Comments on: We get letters. . . some we can do without.

By: apparently feckless undergrad

apparently feckless undergrad — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:05:16 +0000

When I was a young’n doing National History Day projects I was seriously faulted in judging once for NOT having conducted interviews…about a later 20th century topic, to be fair. So that requirement’s completely plausible, I’d say. How the student approached it, though, was not.

As for undergraduates not knowing how to do research–that’s SUCH a discipline-related issue. I recently had to, essentially, teach a perfectly competent and dedicated (Honors program) junior-year friend the ins and outs of our hum/soc library–because she’s a philosophy student and has basically been living out of her used-bookstore Oxford series paperbacks for three years. No need to drum up secondary sources when you are supposed to be presenting your own take on Heidegger’s discussion of the “project,” right?

As a history kid I have been much deeper implicated in library shenanigans, though, and I would be alarmed by that level of cluelessness in a program colleague. Even Philosophy Girl’s lack of library knowledge weirded me out, but she’s a good enough student that when she says she’s never needed it I believe that as a comment on curriculum and not on cutting corners.

By: High school student: U R doin’ it rite! : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:32:54 +0000

[...] you recall, we’ve already covered how not to ask strangers for help, high school edition here and grad school edition here and [...]

By: Fac Brat

Fac Brat — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:07:37 +0000

When I was growing up I frequently turned to my parents and their friends for help with papers on topics they work on. However I knew that if I asked for help I had better to preface it by saying “I’ve gone through these # books and they don’t cover/or I can’t find in them, can you give me some tips on where to go?” I learned a lot from asking them including:
–scholarly books are not scary and if they are scary it’s usually just because they are disorganized and/or dull to read.
–If you prove you have done your preliminary research most folks will help you go further no matter what the situation.
–If you piss off a professor they will not let you eat the last piece of cake or they will make you do some unpleasant house hold task. (Yes this is a deep rooted fear I still have in grad school. My faculty wonder why I’m so intimidated by them but really it’s fear of being told to go shovel)

The undergraduates I encounter at the library of the university where I’m and MA student have no idea how to do research. They shock even me with my years of hearing shocking stories of stupid students. I work in the library and they come in and ask the librarians how to use the catalog to do a basic search for a book they know the title of. I’ve several times heard them mention that they haven ever been to the library and once or twice they have added that they are seniors. OY!

By: east side bride

east side bride — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:43:56 +0000

@Historiann Here’s the pledge: http://readtheprintedword.org/

By: From the mailbag: How to assemble a conference panel with complete strangers? : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:32:06 +0000

[...] of Homostorian Americanist’s recent correspondence with a silly high-schooler who was fishing for someone to do her homework, reader Nervous Ned writes in to ask, “ What is the appropriate way to contact another [...]

By: LauraJMixon

LauraJMixon — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 05:43:34 +0000

Just last week, my 9th grade daughter was required to interview an expert on cellular biology about radiation for a science project.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:04:32 +0000

DV–I was just talking to Homostorian Americanist yesterday, and he said that he almost asked for the teacher’s name and e-mail address so that he could write to hir to see what was up with this “interview” assignment and/or let hir know this student wasn’t doing hir assignment in an effective manner.

I think it’s up to everyone to decide if it’s worth it to them. I’m coming to the conclusion more and more that the DELETE button is the only way to halt this “the earth is flat” bull$hit anti-intellectual use of technology.

By: DV

DV — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:13:18 +0000

Would there be any use in forwarding the initial message-reply-reply to the school principal (because no teacher was mentioned by XXXX) with a “I would be happy to offer assistance but you can see that this assignment is a bit too broad”?

In this situation, my desire to reign in students like XXXX (or their teachers) conflicts with the “just drop it” impulse.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:28:23 +0000

Sarah–I don’t think it’s always obnoxious to leave that tag on. There’s someone I worked with a few years ago who traveled a lot, and she sent a number of e-mails from her blackberry. A tag like “sent from my handheld/iPhone” explains why someone might write just a terse answer. (But frequently, we just needed a “yes” or “no,” so they were the kind of e-mails that were very appropriate to return with a handheld.)

XXXX clearly just wanted to let Homostorian Americanist know that she had bigger fish to fry. (That’s the only reason I can think of why she decided to reply to his second e-mail.)

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:37:45 +0000

I loved the discussion of the ‘Sent from my iPhone’ tag! As a full-time PhD student with a part-time job, I travel a great deal and end up sending quite a few emails from my iPhone, but always make sure to delete that tag first (most people seem unaware that you can do this). I think it rather sends the message that the email it’s attached to is of so little value to me that I am using it to fill up my otherwise wasted time on the bus or in the queue at Starbucks. And even on the rare occasions that this is actually true, it seems an unwise message for a student or researcher to send…