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Research Paper Blues
Dec. 17th, 2007 08:10 amNote: Although I haven't been chronicling my teaching very closely this semester, rest assured the issues in this post are being brought up toward the end of the semester, mere days before the research papers are due, and you may feel free to assume that all relevant skills of research, writing, and documentation have been covered in class.
After I spent several classes going over citation (both parenthetical and on the bibliography), I had a student come in this morning and start asking about footnotes.
"Can I do it like this, Ms. B?"
"Er, no. You have to do the parenthetical citation that I showed you last week. It's in your MLA handbook if you forget what we went over in class."
"Oh, well I don't know nothing about that."
Then he asks about his thesis statement. It's a character study thesis, which is more of a thesis than I expected. I tell him it's not bad and he should definitely work with it since the paper is due tomorrow.
Then I tell him that the little picture he's included of Edgar Allan Poe at the bottom of his first page, after the Introduction, isn't going to count towards his page requirement and he launches into whining about how he's supposed to get five pages out of his topic.
"If you had done the research and gotten the seven required sources, good sources, you shouldn't have much of a problem coming up with five pages."
"Seven sources? M doesn't even have seven sources! No one does! I was on the phone with him yesterday, everyone's having the same problem."
"I know everyone's having the same problem! Sadly, I know! Because no one has gotten their sources like I've told them to except one or two people."
"Well, I couldn't find seven sources on [Edgar Allan Poe] for real."
"I promise you there are seven sources on Poe. Did you go to Huntingdon or AUM, the libraries I told you to go to?"
"What? Huntingdon?!"
"Yes, AUM and Huntingdon. I told you guys to go there because they're college libraries and well-suited to this kind of research."
"What? I didn't hear that."
"I repeated it over and over. That's where you needed to go. I suppose you better get by one after school and see if you can find some more sources you can quickly incorporate into your paper. And remember to guard against plagiarism!"
"I ain't pastin' and copyin' nothing!"
This is what I am constantly dealing with. This kid didn't have half the information because he missed at least half the classes. Some of the others will pull the same shit, except they're going to have to plead deafness.
Argh.
After I spent several classes going over citation (both parenthetical and on the bibliography), I had a student come in this morning and start asking about footnotes.
"Can I do it like this, Ms. B?"
"Er, no. You have to do the parenthetical citation that I showed you last week. It's in your MLA handbook if you forget what we went over in class."
"Oh, well I don't know nothing about that."
Then he asks about his thesis statement. It's a character study thesis, which is more of a thesis than I expected. I tell him it's not bad and he should definitely work with it since the paper is due tomorrow.
Then I tell him that the little picture he's included of Edgar Allan Poe at the bottom of his first page, after the Introduction, isn't going to count towards his page requirement and he launches into whining about how he's supposed to get five pages out of his topic.
"If you had done the research and gotten the seven required sources, good sources, you shouldn't have much of a problem coming up with five pages."
"Seven sources? M doesn't even have seven sources! No one does! I was on the phone with him yesterday, everyone's having the same problem."
"I know everyone's having the same problem! Sadly, I know! Because no one has gotten their sources like I've told them to except one or two people."
"Well, I couldn't find seven sources on [Edgar Allan Poe] for real."
"I promise you there are seven sources on Poe. Did you go to Huntingdon or AUM, the libraries I told you to go to?"
"What? Huntingdon?!"
"Yes, AUM and Huntingdon. I told you guys to go there because they're college libraries and well-suited to this kind of research."
"What? I didn't hear that."
"I repeated it over and over. That's where you needed to go. I suppose you better get by one after school and see if you can find some more sources you can quickly incorporate into your paper. And remember to guard against plagiarism!"
"I ain't pastin' and copyin' nothing!"
This is what I am constantly dealing with. This kid didn't have half the information because he missed at least half the classes. Some of the others will pull the same shit, except they're going to have to plead deafness.
Argh.