At 12:09 AM -0500 10/23/03, Mike Scoles wrote:
It has been a couple of years since I've taught an undergraduate research
methods class. I've just finished grading the first drafts of some
proposals. Either I was blind before, or there has been a sea change in
undergraduate writing. (Some of which leads to overuse and misuse of
clich�s like, "sea change." Excuse the digression, I was "thinking outside
of the box" for a moment--my "critical thinking" skills are fading. I will
"dialogue" with my colleagues about this after "keyboarding" this
complaint.)
It is obvious that many of these students have never been to the library to
open a journal. If it's not on the Web, they won't find it. Of course, the
ability to cut and paste increases the incidence of plagiarism. (And, like
my high-school sophomore, they just can't seem to understand that Google
helps me find the source in seconds.)
Yes, I know the solution is to design assignments that require them to go to
the library, require photocopies of the first page of any article that they
cite, blah blah blah. But I wouldn't need to do this if it wasn't for the
damn Internet AND the mindless emphasis on technology in K-12 and higher
education.
I was requiring photocopies of the first page of articles long before
the 'Net was a gleam in Al gore's eye.... students have been looking
for easy ways out at least since the time of Socrates.
The main difference is now I require that when they look up articles
online (services such as ProQuest are a reasonable substitute for
paper journals) they print out a page that has graphics on it so I
can see that they've read a complete article rather than just text.
The more things change ....
--
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
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