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In my graduate program, we had 300-500 word assignments, but they were supposed to be in memo format and describe some kind of policy problem (like a school board needing to buy buses or something). The rationale was that "everyone you work for is going to need to propose an idea in a media-friendly sound bite, so you have to spell out your main ideas concisely". But that was for a professional public administration program. It boggles my mind that an academic course would have anything that short. Since it's a new page: my significant other just found out he got accepted to a transfer-student program. Problem? People were notified in stages, and he was in the last stage, so he got his acceptance notification two weeks after everyone else. Everybody who was notified earlier already was allowed to apply for housing, course schedules, and advisor meetings, so he's basically SOL and picking over the leftovers, pretty much because he was unlucky. Apparently whether or not you got notified first was completely random. Admissions said that this was because "too many people checking for their admissions decision would overload our server, so we decided to let some people know at different times". Why they couldn't make everyone wait til a date after all the decisions came out to select classes, I have no idea, but that's why I'm not a school administrator I guess. Insult Comic Barbie has a new favorite as of 14:47 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 14:42
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One of my professors assigned a 3-page "research paper" this semester and gave us a pile of things to include in it. Any essay that followed his expectations would have just looked like a list of facts. I ended up writing it I an hour before it was due and got an A. That class was a joke. I also had a six page paper worth 20% of my grade that I ended up typing on Google Docs on my phone 3 hours before the final. Somehow managed to get an A-.  I'm convinced that I'm either an amazing academic writer, or my classmates are all stone stupid and handing in utter crap. I've handed in what I thought were shameful papers and still received good grades.
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May 18, 2014 17:00
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It's the latter. Definitely the latter. I've read some other students' work, particularily in group research papers. It baffles me how they can write so bad. I always take on editing and formatting in a group because everyone else's work is so terrible.
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May 18, 2014 17:14
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Picnic Princess posted:It's the latter. Definitely the latter. I've read some other students' work, particularily in group research papers. It baffles me how they can write so bad. I always take on editing and formatting in a group because everyone else's work is so terrible. I think I literally received straight A almost perfect scores in Eng 101 because my writing was legible and my ideas were well organized. It's incredible how near illiterate my peers seem reading their writing. That, or they literally only spent 10-20 minutes typing that poo poo up. EDIT: Just checked my grades. All straight As except for a B in Physical Geography. Hooray Freshman year for padding my GPA! 
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May 18, 2014 17:24
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I was in a grant-writing class this semester, which ossentisbly taught the 'art' of writing good grants. At the end of the semester, we turned in our first drafts, got into groups, and reviewed the grants that had been turned in. My god, I thought I was a barely legible writer  . It was clear that several had been done either hours before it was due, under the influence of marijuana or both. They were incredible lovely, incomplete, filled with spelling errors. I mean, goddamn. At a loving 4 year university, I can't actually fathom how people had gotten this far without knowing how to write.
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May 18, 2014 18:24
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A White Guy posted:I was in a grant-writing class this semester, which ossentisbly taught the 'art' of writing good grants. At the end of the semester, we turned in our first drafts, got into groups, and reviewed the grants that had been turned in. It's like this for literally everything. I work as one of my campus' peer mentors and have been offering workshop time on scholarship/grant applications during my slow hours. Outside of a few people most essays have poo poo like: "Diversity to me is like how I'm good at football but my friends are nerds. But we get along anyway so I know how to reach out to people that aren't like me." An essay for the school foundation's Excellence in Diversity scholarship. "My uncle is gay so I know what gay people are going through." Macklemore apparently needs the PRIDE scholarship. "I just feel like I'm being stereotyped as the middle class white girl whenever I drink Starbucks." An applicant for a program geared at retaining lower-income students.
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May 18, 2014 18:43
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Grape Juice Vampire posted:I'm convinced that I'm either an amazing academic writer, or my classmates are all stone stupid and handing in utter crap. I've handed in what I thought were shameful papers and still received good grades. I know that feeling. In my undergrad days I took a "Nonverbal Communication" course, and turned in a very short paper (even relative to the very brief suggested length) which I felt was weakly cobbled together from quotes in loosely relevant articles linked with vacuous cliches (like "students do better if they feel more comfortable in class"). The prof called it "graduate level writing." The actual course was worth a lot of complaints: the lectures were low on actual content and laden with asinine references to semi-recent pop culture and politics (the prof actually raised the question of whether Hillary Clinton's pantsuits mean she's a lesbian, and talked about Obama's "terrorist fist jab"). But the exams were based on terminology from the textbook that was hardly ever referred to-- we got to negotiate our grades, though. And one day the professor had us put on little skits where we enacted bad manners (e.g. farting in elevators, snatching food from other people's plates).
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May 18, 2014 18:46
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That would be funny if people hadn't spent what I'm going to assume was many hundreds of dollars in tuition to attend that class. I'm gonna put on some rose-tinted glasses and assume that all the recent posts about terrible writing at high levels of academia to mean that we're all secretly geniuses.
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May 18, 2014 20:57
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Final grades were due a week ago. Two of my professors have not posted literally any grades yet. And one of them apparently hasn't yet graded two of my four papers. The good news is, as it stands I'm passing everything!
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May 18, 2014 22:16
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I had a ten page paper on a contemporary poet for my Advanced Poetic Theory class. There were two book reviews on my author (selected from the texts we read in class). The professor wanted ten sources. I think I ended up with eight after citing the pop culture jokes I threw in because they made me smile. I did get to write seven pages of close reading of a poem about Capybara, which was pretty cool.
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May 19, 2014 05:21
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I think it's in large due to what kind of high school education they got. I was surprised at how many freshman didn't know how to make a citation or a works cited/bibliography page. Even more so I remember in a science class for a group project we needed to graph some data so I slapped together a pretty simple line graph with a ruler and pen and my group looked at me like I was a loving wizard or something. This was poo poo that was drilled into me and my classmates in high school, and some of it as early as 6th or 7th grade. I can only assume their schools weren't teaching them useful or practical poo poo and instead just made sure they were meeting state/federal benchmarks.
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May 19, 2014 05:32
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In a lot of K-12 schools, there's this weird phenomenon of "you should've learned this in Xth grade", where if a student shows up in, say, 11th grade and doesn't know what a works cited page is or how to read a line graph, the response is more often than not "you should've already learned this" and moving on, instead of taking the time to actually fill in that knowledge gap. There's just too much to do in a short school year to spend too much time on review, and it's getting worse as we lose more of the school year to standardized tests and the like. This is one of my biggest frustrations as someone who teaches college freshmen: that they somehow made it through K-12 without some major foundational skills because nobody took responsibility for those gaps.
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May 19, 2014 13:08
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You guys actually make your works cited pages by hand? I just use Word to track all my sources, and then insert a generated works cited page. It's great, Word will ask you for all the information you have about a source, and format it in whatever style your professor demands.
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May 19, 2014 15:14
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Euphoriaphone posted:You guys actually make your works cited pages by hand? I just use Word to track all my sources, and then insert a generated works cited page. It's great, Word will ask you for all the information you have about a source, and format it in whatever style your professor demands. After my 10th academic paper it just became reflexive to format sources in MLA. Hosted a seminar in a poetry elective. At this point I've begun to believe Death of the Author simply because it allows me to tell my fellow students to shut the gently caress up. One boring, middle-aged housewife type thought every poem was about heroin because my group presented a lot of stuff from blues and jazz artists. She justified it by saying, "Well those guys were all into it." Another student used every poem to shoehorn in Reddit level analysis about how Christianity is a giant lie. gently caress Literature credits.
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May 19, 2014 15:36
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Euphoriaphone posted:You guys actually make your works cited pages by hand? I just use Word to track all my sources, and then insert a generated works cited page. It's great, Word will ask you for all the information you have about a source, and format it in whatever style your professor demands. How do you do this?! Or where can I learn? I need this like yesterday.
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May 19, 2014 16:57
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Euphoriaphone posted:You guys actually make your works cited pages by hand? I just use Word to track all my sources, and then insert a generated works cited page. It's great, Word will ask you for all the information you have about a source, and format it in whatever style your professor demands. 
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May 19, 2014 17:38
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:I turn off auto-everything in Word because I don't trust the computer machine not to gently caress me over somehow in a way that I fail to notice until it's too late. On my machines, it's essentially a fancy-pants electronic typewriter My dissertation had 76 separate references, and was 14,000 words. I'd go insane if I didn't have the auto reference tool, or figure naming tool for that matter. It's even more important in group projects.
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May 19, 2014 17:53
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How did I not know about this already? Well, thanks thread. Finals have been done for about a week now, and now the dread is starting to set in. Oh god what if I failed everything forever 
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May 19, 2014 19:15
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Astrofig posted:How do you do this?! Or where can I learn? I need this like yesterday. In Word 2010 you click the References Tab, then click Manage Sources in the Citations and Bibliography section. Click New Source and fill in whatever info you have. Use the insert Bibliography option in the same area when you are done. Boom.
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May 19, 2014 20:17
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There is also an option to automatically generate page numbers. I've introduced that to a few people and blown their mind. If you use the styles for chapter/section headings you can automatically generate a table of contents, as well.
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May 19, 2014 20:22
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paragon1 posted:In Word 2010 you click the References Tab, then click Manage Sources in the Citations and Bibliography section. Click New Source and fill in whatever info you have. Use the insert Bibliography option in the same area when you are done. Boom.
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May 19, 2014 21:38
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Maybe I'm making work for myself, but I always reference everything as I do it (I'm alarmed by the amount of fellow students who go back and add references once they're finished!) and create a bibliography in another document as I go to paste it in at the end.
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May 19, 2014 22:08
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Vegetable posted:How do you create separate source lists for different documents? I'm working on two papers at the same time and the master list of sources is just incredibly long. Each file has it's own sources. They aren't saved into Word permanently.
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May 20, 2014 00:48
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For referencing and bibliographies I've always used Mendeley. It keeps track of all your reference material and has plugins to pull sources from a browser, along with plugins for most major word processors. Plus it has referencing guides for pretty much any journal style you'll ever need. Never tried the built in ones in Word but my friends have and have said that's very good too. I can't imagine doing it manually anymore, especially when you're dealing with dozens of different sources. Kind of a complaint, but this year my university has moved around the times that different course years do their exams in. Before, first years would do their exams at the start of the exam period and final years at the end, with random exams here and there depending on the subject and how many people were taking them. Now final year students do their exams first, giving us less time to revise overall for arguably our most important exams. Though on the other hand it does give us a longer summer which rules for those of us that haven't found jobs yet.  Mentioning jobs, my unis careers service have really done themselves proud this year. They brought in a scheme that will help people, like myself, who have no real experience in the workforce to write CVs and improve skills when it comes to looking for and gaining a job. However to get on the scheme you have to commit to a full days workshop, which normally wouldn't be so bad. But this year in their infinite wisdom they've put this workshop right in the start of exam period, on the very day my first exam is. Very helpful. They've had so many complaints about this but apparently have been unable to change dates around to put it at a more useful time.
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May 21, 2014 12:02
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Zotero is like Mendeley but open source and not owned by Elsevier. It also integrates perfectly with Word and Libre Office.
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May 21, 2014 15:34
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Euphoriaphone posted:Each file has it's own sources. They aren't saved into Word permanently.
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May 22, 2014 08:03
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"Basing arguments or referencing lecture slides should not be done and will be penalised". "Your assignment has be penalised for not basing your arguments on the lecture slides". Ace.
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May 27, 2014 10:47
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Got an online teacher who requires us to submit our assignments on the day they're due. Obviously I can understand not posting late, but why not early? It seems to miss the point of an online class. He also happens to look like the dollfucker Davecat. I know this because he included a short biography in our syllabus.
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May 27, 2014 15:49
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Dugong posted:"Basing arguments or referencing lecture slides should not be done and will be penalised". What the gently caress, can you not contest that?
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Jun 5, 2014 01:30
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I have to watch a Roman Polanski movie for a literature class. (???) Great, I love things that sprang from the mind of convicted pedophile rapists. Oh wait, sorry, not convicted, because he fled the country the day before his sentencing and doesn't go places that might extradite him to the US.
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Jun 5, 2014 01:33
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Lizard Wizard posted:What the gently caress, can you not contest that? It's probably not worth it. The 2 main lecturers are terrible and missed lectures but at the same time I still have a decent mark overall and they can just say my argument is weak as justification I guess?
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Jun 5, 2014 01:56
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My calculus teacher was really bad and I will blame him for my bad grade it has nothing to do with me. Also, 7 am calculus is dumb.
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Jun 5, 2014 02:17
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"Your grade will be 40% final exam, 30% project, 20% assignments and 10% attendance." Hey, all my papers are in. Why am I getting a C? "Well you missed in-class assignments  "
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Jun 5, 2014 02:43
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I'm starting graduate school in the fall, and recently got an email telling me to set up my school account with instructions to do so. Part of it involves putting in my name, last 5 digits of my SSN, and my birthdate, to verify that I'm me. Problem is, someone entered my birthdate wrong, so I can't do this. I called the school, and in order to correct the error, they need to verify that I am me. There are two ways to do this. The first is to provide them with my personal information, which is the problem in the first place. I have been told that the only other way to verify my identity is to come into their office with a government photo ID. Of course, the school is on the opposite side of the country from where I live, and I certainly do not have the money to fly across the country for something as dumb as that. So, as a result, I've spent the last couple days calling around different offices and talking to people and trying to figure out how I can get my personal information in the system so I can actually set up an account and start grad school in the fall. Catch-22 is my favorite book, but it is not as much fun to experience stuff like it first hand. 
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Jun 5, 2014 08:14
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Phthisis posted:I'm starting graduate school in the fall, and recently got an email telling me to set up my school account with instructions to do so. Part of it involves putting in my name, last 5 digits of my SSN, and my birthdate, to verify that I'm me. Problem is, someone entered my birthdate wrong, so I can't do this. I called the school, and in order to correct the error, they need to verify that I am me. There are two ways to do this. The first is to provide them with my personal information, which is the problem in the first place. I have been told that the only other way to verify my identity is to come into their office with a government photo ID. Of course, the school is on the opposite side of the country from where I live, and I certainly do not have the money to fly across the country for something as dumb as that. So, as a result, I've spent the last couple days calling around different offices and talking to people and trying to figure out how I can get my personal information in the system so I can actually set up an account and start grad school in the fall. Catch-22 is my favorite book, but it is not as much fun to experience stuff like it first hand. Huh, same thing happened to me at my current school. Thing is though when I called them about it they just changed right then over the phone. Who the gently caress steals people's identities and use their info to go to grad school?
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Jun 5, 2014 11:20
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Essays that dock you points unless you write it in a specific font. And make you double space each _letter_.
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Jun 5, 2014 13:02
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Action-Bastard posted:Huh, same thing happened to me at my current school. Thing is though when I called them about it they just changed right then over the phone. There was a guy who did this exact thing when I was in grad school. He'd somehow gotten ahold of a deceased man's personal information and assumed his identity for the purposes of getting grants and loans in his name. This was back before the economy was in the shitter, so if your income was low enough (and a tax return showing that the deceased hadn't earned a single cent last year definitely counts as "low enough"), the state and federal governments would throw money hand over fist at you to help you go to school. I guess the idea was to pick an easy major and do just well enough to keep the money flowing--after the housing, books, and other cost of living allowances given through your financial aid, and lots of federal and private college loans, you'd be bringing enough in to live very comfortably without having to work a legitimate job. Well, they started checking for that sort of thing at various levels, and he was eventually picked up by campus police one day when he used "his" student ID to rent a laptop at the student union. I guess he got his wish, though--he still gets to live for free (in federal prison).
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Jun 5, 2014 13:13
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Phthisis posted:I have been told that the only other way to verify my identity is to come into their office with a government photo ID. Of course, the school is on the opposite side of the country from where I live, and I certainly do not have the money to fly across the country for something as dumb as that. Faxing them a copy of your photo ID isn't an option?
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Jun 5, 2014 17:18
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That wouldn't exactly prove that he hadn't stolen someone's identity. The whole point of a photo ID is so whoever you hand it to can check the photo against your actual face.
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Jun 5, 2014 20:48
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Phthisis posted:I'm starting graduate school in the fall, and recently got an email telling me to set up my school account with instructions to do so. Part of it involves putting in my name, last 5 digits of my SSN, and my birthdate, to verify that I'm me. Problem is, someone entered my birthdate wrong, so I can't do this. I called the school, and in order to correct the error, they need to verify that I am me. There are two ways to do this. The first is to provide them with my personal information, which is the problem in the first place. I have been told that the only other way to verify my identity is to come into their office with a government photo ID. Of course, the school is on the opposite side of the country from where I live, and I certainly do not have the money to fly across the country for something as dumb as that. So, as a result, I've spent the last couple days calling around different offices and talking to people and trying to figure out how I can get my personal information in the system so I can actually set up an account and start grad school in the fall. Catch-22 is my favorite book, but it is not as much fun to experience stuff like it first hand. Where does the error originate? If you sent them a paper form ask them to look at it again to fix the error from there?
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Jun 12, 2014 23:07
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