There is nothing magic about this list of how to be successful with evidence:
· I was taught part of it—some things as early as the 4th grade. A mean 4th grade teacher may help you the rest of your life (as mine did).
·
I learned the reading method part from a
community college world history teacher whose tips to the class saved my hide
because—if I were younger—I would probably have been identified as having
learning disabilities.
I learned more of that method from the
Reading Apprenticeship program for community college teachers who wanted to
help community college students. (WCJC was kind enough to pay for that
training.)
I have combined the reading method with a method for preparing to write a
practical essay.
· I learned part of it by messing up and deciding I didn’t want to do that again.
· I learned part of it on the job in varied industries. (In other words, these methods help you learn history, but they are useful many places.)
If you already have methods that work, then use those. If not, you may want to try these. These methods reinforce each other—they work best if you do them all. This shows only the first lines of each item in the Evidence Checklist.
For the full text in the Evidence Checklist, click here.
1 |
For
your source of facts, you use only
sources your professor (or boss) accepts as reliable. |
Read the right stuff—the right time and the right place and the right
person or type of persons--for the question: 1.
Turn to the pages
that I identified for you to read. If I did not specify pages to read, use
your index to locate the content. If you still cannot find the pages, ask for
help. (Distance learning classes also have ways to ask questions in the
Discussion tool.) 2.
Do not let yourself open other sources.
Do not tell yourself the fib that you
are just checking the Internet to make something clearer to yourself. Do
not let bad data in a good mind. Read to understand (to figure out, not just repeat mindlessly) the
evidence that the author is providing you: 1.
If you have no
method that works for you, try the method
for preparing to write a practical essay to read and
determine possible things you will cover. (It you also need an example on
a brain trick for reading, you
will find one in that link.)
|
|
2 |
You
must follow common standards to reveal to your reader who created the words
and/or found the facts you are using in your writing. This is a requirement
in courses and in some jobs. |
Before you worry
about quoting something, click here to see the basics of facts and: ·
citations (how
you show exactly where the reader can find the fact) ·
quotation marks
(how you show who owns what words) Once you are
sure you want to quote (to use the author’s exact words), then use the brain
trick in with checklist item 3 (just below). |
|
3 |
You must follow common standards to reveal
any changes you made to the author’s words. This may not be just a
punctuation error. You may be misleading your reader about the evidence. |
The rules
for showing what you have taken out (…) of the author’s words or put in ([ ])
are complex and for most of us they are not worth learning. This
brain trick lets you be accurate but
avoid learning those rules: 1.
Choose 3 to 6
words to quote and change nothing (not an ing or an ed, not a
comma, nothing) between the first and the last word. 2.
Put a “ before the
first word and a ” after the last
word. 3.
Place those
words with the “”within your sentences. 4.
If something
sounds awkward about your sentences, then change your own words—the only words you
have a right to change. |
|
4 |
You
must use reliable sources to verify what you write. (To verify means you use a reliable source to confirm the accuracy of
anything you write.) |
1.
First,
concentrate on the question. What is the prof (or the boss) asking for? Click here for
the goal of all writing in this course. Caution:
In this course, I provide all essay questions ahead of time for two reasons: ·
So you have a chance to know what you need to read ·
So you can ask a question if you do not understand my question 2.
Second, do two things
at the beginning and end of your reading: ·
Before you start
to read, stop and
be sure what you are reading is appropriate for that question. (Once you
start writing, you will not catch your error.) Examples: Do not use information about New England to answer a
question about the South or information about ranchers to answer a question
about farmers. ·
Before you stop
reading, look to see
if some other things happened or if some things changed. 3.
Third, when you
read, observe carefully and constantly. ·
Notice words
that reveal limitations of a fact. ·
Notice the
sentences (and sometimes pages) before and after what you are reading. Caution: You are not summarizing or paraphrasing a section
of words. You are figuring things out so you can briefly answer a question in
a common sense way. Just because some fact is in that section of words does not mean it belongs in
your answer. If the fact does not
apply to the question, do not bring it up or you will look like you misread
or miswrote (wrote without thinking). |
|
5 |
With most written work for
professors (or bosses), if asked, you must be able to state exactly where (a specific page) in the source that each fact came from—whether you wrote the words or the author
did. |
1.
You do not
have to cite pages when you write your essays that end a Unit. On the other hand, if I cannot
recognize your facts as being from our textbook or from my resources in the course,
I will ask you to name the specific page where the facts came from. 2.
If you follow the method provided in the first
row of this table, you will have your reminders for what content you plan to
cover and the page number where
you can find that content. ·
The facts that
you write in your own words are in the source. ·
The facts that
are in the author’s words are unchanged between the opening quotation mark
(“) and the closing one (“”) For some
people, touching the fact in the source and in your list of what you plan to
cover helps them. This visual might help. If you decide to do the alternative assignment
which does require citations, I will provide instructions for you. |
With something that
people talk about in many ways, sometimes it helps to state what is not the goal. With writing in this course, you:
·
Are not
summarizing or not paraphrasing the textbook.
·
Do not need to
repeat every fact or word in the textbook.
·
Are not showing
your personal writing style while stating your feelings or your opinions.
Instead, in this
course, the goal of all writing assignments is for you to do activities that
help you learn the history of our nation. One of the most powerful ways to learn something is to try to teach it.
You will succeed in these
assignments if you do these things:
·
If you read carefully and
work to understand what happened and ask if you need help.
·
If you figure out what
essential facts that you would teach your cousin.
·
If you figure how you
could organize those facts as simply and as accurately as you can.
·
If you write in a common
sense way as though you are teaching your cousin history that he or she needs
to understand.
This
textbook is required. You use it as your only source of facts when you write; I
use it when I grade your evidence.
Edward Ayers, Lewis Gould, David Oshinsky,
and Jean Soderlund.
American Passages: A History of the United States. 4th edition.
The ISBN for the current 4th edition in paperback is ISBN: 9780547166469. (If you need tips
on buying or borrowing a cheap book, click on the FAQs in this
learning module.)
Caution: You cannot use the BRIEF, 4th edition which has 2 fewer chapters than the 32 chapters in the other 4th
editions and all prior editions of this book.
Because the goal of
writing is to help you learn our nation’s history and the priority is for you
to be accurate, I grade your writing by comparing what you wrote side by side with
the facts in the textbook. With essays submitted, I use a method that lets me
quickly identify all of the submissions where the students wrote on the same
question. It is—as is obvious—a slow method, but it works.
1. I download those submissions, print them, and place them side by side
(just as I recommend for you above).
·
On the left, the
textbook opened to the probable section or sections students should have
used. ·
On the right, a stack
of all the submissions of students’ papers on that question. I also have a stack of rubrics to mark and a matrix for recording the
class results. |
|||||||||||||
In other words. I make it possible to
grade you accurately and very fast.
|
2. I use the Evidence Rubric for feedback (shown above) and grade each
student’s submissions one by one.
3. If there are multiple possible questions, I then repeat the steps above
with the next question.
With the two essays for
the Unit exams, I grade one of the questions using the method above. Sometimes
I toss a coin or something like that to be sure I am not grading the same topic
number each time. Unless I find problems such as factual errors in that first
essay I grade, I grade the other one without the textbook side by side
with your paper—a quicker method.
The Evidence Checklist is
the other side of the Rubric. Think of it as a two-sided coin. I use the Evidence Rubric to grade with.
You can use the Evidence Checklist to
help yourself be stronger. Both rely on common standards (accepted rules or models) for academics and for jobs
that depend on evidence:
·
The word evidence
emphasizes that you must have proof for what you say—some fact from our
approved source that anyone using that source can see for himself or herself.
·
The word checklist means a list of steps or
things necessary for success (such as a pilot’s checklist for takeoff).
Each checklist number:
·
Begins with an informal
statement of a common standard that applies to academics and to jobs
·
Below that are our
specific requirements, identified with the underlined phrase In
this course.
I can also offer additional tips for how to prevent problems (including with Checklist # 3). Just ask and I will provide preventions for these items.
Basic Information Provided in Other Locations and Repeated Here for Your Convenience
1. |
For
your source of facts, you use only
sources your professor (or boss) accepts as reliable.
In
this course, the only
sources are the textbook chosen by the History Department and the sources provided at our Course Website. Do not use Internet websites, another
textbook, or any other source—including your own memory. |
2. |
You
must follow common standards to reveal to your reader who created the words
and/or found the facts you are using in your writing. This is a requirement
in courses and in some jobs. In
this course, you may: ·
Either write facts in
your own words ·
Or you may use exact sentences or phrases from
the textbook placed within quotation marks according to the specific rules
for quotation marks (“”) to reveal ownership that are covered in The Bedford Handbook In
this course, you may not copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks. You also may not replace a few words in an
author’s sentence. Both are what The
Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism (page 692). |
3. |
You
must follow common standards to reveal any changes you made to the author’s words.
This may not be just a punctuation error. You may be misleading your reader
about the evidence.
In
this course, if you use another’s words, you must be sure either not to
change them or—if you change them—to follow the specific rules in The Bedford Handbook to reveal those
changes to the reader. |
4. |
You
must use reliable sources to verify what you write. (To verify means you use a reliable source to confirm the accuracy of
anything you write.) In
this course, if you cannot verify the fact, do not write it and do not assume that the source agrees
with you. If you are certain something is true and you cannot find it clearly
in our sources, ask me for help.
·
If a
question is about something
specific (such as a time, type of person, or region), verify that the source
is about that specific thing. ·
If the source covers facts about two or more sides or
positions or actions from two or more groups or individuals, do not include
only one side as though the other did not occur. |
5. |
With most written work for
professors (or bosses), if asked, you must be able to state exactly where (a specific page) in the source that each fact came from—whether you wrote the words or the author
did. With many college assignments, you must provide citations and use a
specific standard (such as MLA, APA, or the Chicago Manual of Style). In
this course with most written assignments, you do
not need to provide citations (the
specific page number from our textbook) unless
I cannot recognize where the fact came from. If I cannot recognize where the fact came from, then you must show me the location on the page. It cannot be a vague
statement: if a reasonable person using a reliable dictionary and reading the
entire passage would not agree that you have evidence for what you say, then
neither will I. If you ask to do the more challenging alternative assignment instead
of the essays for Unit 2, then you must cite according to the instructions. |
Students are usually puzzled about the plagiarism or “half-plagiarism” marking because they lack some basic information. Here are the basics.
1. The
submission of a paper with words from an author without quotation marks can be the professor's evidence that you plagiarized. Some professors may not
notice, but some may call it plagiarism. Do
not assume that past responses by professors guarantee what future
professors will want (and no boss ever will pay people—not well anyway—to copy
words from one place to another).
2. If you do this, some professors may label your work as “half-copy” plagiarism (term from The Bedford Handbook, page 692) if you:
· Either copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks (“”) ·
Or use the author’s sentence structure and just swap a few words with what
you think are synonyms |
3. Caution: If you think saying the name of the source means you can copy another’s words without quotations marks, look at this table.
If you use a fact in the author’s words, citation is not enough; you must also
use quotation marks.
What are the rules for citation and use of quotation marks? The rules vary
depending upon whether you are writing:
· A fact from the source in your own words
· A fact in the author’s words (you are quoting):
What Kind of Fact
Are You Using |
Do You Need
Citation (Page # etc.)? |
Do You Need
Quotation Marks (“”)? |
A fact in your own words |
Yes—although I do not require that in the Blackboard’s tiny box for essays or in an essay an on-campus student writes in class. |
No |
A fact in the author’s words |
Yes |
Yes <Notice this. |
Specifics about this course:
·
I do not require citations when you use facts in an essay that you do in
the Blackboard’s tiny box for essays, but there are conditions.
·
On the other hand, I do require quotation marks if you use the author’s words. In this
course, you may not plagiarize or “half-copy”
plagiarize. You may however quote, but you have to use the rules for quoting.
If you want more tips, check the preventions link below. If you have questions,
please ask.
If you are confused about when to use quotation marks, these examples may help you.
What the Author
Wrote |
What Words You Want
to Write |
Do You Need
Quotation Marks (“”)? and Why |
the Mississippi River |
the Mississippi River |
No – Proper nouns belong to all of us. |
the green, roaring river |
the river |
No – Common nouns belong to all of us. |
the green, roaring Mississippi River |
the roaring Mississippi River |
Yes <Notice this. – These are the author’s unique string of words so you identify them as not your creation with “”: Trade was harder because of the “roaring Mississippi River.” |
|
roaring |
Yes <Notice this. – This is the author’s labeling of a condition and it is easier to be clear by using the author’s word with “”. The author explained that the “roaring” river made trade more difficult. |
Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2013 |
2013 |
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