Tutorials and Writing
Michael Taber
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Tutorials
At least some of our papers will be run as paired
tutorials. You will be scheduled in pairs to read your paper to me and to the
other student. We will discuss your paper with you, interrupting you more than
once. Then the other student will read their paper in the same way. So that we
may follow along as you read, ensure that the other student has access to your
paper. Realize that it is your paper which will be graded, not your reading of
it or your answering any questions which I or the other student may bring up.
The purpose of having you read the paper to me is that I can give you most
comments directly and suggest ways to improve your future work. This is much
easier for me to do and much more helpful to you than having you read my
comments in dried ink on a dead piece of paper. Because I will have to schedule
many tutorial sessions, I am canceling class for the days during which the
tutorials will be held.
Writing
Since writing is central to the course, both in
reading others' and in creating your own, respect for writing will manifest
itself even at the level of writing mechanics. You will be expected to take
stylistic and mechanical concerns most seriously in your three papers. As a
motivational aid to this end, you will be allowed two grammatical, spelling, or
punctuation mistakes per page (partial pages counting as full), after which you
will lose one point for each mistake. For example, if you have a 24-point paper
of five pages, and you have made thirteen mechanical errors, then you will
receive a 21 for the paper. N.B.: the same mistake (not just similar)
repeated will count as one mistake. You will be allowed to submit a revised
version with the mechanical errors corrected, and in these cases
you will be assigned the average of your original and revised grade.
You
might consider spending a bit of time at my writing site.
Few would fail to benefit.
Send me mail: mstaber at smcm dot edu
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