You are trying. I just know you are. I believe that you are; or, as Fox Mulder would say, "I want to believe." I know that you think the content of your papers should mean so much more than the spelling, grammar, form and other technical details of essay writing, but it doesn't. The second actually makes the former stronger and more credible. So here are a few tips on writing research papers. Some may strike you as familiar from class, either this one or your English composition class.
- History took place in the past tense. Hence, history papers should be written in past tense. The police did not "arrest demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention," they "arrested" them.
- An apostrophe s (-'s) indicates a possessive noun, an s alone (-s) indicates a plural noun, an s apostrophe (-s') indicates a plural possessive noun.
- Paragraphs! Remember them? You separate your ideas into discrete sections by pressing "enter" and "tab."
- The website advertising a book is not the same as the book and does not count as a source, much less a separate source from the book.
- A website or book with "Encyclopedia" in the title is, actually, an encyclopedia and a forbidden source as stipulated in the instructions.
- "No late papers" means "no late papers." It does not mean, "oh crap! A paper is due? Today? Can I turn it in late? What's it supposed to be on?"
- An extension on a paper, due to illness or death in the family, still includes a deadline. The semester does have a end date. The paper is due sometime before then, usually on a mu tally agreed upon date. If you miss that extended deadline, you lose.
- Buying a paper online is not the same as researching and writing a paper. Not even if you allegedly wrote that paper for another class and sold it to that website. (Yes, a student actually gave this excuse this week.)
- From here on out, you may not in any way use Google as a research tool. The first ten hits do not constitute "research" nor a "bibliography."
- If you are writing a paper on a particular person, and if a charitable organization is named after that person, the website for that organization does not constitute a research source.
- "X was the greatest person ever!" is not a valid thesis statement.
I apologize. I should have kept closer watch on you throughout the semester. I shouldn't have assumed that you learned these things in your English composition class; or, rather, I shouldn't have assumed that you would retain that information once English comp had ended. I keep forgetting that not everyone can intuit these things; so make your next teacher happier and remember this list.
Thank you,Dr. Bluestocking
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7 comments:
they don't teach grammar in school anymore. i discovered that when boy was in elementary school. he still has trouble with sentence structure, capitalization (I can do it when I need to, honest.), subject/verb agreement, identifying parts of a sentence. it appears that the school systems here and in the usa think that children will catch on somehow to appropriate language usage from seeing it.
i did phonics and grammar from grade one to grade eight. it was further reinforced in high school with various writing exercises in nearly all subjects except math, and even then we had to speak correctly.
it truly is sad, but that's the way it is. your complaint isn't something new. i've heard it from every professor at school in the four years of my undergrad.
i suck at identifying parts of a sentence. i honestly can't remember studying grammar, but i can pump out a decent sentence and i usually get good grades.
i don't think i broke any of your rules this semester. :)
except, switching back and forth between history papers and english papers kind of sucks. english papers are always in the present, history in the past. i always get the history okay, but english always kills me. and try writing a paper talking about history and a novel. that racks my brain.
two words: writing center.
Part of the problem is that students often think that information from one class does not apply in another. So actually reminding students to generalize from their comp class can help.
For some reason, the lack of past tense really irritates me.
As an addition, I would add that writing a paper on a Latin-American figure who never once set foot in the U.S. or had any direct contact with the U.S. does not qualify as a paper for a class on "Latino/as in the U.S."
I was going to say what Madwoman said, that we English profs insist that it is conventional to discuss literature in the present tense (because any time you open the book, the action is still going on). Possibly the trouble my students have with this convention is that they *did* learn something from you. I will start telling them that the opposite convention obtains in history; maybe that will help us both.
"Discrete" is not the same as "discreet."
it is very nice tips you given but it is more difficult to do me to writing a research paper my own i always make a mistake on outline and other major factors when I was doing work on my research paper, I passed through this website and yes I tried it and am happy to say that my luck was good that I stumbled over this website
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