Sunday, May 03, 2009

Don't assume your students are good with word processing...

.. just because they spend their time texting.

Out of 70ish drafts, a majority had problems accomplishing a footnote.

Some would try to type in the header/footer space. They came closest, and I had to give them credit.

Many others did a variety of weird options -- none of which actually looked like a footnote.

A whole bunch of them just didn't bother.

I hope my comments on their drafts are sufficient to make them realize they'd better bother on the final. It's due week after next -- they have plenty of time.

2 comments:

gsadfa said...

oh on the contrary, my dear, I have recently realized the glory that is APA. It works for an undergrad like me since I can't possibly fill an entire page with annoying parenthetical citations. APA also forces me to work on my quoting and thus writing technique, citing where I absolutely must, paraphrasing where I can. With footnotes, as I've been using for nearly four semesters, I'd cite way too much. It was a problem (for me, though no prof. ever gave me a hard time).

You might also enjoy this post, if you haven't already read it!

What is more annoying for me is when fellow students transcribe data and do not include line numbers. I'm pulling my hair out.

This Ro(a)mantic Life said...

Yeeeees ... I have students who think page numbers are to be manually inserted within the page instead of in the header. Ends up creating all kinds of mess when the pagination in my word processing program isn't the same as theirs!