Monday, May 14, 2012

May 14, 2012

This week's blog post offers an odd perspective that you normally wouldn't hear from me, but I think the following link from The Chronicle of Higher Education offers some interesting food for thought and serves as a good reminder of the importance of writing content quality:  http://chronicle.com/article/Citation-Obsession-Get-Over/129575/  

I wanted to share this article with you now as you may be grading mid-term papers or essay exams from Unit 6.  It can be very easy to get solely focused on APA and mechanics when grading writing documents, because we emphasize these so often (and don't get me wrong...they are important!), but the overall content and critical thinking strategies exemplified in a student's work need equal (if not more) attention too.  As the author of the article states, we need to teach our students the importance of "selecting credible sources, recognizing bias or faulty arguments, paraphrasing and summarizing effectively, and attributing sourced information persuasively and responsibly" (http://chronicle.com/article/Citation-Obsession-Get-Over/129575/ ).  By doing this, and by emphasizing the importance of proper citations and mechanics, we will be serving our students well.

One final reminder, I am by no means pushing aside the importance of APA or mechanics, and I don't necessarily agree with the author's overall tone and approach, but I do believe he offers some interesting food for thought that can serve as a reminder to all of us about the intricacies and complexities of teaching strong writing skills and grading student work.

If you have any questions let me know.

Thanks,
Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the post, Heather! This is something that was of great interest to me. I get very focused on APA and mechanics. This information is a great reminder to me. :-) Lacey

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