English 102 at Ashland

First, the rules The material below is only about page formatting. I suggest you go to Noodletools or some other reliable resource to get the details of capitalization, punctuation, and so forth. The “References” drop-down menu has a lot of other suggestions, but I have not tried them out. The official Microsoft template (that paper on exotic birds, written by Rama Gokhale) is wrong, but if you are using it you can follow the instructions below. The good news is that MLA and APA work exactly the same way as far as page layout goes. That bibliography page (MLA calls it “Works Cited.” APA calls it “References.”) always starts a fresh sheet after the main content of your paper. It is always the same typeface, type size, and line spacing as the body of your paper. The individual items are always alphabetized by the first item in the entry (usually the last name o...

Last Friday, I visited the computer help desk in Patterson 100 to ask some questions about printing and other computer-related issues. Here is what I learned, in no particular order. Printing They no longer recommend printing from your personal computer. The official computer application you must use is unreliable. Instead, they recommend printing from a university-owned computer, which is connected more directly to the printer. One way to do this is to save your file to a flash drive and plug it in. Another way, if you are using Google Docs or Microsoft Word Online might be to simply open the file on the college computer and print from there. (I have no way to test that out.) Microsoft applications Microsoft Copilot: When the new Microsoft setup was rolled out a couple of years ago, we were told that Copilot was the only real way to get into your email, Word, etc. I was totally unthrilled by the idea that your fi...

My students sometimes get frustrated because the Blackboard Gradebook does not really reflect their grade. Here is why that happens. These are the items that go into calculating your final grade: Major assigned papers Attendance (including whether you are showing up late) Short assignments such as quizzes and participation in peer editing, etc. I do keep track of your grades in my own computer spreadsheet. For the Major assigned papers, posting the grade on Blackboard is an extra step, and sometimes I get busy—but the grade on your rubric markup sheet is the one that governs anyhow. If you revise a paper, I try to remember to update the Blackboard item, but the only number I am paying attention to is the one on my computer spreadsheet. Attendance is tricky for two reasons: one is that I have more categories than “Present” and “Absent” (I also have categories for sleeping in class and traveling with the team...

Your first major essay is due Friday, so here are a few last-minute rules about submissions in our course: The paper is due at 11:59 PM. (I could not do 12:00 because computers cannot figure out whether 12:00 is noon or midnight.) If you miss that deadline, you can still submit, but the late penalty discussed in the syllabus applies. I have set the number of attempts to “infinite,” so if you upload a draft in the morning and have a better idea in the afternoon, just load the new one. The only one I will read is the most recent. I have disabled the option of typing the whole thing raw into the Blackboard drop box. (That causes trouble for both of us and does not allow you to show where your paragraphs are.) You will have to figure out how to type something in a word processing program and upload it. If you decide to use the “Share” button in Google Docs or MS Word Online, I might...

Stuff that just isn’t true A lot of fake news circulates in high school concerning college life. Even though you are not exactly newcomers to the college life, these ideas may still be in the back of your head. You need to ignore them. “College attendance doesn’t count” Yes it does, in two ways. In our course (and in many courses) attendance is part of the grade, and unexcused absences count against you. And obviously, if you weren’t here and the teacher said something you need, that hurts too. Some teachers don’t appear to take attendance, but they really can—they just know who is supposed to be in their small classroom. (I’m not that good. I will usually call roll.) You only think that absences don’t count against you because we don’t have an assistant principal phoning your mother. You are an adult now, and you should know how much absences hurt your grade. “Showing up late is how I assert my independence” ...