If I were...

...an adviser to the high muckety-mucks running NCLB?

I'd suggest they incorporate "Being Able To Follow Directions" as a main directive at every grade level.


I am trying to grade research papers here and some (about 1/4) of them make me want to beat my forehead into a bloody pulp on the edge of the desk:

1. You canNOT do a valid experiment with sample sizes of one. I have talked about that. I have pointed it out ad nauseum. Just because you want to do it that way does not make it right.

2. You canNOT write a paper over experimental research you did and leave out the results and discussion. That does not a research paper make.

3. "Field and Stream" is not a peer-reviewed resource.

4. "and so on" or "et cetera" are TOO vague for a scientific paper. We went over that.

5. I issued a list of instructions for writing the paper, referred to that list, READ most of it aloud one day in class, put it up on the course website. Why did you not follow it when I had in big honking letters on the top "FAILING TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS WILL CAUSE LOSS OF POINTS"

6. Trying to make me laugh with your clever writing and puns will not endear you to me. This is a SCIENTIFIC paper. Please be appropriately serious.

7. Do not hide things. Label the abstract "Abstract" so I know it's that and not just a poorly-organized bit of introduction. Don't make your tables obscure. Remember ricki's rule for college success #1: do not piss off the person who is grading you. After reading the first 10 papers, having to search for ANYTHING is going to piss me off.

8. Wikipedia is not a peer-reviewed resource. We went over this quite a bit in class. It may be wonderful for settling bar bets or gleaning information on old episodes of Scooby-Doo, but it is not a valid scientific resource.

All of that said, some of the papers are pretty good, and I had a record number of people this semester hand in rough drafts (I have a deal - if they get me a good draft of the paper 10 days or so before the due date, I will read it, comment on it, but not grade it - basically give them a free shot at correcting stuff I'd take points off for on the final paper).

But it's that two or three where I read them and go "the Hell?" that get me every time. There's not enough strong hot tea and dark chocolate in the world to make those papers go down well.