citations: before and after

Throughout high school, I had one AMAZING english teacher that taught citations like it was her job (which it was). Also, we had to turn any written homework into turnitin.com so nothing could be directly copied from another student or web source. Since I learned the rules of plagarism I think I have been pretty good at my citing. I definitely used to paraphrase and "patchwrite" a lot more where I though just changing a few words around would be sufficient. Now, I like to read whatever source I am using and then close the book/website, think about what I read, and rewrite the thoughts in my own words, while still giving credit to the original author. It is very easy to just take a quote from a text and paste it right in the middle of your paper, but the more I write, the more I realize that in order to have a well written paper that flows intelligently and actually makes an argument, it is necessary to fully understand the sources you are using and the passages that you may draw from in order to understand what you are even saying in your own paper. I would like to continue this upward trajectory and improve my writing, producing professional level compositions that I understand and actually learn something from. I would like to continue to move away from patchwriting because it is so easy to "accidentally" do that without really understanding what that source may be claiming and work towards enhancing my own knowledge enough that I can draw from sources intelligently and make my own arguments and conclusions on the subject.