Distraction Distraction Diiiiiissstttrrraacccttiiiooonnnnnnnn

[Smurf]

This is what I do to avoid doing my Sociology assignment. So far I have the first paragraph down. Another page and a half or so to do, and about...4 hours to do it in... wasting time wasting time wasting time. It's not even a really bad assignment, I'm just not in a worky mood right now.

 

[Townsend]

This is what I do to avoid doing my Sociology assignment. So far I have the first paragraph down. Another page and a half or so to do, and about...4 hours to do it in... wasting time wasting time wasting time. It's not even a really bad assignment, I'm just not in a worky mood right now.

I know the feeling...

I need to get banned. Is there any way to request a banning?

 

[Smurf]

Speaking of which. When are you going to respond to my democracy thread? You're past the due date.

 

[Smurf]

Okay, starting the third paragraph.

 

[Smurf]

Fourth paragraph...

 

[moose]

So how much of your essay is just BS so far?

 

[mattmns]

Yeah it would be nice if I, and many of us, were banned from PF. I have been trying to lately, but MB has yet to even give me a warning, just two pm's. I almost feel like I will need to directly attack MB just to get a warning

 

[Smurf]

So how much of your essay is just BS so far?

About four paragraphs, why?

 

[jimmie]

I need to get banned. Is there any way to request a banning?

Yeah it would be nice if I, and many of us, were banned from PF. I have been trying to lately,

Perhaps someone should start a thread and take a poll (I do not know how, and do not 'want' to know how) on PF to determine who believes they are "addicted" to PF.

 

[Smurf]

still on the fourth paragraph...

 

[Entropy]

I have a three page paper I should be writing right now, but... screw it.

 

[Smurf]

Power To The Slackers!

 

[moose]

I have a unit project to do for history :(

I need to start it!

 

[Smurf]

is it due tomorrow?

 

[moose]

is it due tomorrow?

Yup, and it was assigned two weeks ago... I should start on it.

 

[Smurf]

Yup, and it was assigned two weeks ago... I should start on it.

Yeah, you should. Technically I started this yesterday when I read the article and chose my subject. (nevermind the fact that I changed my mind this afternoon and did a different article).

It's due tomorrow.

 

[Townsend]

Will some body please just ban me!

For the love of all that is good...I can't stay away from GD! I have even tried to hide my wireless card so I cannot access the internet...

Hello my name is Townsend and I'm a PFaholic.

 

[Smurf]

I think I should run for PF Mentorship. My platform will be based around "Will ban PFaholics to break addictions"

there seems to be quite a demand for it.

 

[rocketboy]

I too know how you guys feel...in the past 2 weeks I have left 2 1500 word essays to the night before. One of them I didn't finish, handed in 3 days late...and then other i finished at 2:30 in the morning. Then my physics lab is due tomorrow and I am doing that right now...almost done...god i hate how i end up doing this!

 

[Smurf]

really? I love it. I only work when I'm pressured for time. I have never (ever) been able to do an assignment before the night before.

 

[moose]

I remember this assignment we had in history, which we had a month to do... When the teacher asked how many people pulled all nighters to get it done, half the class raised their hands. I don't understand how someone could have started earlier.

 

[pattylou]

The problem I always had in college, was that I thought 'working on an assignment' meant starting at the beginning ... and plugging through it linearly. So, I never wanted to start that process ahead of time.

But that isn't the way to do it anyway. What you do, is sketch out a quick (i mean like 5 minutes worth) outline ahead of time, like within a day or two of it being assigned. Then a day or so later, you make referential notes for each section of your outline, do that over the next few days - like finding paragraphs in your textbook, articles, whatever, to compose/back up your final piece. If your assignment involves including accessory materials, (busywork) you can do that during these days as well.

Then a day or so after you finish that, you're in a position (with the outline and accesory materials already taken care of) to hash out an easy B - grade paper. It's not going to follow the outline exactly, but no sweat, you have a general plan laid out and even if you go in a different direction you'll end up coming back to your outline by the end of the paper.

Remember that now.

Also, get your grammar, spelling, punctuation right. And even though the prof may say that hand written is OK, for God's sake use a word processor if you can. Our eyesight is *terrible.*

Here's a link I give my students for their papers. I doubt this is news to anyone, but in case it is, it'll be useful:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/index.htm

 

[pattylou]

The link failed. I had it saved to a word file:

The following three examples all were written by women on the question why women tend to avoid careers in science and math. They provide a good common basis for illustrating the differences between C-, B-, and A-level writing.

This is an example of C-level writing:

This leads us to second and third factors: Society and personal. Society has always stereotyped girls and boys. It was more proper for the women to cook and sew than it was for men. This holds true for the sciences, except in reverse. Girls were taught into thinking that a scientist has to be masculine. Only those in unbiased environments and/or with a strong desire tend to head in the new scientific directions.

As girls progress into high school they feel a certain stress or pressure that reminds them it is important they know how to cook, sew and take care of children. They are more likely to choose classes related to a social and family life than to enter physics and chemistry. Here, in these areas, the future is uncertain. No one pushes their daughters into a career like this, rather into a non-risk or safer career.

Why is this a C?
1. Craftsmanship is poor. There are spelling errors and many clumsy expressions.
2. She does not cite sources of her information.
3. She does not back up her statements with specific examples.
4. The writing is vague. For example, what do "these areas" and "a career like this" in the last paragraph refer to? What in the world does "This holds true for the sciences, except in reverse" mean?
5. She generalizes, and inaccurately at that. Is it really true that "no one" encourages their daughter to go into science? (paragraph 2). Mechanical errors can be forgiven but factual errors, errors of reasoning, or sloppy reasoning will almost always damage your grade.
6. She fails to follow up on important topics. Who taught girls to think a scientist had to be masculine? Why? How did this custom originate? What can be done about it?
A mechanical note: never use the slash construction, for example "and/or", like this writer does. Ever. Almost always, a slash means "there's a connection here but I can't be bothered to figure out exactly how to phrase it."
________________________________________
This is an example of B-level writing:

Girls scored less on the S.A.T.s by about 45 points. Studies have found that the difference was due to girls not taking as many math courses in school. Girls took one-half the courses the boys did. This made a difference because girls didn't take the upper level courses which appeared on the test. Also girls weren't currently enrolled in a math course when they took the test. Some other factors that might have affected their scores on the S.A.T.s are parents' education, type of school attended, amount of preparation in various field, and intended major in college.

Even when men and women had the same preparation, the women were distributed among different academic fields. Majority of them would go to into foreign languages and education instead of science and mathematics because of the different perceptions of opportunity. Men and women see their majors to be preparation for an occupation; few men see their future in nursing or education just as women don't see themselves as scientists and mathematicians.

Other factors that influence girls in taking math and science courses are councelors, teachers, parents and...

Why is this a B and not a C?
1. Craftsmanship is good, although the sentences are choppy.
2. Logical flow of the writing is good.
Why is this a B and not an A?
1. There are technical flaws. On which S.A.T. do girls score less - verbal, math or composite? Also, upper-level math courses do not appear on the general S.A.T. as she implies in the first paragraph
2. She does not cite sources for her information.
3. The single most important factor in separating A's and B's - she does not get beyond the obvious. The last sentence of paragraph 2 should be a major topic of discussion. Why does this perception exist? How can it be addressed? This should be the start of her entire paper, but she never follows up on this topic. Instead she drops it and goes on to something else.
This is a competent, well-written summary of existing information with little or no analysis or new insight. It's good--but not excellent.
________________________________________
This is an example of an A-level writing:

A controversial study done by Benbow and Stanley at Johns Hopkins University (1980) claims that there is a genetic basis for superior male achievement in math based on a study of seventh graders and their SAT tests. However, several psychologists disagree. First, they believe that environmental and cultural factors were not ruled out and second, it is not clear that SAT mathematics scores are a good measure of inherent mathematical abilitiy. Sheila Tobias (1982) also adds that boys are more likely than girls to study for the math portion of the SAT. She also adds that the number of boys that have outperformed the top-scoring girl has been declining in recent years. In 1972, 19 percent of the boys who took the test scored above the top girl. By 1978, .1 percent of the boys scored higher than the best girl, and in 1979 only one boy had a higher score than the top-scoring girl (Woolfolk/McCune-Nicholich, 1984, p. 143).

Why is this an A?
1. Craftsmanship is good (although there is one spelling error).
2. Logical flow of the writing is good.
3. She cites her sources.
4. She uses specific examples to illustrate her points.
5. She synthesizes information from several sources, compares and contrasts viewpoints. She doesn't merely summarize - she analyzes.
________________________________________
How to get from B-land to A-land
B-level writers ask:
• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Where did it happen?
• Who made it happen?
These are descriptive questions. They describe what happened but don't go beneath the surface.
A-level writers ask:
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• What might have prevented it from happening?
• How did it affect other things?
• What are connections that most other people have missed?
• What will happen as a result of it?
• What might have happened if it didn't happen?
• What have I found out about it that nobody knew before?
• What are some unanswered questions that nobody thought of before?
These are analysis questions. They take the incident apart (that's what "analysis" means in Greek) to see how it works and what it implies.

 

[Smurf]

yeah... no

 

[pattylou]

Pardon me?

 

[Smurf]

I said "no"

 

[pattylou]

LOL. I was providing general information from a grader's perspective, to moose, townsend, you, and anyone else who is unfortunate enough to be in a situation where their work is being assessed in such an imperfect way as paper-grading.

You are certainly free to ignore it, but it wasn't directed at you specifically.

Incidentally, the examples given in the link matched up exactly with my personal guidelines of what grades were earned by which papers. Also they match the college's English department standards.

I don't know what you are saying "no" to, but the advice is sound for anyone that is interested in less work and better grades.

 

[Mk]

I said "no"

That's the way! The only way to ovoid drugs, smoking, and violence is "no." Good job, and may the force be with you!

 

[rachmaninoff]

Yeah, I've been working on a research paper for over a month now. So far I've put about fifty hours into 1.5 pages. Hmm, seems it was due last week. Ah well, maybe I'll do some more work tomorrow.

About those grading guidelines - the "C" paper is simply disgusting, for any formal writing assignment. It's hopeless, I'd give it an F. The "B" paper is also a joke, maybe a "D". Neither paper shows even a smidgin of criticality - they're duller than a dullknob. The "A" paper is dry and disengaging (especially given the topic), should get no higher than a "B-".

 

[moose]

And I am still sitting here working on my history project...

 

[Townsend]

And I haven't been banned yet...