MUST. RESIST.URGE. TO. SLACK.
I apologize for slacking last night, but my students in one class finally got all of their papers back.
Unfortunately they were such pains today about questioning every little thing it gave me a migraine. I had to leave class fifteen minutes early. I mean, they ask some incredible questions. I tell them "Listen you've got to document where you got each and every piece of information in your paper. Failure to do so is technically considered plagiarism by university standards. So fifteen minutes later one of them asks me, "If you get a definition of a word and quote the definition I don't have to cite that right?" What part of every piece of information don't you understand? So I said yes, absolutely since there are a wide variety of dictionaries(that way I can also see how recently the dictionary was published). Then they ask well we don't have to document encyclopedia entries do we? I was like "Why on earth not?" So they say "Well it's common knowledge." I asked them "How many people here know about Hannibal?" Only one, and not very specific at that. I was like "Ok well he was from Carthage and fought against the Romans. He was a famous war tactician known in this century primarily for his use of elephants. So this is their response. "Well we shouldn't have to cite it since you know it. Therefore it's common knowledge." My response was "I have two years of high school latin. I focused most of studies in classical literature. I would hardly call two people out of twenty commong knowledge. The law of gravity is common knowledge, but the identity of classical warriors is hardly common knowledge."
I'm suppose to be applying for a phd so I can become a tenured professor, but I don't know if I want to become on after a day like today. Today was so awful.
And now because of the migraine I didn't finish my other classes papers so they are going to be pissy about that. Somedays it really doesn't pay to get out of bed.