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The point of these assignments, in case you don't realize, is not to write something new or groundbreaking, it's to give students experience in doing research a

by roel_v 15y ago

The point of these assignments, in case you don't realize, is not to write something new or groundbreaking, it's to give students experience in doing research and writing. What they write about exactly isn't that relevant, it's the process of going through it. And by skipping that, the whole point is lost. Not sure if I'm feeding a troll here, but the amount of 'why do I have to read this book, I will never need what's in it anyway'-style failure to understand the purpose of deliberate practice is high so you may actually believe yourself that your argument makes sense.

pseingatl 15y ago
That was my point: the class isn't about writing. The class isn't about getting experience in writing. If you want to do that, there are much better alternatives. This class was about content (I used the term "Answers" in my posts). When it comes to content, the required skill set is finding the answer, compiling the answer, assembling the answer, putting a team together to collaborate to find the answer, etc. Learn writing somewhere else. The fault is thinking that writing is the only way to express these skills. Writing has certain formal conventions, such as citing sources. A failure to cite sources is considered plagiarism. Content is different. Facts cannot be copyrighted, and this class was about content and those facts. With respect to facts, the conventions are different. It makes no sense to pretend to teach students to write when you are trying to teach them content. We do it in academia because except for medical school, law school--where writing papers is relatively uncommon, compared to other disciplines--we don't know another way to do it. But don't call this cheating. Failure to document sources, OK. Academic dishonesty if there's a misrepresentation, OK. Providing the professor with the content he asked for in business school? That's not OK??

by roel_v 15y ago

pseingatl 15y ago

That was my point: the class isn't about writing. The class isn't about getting experience in writing. If you want to do that, there are much better alternatives. This class was about content (I used the term "Answers" in my posts). When it comes to content, the required skill set is finding the answer, compiling the answer, assembling the answer, putting a team together to collaborate to find the answer, etc. Learn writing somewhere else. The fault is thinking that writing is the only way to express these skills. Writing has certain formal conventions, such as citing sources. A failure to cite sources is considered plagiarism. Content is different. Facts cannot be copyrighted, and this class was about content and those facts. With respect to facts, the conventions are different. It makes no sense to pretend to teach students to write when you are trying to teach them content. We do it in academia because except for medical school, law school--where writing papers is relatively uncommon, compared to other disciplines--we don't know another way to do it. But don't call this cheating. Failure to document sources, OK. Academic dishonesty if there's a misrepresentation, OK. Providing the professor with the content he asked for in business school? That's not OK??