One Way to Set Higher Expectations
Student: I just handed in a 20 page paper. My professor took a big scissor out of her drawer and cut it up. I have to do it over.
Librarian: She really took out a scissor?
Student: For real. She was like Freddy Krueger. I’ll never use Wikipedia again. Did you know there’s misinformation in there and anyone can contribute to it?
Librarian: I’ve heard that.
Student: I need to find some primary sources and scholarly books and articles.
Later…
Student: You’ve helped me so much. I wish I came here 2 weeks ago, my life would be a lot different right now.
Posted: May 5, 2006 by Marc Meola
in Faculty, Student Issues.
Comments
Comment from Marc Meola
Posted: May 6, 2006 at 7:26 am
Yeah. Earlier in the day I had another senior tell me how the book we found for her paper was great and how she really got into writing the paper and wished she had more than one night to write it. She admitted that she and most of her friends really don’t know how to use the library. So it takes them at least 4 years to learn that they don’t really know what they think they know.
Comment from Megan Adams
Posted: May 6, 2006 at 3:14 pm
I think this might be my favorite “why you should use the library’s resources” post, ever. Thank you for sharing it.
Comment from Jason Griffey
Posted: May 9, 2006 at 3:04 pm
I’m glad that others are enjoying this post…I nearly fell over with horror!
There is no reason to assume that Wikipedia is a bad source, any more than to assume that a book is a good source (we all know a myriad of sources that have errors in them…even Britannica, which wikipedia happily corrects for us). The _information_ presented should be judged, not the source.
I fear for the future if many of us blindly disregard sources like wikipedia…
Comment from Barbara Fister
Posted: May 5, 2006 at 10:06 pm
This is classic, Marc! If a bit of a radical approach to critique. I’ve heard seniors say something similar: “I wish I knew this earlier; I’m about to graduate!”