system exploitation. (A graduate in Education)
I think the student misread the original idea conveyed in the source text and therefore distorted it in his or her citation, thus he or she does not cite in an appropriate manner.
According to Fridell, who is the one being cited, “ethical aspirations of fair trade”(Fridell, 96) did mitigate some negative effects of market agents’ imperatives to exploit others or themselves, even though its development project has been strictly limited by the powerful global capitalist market. However, in the student’s citation, the first part of the message which confirms the positive contribution of fair trade has been omitted without a good reason. Moreover, he or she imposes a logic connection between some optimistic assertions of fair trade and the latter’s being “aggrandized” and attach this personal ideology to the researcher who never mentions a thing like this in the original text. Lastly, The student also use an ambiguous and inaccurate expression:“others like Fridell” to represent a group of researchers in consent with Fridell while the fact is that he or she only refers to Fridell alone. In this light, the student’s citation is to some extent inappropriate.
Therefore I think I won’t cite in a similar pattern because a very necessary and crucial thing to do before citing another person’s thinking is to understand what has been said by the one. Thus, I will try to paraphrase someone’s opinion very cautiously and not to distort or add to one’s original idea based solely on my personal d interpretation. (A graduate in Education)