EPTso, TL, ask away! also, what were the biggest problems in your english classes? what did certain professors do that you found most helpful? i can probably answer some general questions about academia as well, if you like.
[bored] ask a freshman english professor
| Blogs > benjammin |
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
so, TL, ask away! also, what were the biggest problems in your english classes? what did certain professors do that you found most helpful? i can probably answer some general questions about academia as well, if you like. | ||
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Saracen
United States5139 Posts
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Megalisk
United States6095 Posts
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Saracen
United States5139 Posts
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Humbug
United States264 Posts
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number1gog
United States1081 Posts
Why does my word processor always give me shit when I try to type "it's." As in, "The cookerchiller 5000's ability to cook a steak while chilling my beer is it's best selling point." I'm trying to show that "it" possesses whatever it is that it possesses, but my word processor tries to tell me the correct spelling is without the apostrophe. What's up with that? | ||
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Bill Murray
United States9292 Posts
perhaps you should focus on that. | ||
Empyrean
17015 Posts
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Empyrean
17015 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:47 number1gog wrote: English questions huh.... Why does my word processor always give me shit when I try to type "it's." As in, "The cookerchiller 5000's ability to cook a steak while chilling my beer is it's best selling point." I'm trying to show that "it" possesses whatever it is that it possesses, but my word processor tries to tell me the correct spelling is without the apostrophe. What's up with that? "It's" is a contraction for "it is." "Its" is the third person singular possessive. EDIT: always. You pretty much wrote "The cookerchiller's ability to cook a steak is it is best selling point." | ||
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Bill Murray
United States9292 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:47 number1gog wrote: English questions huh.... Why does my word processor always give me shit when I try to type "it's." As in, "The cookerchiller 5000's ability to cook a steak while chilling my beer is it's best selling point." I'm trying to show that "it" possesses whatever it is that it possesses, but my word processor tries to tell me the correct spelling is without the apostrophe. What's up with that? it's = it is its = its best selling point a rule of thumb is if you cant say it is, it doesn't work. "it is selling point" doesnt make sense so it's not note how when i used it, it makes sense: it is its selling point | ||
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ella_guru
Canada1741 Posts
http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=158 That place ? | ||
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Baksteen
Netherlands438 Posts
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
you'll learn more in college english than from the AP Lit test i will edit your papers for a very competitive price of $500/hour, however i type with one finger which frequently cramps clarity of argument and clean writing is most important. some people forget that writing, even academic writing, is ultimately just a form of communicating, so anything that obscures what is aiming to be communicated is never an A paper trust your mind, not a machine! its is correct there. the best tip is to not use contractions at all in academic papers, in my opinion empyrean -- the short answer is that you usually don't. some journals will pay you for your work, and if you get an actual book published you'll get some money from that of course, but the funding is extremely limited, so must academics support themselves on their university salary plus whatever up they can scarf up. you can find some other outlets for cash, and a lot of universities will let you take a paid sabbatical to write a book, but the funding is nowhere close to the sciences. ella -- i'll check it out, but i figure TL will be a lot more friendly edit: grammar errors lulz | ||
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
I have never understood this once they stopped teaching like actual grammar and stuff and started making me read stupid political diatribes in book form. what, precisely, is the point? I mean no offence I just have literally no idea. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:54 Baksteen wrote: Do you cross check essays? :p if a professor can't spot a plagiarized section instantly, they either aren't paying very strong attention to what they are reading or they are a fool i am completely opposed to those online plagiarism tools and will do anything i can to circumvent them if the school wants my students to use them. do your job, profs | ||
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
I mean I'm 3 years in and holy shit it's easy. Most UK uni's = Most US uni's according to most studies for the record. Also, can you read Middle English? | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:00 kzn wrote: wtf do you actually do in english classes I have never understood this once they stopped teaching like actual grammar and stuff and started making me read stupid political diatribes in book form. what, precisely, is the point? I mean no offence I just have literally no idea. on what level? on the level i'm teaching, the only real aim is to improve the writing/analytical reasoning of my students. on higher levels, we're talking literary study and literary theory, but i don't really want to turn this into a debate about the merits of that | ||
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
I'm more confused about things like my HS experience, where after I hit ~15 or so we stopped doing what you might call english tech and just read books and wrote about them (or, in my case, raged at hidden political messages). It seems like there would be more efficient ways of developing writing skills, and more efficient ways of developing analytical skills than having people read literature and write/talk about it. [edit] Of course if this is precisely the debate you dont want feel free to ignore me. | ||
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lac29
United States1485 Posts
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:02 Piy wrote: Do you not agree that English degree's are the most ridiculously easy *real* qualification there is. I mean I'm 3 years in and holy shit it's easy. Most UK uni's = Most US uni's according to most studies for the record. Also, can you read Middle English? any degree is easy if you let it be, i'm sure there are plenty of engineers who would struggle with the work i've done the same way i would struggle with quantum mechanics. i don't think there's really any objective way you can evaluate the difficulty of one degree, it probably has more to do with your proficiency at what you're doing/your passion for doing it. if you don't feel like you're being challenged, that might have more to do with other factors. i had to read/speak middle-english for my chaucer class i took years ago, and i purged all that stuff from my brain ASAP. my main focus/interest is on post-wwii american literature, so the medieval works were a real bore for me. no offense to chaucer, a lot of the canterbury tales are awesome. the wife of bath got me through so many classes | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:08 lac29 wrote: Have you ever privately tutored English/writing? What kind of assignments did you give? How much did you charge? i did tutoring through a university writing center, so i'm not sure that qualifies as private tutoring. if i had to do private tutoring, i'd probably just focus on getting my student to write a lot--like anything, skill follows repetition (starcraft!). no idea what i would charge.. | ||
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SilentCrono
United States1420 Posts
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chaoser
United States5541 Posts
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Baksteen
Netherlands438 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:02 benjammin wrote: if a professor can't spot a plagiarized section instantly, they either aren't paying very strong attention to what they are reading or they are a fool i am completely opposed to those online plagiarism tools and will do anything i can to circumvent them if the school wants my students to use them. do your job, profs That's the right opinion imo. Shame i never had a prof pay any attention in high school because i didn't make a single book report myself and they never noticed it lol. Edit: Gues it's weird to say that is is a shame :p | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:11 hp.Methos wrote: what books are you making your students read? out of curiosity... unfortunately i have very little control over the curriculum, so i'm figuring the book list will be given to me by the program. still haven't heard what it'll be, i'm guessing that isn't decided yet. some tips though: if you see a copy of "the elements of style", set it on fire. "they say/i say" is definitely worth reading, maybe one of the best and most approachable books on academic writing in a long time. i'm also a fan of "keys for writers" as just generic reference, but OWL has pretty much replaced that by now | ||
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micronesia
United States24740 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:02 benjammin wrote: if a professor can't spot a plagiarized section instantly, they either aren't paying very strong attention to what they are reading or they are a fool i am completely opposed to those online plagiarism tools and will do anything i can to circumvent them if the school wants my students to use them. do your job, profs Where is your confidence coming from? Obviously you can often catch plagiarism by just doing a good job but... I'd think it's extremely difficult to always spot it. Plagiarism is something I have to worry about when teaching physics. It's pretty easy to copy someone's physics and modify it slightly to make it really tough to spot. Also, there's absolutely no way to prove someone copied unlike a direct copy of an English passage. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:12 chaoser wrote: How do you quantitatively grade an essay? A lot of english professors I knew refused to give back grades on paper till the final grade, usually only writing in comments. Why is that? were they allowing you to revise all of your essays until your final portfolio or were you just never being given grades until your final grade? if it's the latter, that sucks. at my level there are grading rubrics we can follow, but honestly... there's really no completely quantitative way to evaluate a grade. at some level, a student has to respect that the work their professor has done has put them in a position of authority on evaluating a student's performance. as far as i go, i'm looking for clarity in an essay more so than originality/brilliance/anything like that. but, as it is unavoidable, a lot of times you are scaling grades based on the performance of the rest of the class. professors, especially ones on the lowest rung like yours truly, can't get away with giving nothing higher than a B-. also, if it's apparent to the professor that you are putting a lot of effort into the class, you'll likely be rewarded. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:21 micronesia wrote: Where is your confidence coming from? Obviously you can often catch plagiarism by just doing a good job but... I'd think it's extremely difficult to always spot it. Plagiarism is something I have to worry about when teaching physics. It's pretty easy to copy someone's physics and modify it slightly to make it really tough to spot. Also, there's absolutely no way to prove someone copied unlike a direct copy of an English passage. ah yes, i was only really talking about english classes here. i can't imagine trying to spot it in physics :O it's just really, really obvious when a C level student suddenly lifts a long passage from a published academic (or sparknotes). | ||
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:24 benjammin wrote:it's just really, really obvious when a C level student suddenly lifts a long passage from a published academic (or sparknotes). What if you have a student who plagiarizes from the very beginning? | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:26 kzn wrote: What if you have a student who plagiarizes from the very beginning? honestly those kinds of concerns are very limited. a lot of classes have assignments designed to make plagiarism near impossible (writing a persuasive letter or other crap), so i think these things would become apparent. i'm not saying a professor's judgment will be perfect all the time and probably thousands of essays squeak through with some form of verifiable plagiarism. simple answer--don't do it. you won't get knocked for quoting other people (except for wikipedia and sparknotes/etc, don't think your professors don't read those in advance). | ||
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:08 benjammin wrote: any degree is easy if you let it be, i'm sure there are plenty of engineers who would struggle with the work i've done the same way i would struggle with quantum mechanics. i don't think there's really any objective way you can evaluate the difficulty of one degree, it probably has more to do with your proficiency at what you're doing/your passion for doing it. if you don't feel like you're being challenged, that might have more to do with other factors. i had to read/speak middle-english for my chaucer class i took years ago, and i purged all that stuff from my brain ASAP. my main focus/interest is on post-wwii american literature, so the medieval works were a real bore for me. no offense to chaucer, a lot of the canterbury tales are awesome. the wife of bath got me through so many classes Yeah, I loved the Canterbury Tales. No joke. What is the average proficiency of your students then? I don't know, it just feels as if I'm able to coast through with above average marks on 10ish hours a week including lectures. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:32 Piy wrote: Yeah, I loved the Canterbury Tales. No joke. What is the average proficiency of your students then? I don't know, it just feels as if I'm able to coast through with above average marks on 10ish hours a week including lectures. oh, i'm only teaching freshmen english, nothing beyond 100-level english classes. i get all kinds of levels of proficiency. to be honest, it's a lot of athletes and ESL students. 10ish hours a week? you must be a fast reader.  if you feel bored, just try to make it harder on yourself. aim for perfect marks instead of above average, that GPA matters a LOT if you want to do a graduate program. | ||
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tryummm
774 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:26 kzn wrote: What if you have a student who plagiarizes from the very beginning? lol, that's what I was thinking. Also, college professors don't get to know all their students extremely well. | ||
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Subversive
Australia2229 Posts
Also, the title says 'professor'. I haven't yet bothered to ask an american friend, but are all teachers within american universities referred to as professor? Here we have Professors, Associate Professors, Senior Lecturers, Lecturers and finally Tutors. So I guess a third question is are you lecturing then or doing tutorials? | ||
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YPang
United States4024 Posts
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
professor might be overstating it, haha. i'm a professor in the extent that i'm teaching a course on my own and preparing my own lectures and all of that, but i'm not on the same level as a regular professor at the university and did not go through the same vetting/hiring process. to get funding as a grad student here, you have to do their dirty work... i will be doing lectures from my own experiences/opinions, but for freshmen english you are teaching a curriculum that is mostly not your own. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:51 YPang wrote: If i got a B in composition in english high school, would it be lower in college or would it be similar? for a pharmacy major student. i can't really speculate whether it will improve or not, but the college level course will be more challenging. even if you don't think you'll be using it a lot as a pharmacy major, improving writing/communication will always, always, always pay off. maybe it's possible to just audit the class? | ||
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spinesheath
Germany8679 Posts
 ), and that there's a difference between progamers and programmers...I am honestly amazed that these kinds of mistakes are made so often on TL, especially by US Americans. Makes me wonder if kids from the US read more than 2 books with less than 50% pictures before they turn 18... EDIT: Horrible timing for a typo... | ||
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Jugan
United States1566 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:47 number1gog wrote: English questions huh.... Why does my word processor always give me shit when I try to type "it's." As in, "The cookerchiller 5000's ability to cook a steak while chilling my beer is it's best selling point." I'm trying to show that "it" possesses whatever it is that it possesses, but my word processor tries to tell me the correct spelling is without the apostrophe. What's up with that? it's is a contraction of "it is", and not the possessive form of it. The possessive form if it is "its". | ||
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micronesia
United States24740 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:15 benjammin wrote: unfortunately i have very little control over the curriculum, so i'm figuring the book list will be given to me by the program. still haven't heard what it'll be, i'm guessing that isn't decided yet. some tips though: if you see a copy of "the elements of style", set it on fire. "they say/i say" is definitely worth reading, maybe one of the best and most approachable books on academic writing in a long time. i'm also a fan of "keys for writers" as just generic reference, but OWL has pretty much replaced that by now Thanks for this blog. Any other books you would recommend to those who strive to write better? (Not necessarily for in an academic setting but in general too.) Who are the writers you admire the most for their prose? What periodicals do you read for leisure? What was the last book you finished? Thanks | ||
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Subversive
Australia2229 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:55 spinesheath wrote: Make sure you teach your students the difference between their/there/they're, tell them that it's "would've" and not "would of" (at least in most cases ), and that there's a difference between programers and programmers...I am honestly amazed that these kinds of mistakes are made so often on TL, especially by US Americans. Makes me wonder if kids from the US read more than 2 books with less than 50% pictures before they turn 18... Lol did you mean there's a difference between progamers and programmers? Because you just wrote the same word with two variant spellings  . I wouldn't normally nit-pick but it is ironic when you're commenting on others spelling/usage errors. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 07:08 zulu_nation8 wrote: Thanks for this blog. Any other books you would recommend to those who strive to write better? (Not necessarily for in an academic setting but in general too.) Who are the writers you admire the most for their prose? What periodicals do you read for leisure? What was the last book you finished? Thanks hmm.. i really think the best way to improve your writing is just to read more, as reading too much about how to write will probably drive you insane. i'm a big fan of thomas pynchon, steven millhauser, david foster wallace (his nonfiction, not his fiction), don delillo, john cheever, john updike, the list goes on and on. as far as periodicals go, i subscribe to a ton of literary quarterlies to see what short fiction is in print, but you can't lose with the new yorker and the atlantic. also check out "the best american" series, as well as the o. henry prize stories. yearly publications, great stuff. i've been reading a lot of poetry lately, so the last thing i read was "ahead of all parting" by rainer maria rilke, great stuff. | ||
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spinesheath
Germany8679 Posts
On July 01 2010 07:09 Subversive wrote: Lol did you mean there's a difference between progamers and programmers? Because you just wrote the same word with two variant spellings . I wouldn't normally nit-pick but it is ironic when you're commenting on others spelling/usage errors.Nope, I did write two different words, progamers and programmers, but with horrible typo in the former... But at least English isn't my native language, so this shall be my excuse! | ||
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Z3kk
4099 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:48 Empyrean wrote: "It's" is a contraction for "it is." "Its" is the third person singular possessive. EDIT: always. You pretty much wrote "The cookerchiller's ability to cook a steak is it is best selling point." I think he was trolling ><" Yeah, my question would also mainly be what you look for in A papers. You could use this site for questions. | ||
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DreaM)XeRO
Korea (South)4667 Posts
On July 01 2010 05:45 Saracen wrote: Also, are you willing to edit my essays and then send scathing emails to the professor if I don't get a very good grade? | ||
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Dance.jhu
United States292 Posts
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micronesia
United States24740 Posts
On July 01 2010 08:43 Dance.jhu wrote: When do you use who and when do you use whom??? If you want to be liked by people who aren't English professors than use 'who' every time Another way of putting it is.... I always forget how the word whom works XD | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
you can find much more about relative pronouns here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/645/01/ | ||
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djcube
United States985 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Craton
United States17265 Posts
Drives me up a wall. | ||
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fabiano
Brazil4644 Posts
I ask you, from a person who english is not the mother tongue, how can people make such mistake? Do "there" and "their" sounds the same? There is also the mistake of using "then" when the right would be "than"... most of those done by non american flagged people | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Craton
United States17265 Posts
I ask you, from a person who english is not the mother tongue, how can people make such mistake? Do "there" and "their" sounds the same? I'd guess the vast majority of people making this mistake would actually realize it was improperly used if they reread it. Their, they're, and there all sound identical and it's not that uncommon to think faster than you type. I've been known to replace entire words with something completely unrelated. There's a difference in pronunciation of "then" vs "than" -- "in" vs "an." | ||
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shinosai
United States1577 Posts
Sorry this isn't a question, but I saw some people asking about how to write better, and I couldn't help myself. =) | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
i actually don't know this -- are homophones unique to the english language? those rigid, arbitrary page length requirements are intended so that a student is writing a paper of sufficient complexity more so than sufficient page length. i'd say a majority of the time if a paper is coming up way short it's because the argument isn't ambitious enough. also, professors know all the tricks to pad page length counts, so don't do them. | ||
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lac29
United States1485 Posts
On July 01 2010 10:56 benjammin wrote: yep, there, they're, and their are homophonic -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone i actually don't know this -- are homophones unique to the english language? those rigid, arbitrary page length requirements are intended so that a student is writing a paper of sufficient complexity more so than sufficient page length. i'd say a majority of the time if a paper is coming up way short it's because the argument isn't ambitious enough. also, professors know all the tricks to pad page length counts, so don't do them. I don't think so ... Mandarin has homophones sorta but with different intonations. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On July 01 2010 10:56 benjammin wrote: yep, there, they're, and their are homophonic -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone i actually don't know this -- are homophones unique to the english language? those rigid, arbitrary page length requirements are intended so that a student is writing a paper of sufficient complexity more so than sufficient page length. i'd say a majority of the time if a paper is coming up way short it's because the argument isn't ambitious enough. also, professors know all the tricks to pad page length counts, so don't do them. Just a heads up since I'm not in college anymore: the new method is to do a Find and Replace on punctuation and increase their font. On paper, it's difficult to notice, but it can definitely stretch a 15+ page paper by another page or so. I know quite a few professors who don't know about this trick. I have a copy of S&W and I don't think I've ever read it. o.o It was given to me by a journalism professor, though. I never took any English classes in college until my senior year (an environmentalist English class) and I wish I had taken more. Perhaps not Freshman comp. Thanks for answering these questions. I've really enjoyed reading your blog. | ||
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DarthThienAn
United States2734 Posts
On July 01 2010 12:19 lac29 wrote: I don't think so ... Mandarin has homophones sorta but with different intonations. That's the exact opposite of a homophone then, isn't it T_T? In Mandarin, tones are 10000 times more important than in English - to an extent, tones don't matter in English. But I mean, the point is that homophones can't be distinguished just by hearing them, you have to infer based on the context. I'm not sure Mandarin has any of those because most words that sound exactly the same are actually the same character/spelled the same. To everyone that's surprised by Americans with poor English - it makes perfect sense actually. People with English as their first language are less inclined to figure out the proper way to say something, or the proper spelling of whatever word. First of all, they figure that they can just sound it out, or wing it. Second of all, they're surrounded by people who don't speak properly and use slang and all that, so to speak with proper grammar would make you 'weird' and possible 'uncool' which no American teenager wants. And it's not just Americans that do this. When I took high school Spanish, my teacher always talked about how natives mixed up their v's and b's (because of how they sound) when spelling, whereas the people who didn't already know Spanish always spelled stuff perfectly. Learning English as a foreign language usually means that you're going to learn it properly, because you're learning it as a language. For Americans, even though they have English classes, most English classes are focused on teaching students how to analyze, read, etc. not how to use proper grammar. Grammar is usually like, 5 lessons out of a whole year of classes. Plus, most people tend to write like they speak, and the way they speak is atrocious xD. | ||
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lac29
United States1485 Posts
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Empyrean
17015 Posts
On July 01 2010 12:19 lac29 wrote: I don't think so ... Mandarin has homophones sorta but with different intonations. Mandarin Chinese has homophones within intonations. A lot of the time, words will have the same tones and will be pronounced the same way. People just figure them out by context. Problems arise when you have two people who speak different dialects, and these dialects have differing tonal idiosyncrasies. Even subdialects of Mandarin aren't always mutually intelligible. It's also part of the reason why political discourse in China has usually been through writing. There isn't a great speaking tradition such as with the great orators of the West simply because the majority of the population wouldn't've been able to understand the speech through speaking. | ||
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Masamune
Canada3401 Posts
On July 01 2010 06:58 micronesia wrote: Undergrads can sometimes teach college classes too... when I was 20 I was a grader and 21 I taught a physics lab class. imo, any university that allows someone without at least a bachelors to teach a class is not a very good one. | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On July 01 2010 22:01 Masamune wrote: imo, any university that allows someone without at least a bachelors to teach a class is not a very good one. iirc it's not uncommon at all for students (especially honors students) who are far along in their degree to run a lab class, i think those are more just how to run the experiments you are testing more than teaching concepts, but it's not my field. i just can't imagine any tenured faculty willing to do that. kind of like my job! | ||
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Masamune
Canada3401 Posts
Unless by grading he meant tabbing math results and by teaching lab classes, standing idly by and helping people to get their equipment set up, then yeah... At 21 years of age, most people are in their 3rd year of undergrad. If I'm paying money for a course, unless it involves doing mundane tasks, I think it's unacceptable to have someone running a lab class who doesn't even hold a bachelors in the field, instructing me on what I have to do and being the person I go to for help. | ||
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s h 1 k 4 i
United States21 Posts
I'm actually at UW right now for a summer program and will be here for the next couple of weeks. do you have any suggestions on places to go on campus and around Seattle? | ||
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benjammin
United States2728 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On July 01 2010 22:01 Masamune wrote: imo, any university that allows someone without at least a bachelors to teach a class is not a very good one. By teach a lab, I think he meant that he was a TA. I don't see what extra qualification a grad student would have over a senior, in terms of doing highschool level physics or chemistry labs. | ||
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
On July 01 2010 22:01 Masamune wrote: imo, any university that allows someone without at least a bachelors to teach a class is not a very good one. for here to teach the lab all you had to do was get really good marks in that class and have that field as your major or something along those lines,(and be like 3rd-4th year) im pretty sure that would easily be a strong enough understanding to teach a first year lab for almost any class | ||
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micronesia
United States24740 Posts
On July 04 2010 08:48 Jibba wrote: By teach a lab, I think he meant that he was a TA. I don't see what extra qualification a grad student would have over a senior, in terms of doing highschool level physics or chemistry labs. Actually Masamune is mostly correct. I was the sole instructor of two lab sections... I would explain the lab and equipment, and help the students conduct their labs. I would grade their lab reports. I worked closely with the professor who was in charge of the overall course though and he punched the grades in at the end of the semester based on my recommendation. Masamune is right that there have to be reasonable standards for who can or cannot teach a class. Only a couple of physics students were permitted each semester to help teach as undergraduates. edit: note, the lab design, worksheets, hw, etc, were all already set by the professor at the beginning of the term. If the students needed help in a way that I somehow couldn't help them they could easily go to the main professor. edit 2: this wasn't some junk program I was teaching in... Maryland physics is always well ranked; especially among public universities. edit 3: It's pretty cool that I have teaching experience from seventh grade through college now though | ||
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Masamune
Canada3401 Posts
Maryland physics is definitely good! In the X-Files, Scully is said to have gotten her bachelors from there haha. | ||
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Oxygen
Canada3581 Posts
I like a lot of freedom in what I write, especially thesis and length, as well as format. I especially like the balanced approach of having the first writing assignment be more rigid, and then give more freedom as you go along. That way you can make sure everyone has basics right and adjust where needed. Also, if you're teaching a class that in any way resembles what Barrin described, which was also my first year of college, please for the love of God try to convey the idea of essay structure as a fundamental idea rather than a formula (Thesis Statement, Topic Sentences, etc.) and demonstrate how importantly literature ties into life, and how much it can help you with your problems and show you how to grow as a person. | ||
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