Saturday, December 06
Research papers
I hate grading papers. I tend toward picky, which makes me feel bad when I look down and see a paper covered in editorial markings. I'm being more lenient with the actual grading part, but I remember how all those marks just about gave me a heart attack when I saw them as a student.
My question: who on earth taught (or, more precisely, didn't teach) these students about citations? Seriously, I'm a music teacher. Should I not have assumed that the writing skills would have been taught in somebody else's class? Should I have devoted a class period to the finer art of just what a footnote is, or how to write a bibliography? I'm thinking no, but maybe that's too optimistic.
Posted on December 06, 11:56 AM
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All of my papers have to be in APA and believe me, no one showed me how to do it. For me, that's the hardest part of the paper; making sure I have everything cited perfectly.
From a current student's perspective...yes, they should know it and if they don't, they should know where to look to find it. Every professor is different, some want MLA, others want APA, and still others want Chicago. My english 101 class only taught MLA. Regardless, I don't think it is the professor's job to teach any student the citation style he or she prefers. To me, its all part of the learning experience. I think I would be shocked if a professor actually took a class period to go over the preferred style. Most of the time, the style is listed in the syllabus with a URL to a website that will offer help. If a student can't learn the basics of any style by looking online, he or she will probably fail the class anyway, in my opinion.
Pfft. I teach technical writing as a post-grad program, and I have people who can't create a decent table of contents, much less proper citations.
You should NOT have to teach them this stuff - they have access to the library and the Internet, the students can either look it up and do the work correctly, or get marked down because they couldn't be bothered.
I feel your frustration, Carrie, but don't budge on your expectations and don't feel like you should have taught them that.
(I'm not cruel to my students, honest, but I expect them to do some work :) )
The professor who taught my intro to art history methodology MA course took nothing for granted in that realm, I have to say--he gave us all a handout with basic citation format and referred us to the Chicago Manual of Style for more complex issues.
I was a bit surprised myself.
ENGL 100 or 103.
Drove me nuts because we spent approximately a MONTH on research/term papers and how to construct them (which I learned in high school).
that makes me laugh!
(retired English teacher)
Aren't all college students required to take a freshman english course which teaches citation? They should know how to do it (and do it well) by now.
