September 23, 2019

Student Journal Feedback

It seems like many of your are just ignoring my feedback, so I decided to use some written feedback this week in addition to the standard audio (see your syllabus, top of L5). I have added an extra grade this week on the accuracy and consistency of citations. By this point, you should be using proper citation templates without errors. This quick reference might be helpful.

Here are some points to consider.

• Journal posts (not “journals”) must be dated and titled. I’ve said this many times.

• The first parts of lessons are not optional, yet many of you seem to ignore them. This will cost you points. (If something is unclear, ask about it.)

• Titles of works of art must be presented correctly. See “Writing in the Liberal Arts § Titles.” This will now cost you a point per journal post.

• If someone comments on your post, you should take a moment and respond. Remember, you should be engaging the materials and your colleagues. If someone asks you a question, answer it. In addition, many of you are still not using correct talk page conventions when commenting. Again, this is not difficult; please get it correct. I’m speaking particularly about correct indentations when replying.

• Avoid summary. Summaries of plots (in fiction) and ideas (in essays) are unnecessary. Your job is to write critical, analytical, and interpretive responses to texts.

• Only link to Wikipedia entries in the body of your posts. Do this by adding a w: at the beginning, like: [[w:Norman Mailer|Norman Mailer]] would return Norman Mailer.

• Do not link to external sources in the body of your posts; you must use proper Wikipedia references. See the FAQ for links, or just Google this. Referencing is not difficult; it just requires attention to detail. It’s particularly important that you get this correct in your journal posts as you be using on Wikipedia for your projects. There is not one correct way to do this: just be consistent and logical in your approach. Doing this incorrectly from this point forward will cost you points in evaluation.

• The most reliable sources are still books, articles from peer-reviewed journals, and some periodicals. Limit your use of web sites and articles with no authors. See scholarship on Wikipedia.

• Please do not link to files in the shared drive. You should use a full citation for primary sources; I could help with this, if you do not have all the information. A link is not a citation.

• Use proper Wikipedia formatting for headers, bold, italics, lists, block quotations, and links. Do not use HTML on wiki pages. Add a space (RETURN twice) to paragraph, but don't add any more spaces, indentions, or any other formatting, like fonts or double spacing.

• Do not repeat a reference. Use the shortened footnotes I outlined in lesson 4, or a how to use a source more than once.

I also removed red links from the journal index.