Three weeks into the semester and I am officially swamped. There are papers due, exams looming ahead, group projects to discuss, presentations to prepare. I personally knew the semester wasn’t going to be easy, what with 18 credit hours and a very awkward schedule, but I was certainly not prepared for the constant stream of assignments and reading and research… And my procrastination definitely has not made it worst. Every other person I meet is trying their best to not get overwhelmed by the workload of the Spring semester, so at least I am not alone drowning in an ocean of academic misery.
That is not to say classes were tedious or unproductive, or that the work was meaningless. Following a week of brainstorming and putting together ideas for the Unit 1 project, our English 105i class began focusing on preparations for the next feeder assignment. After going through some routine housekeeping, Paul first went over the specifics of citations: in-text vs. bibliography, formats of different types of sources, all the good stuff. It may have seemed unnecessarily thorough, but in the context of our class, proper citation is particularly important. Referring to outside sources is a key to avoiding plagiarism, which is a serious offense in any field that requires the exchange of knowledge. As undergraduate students, we enter the fields of higher thinking standing on the shoulders of giants; it would be rude, not to mention arrogant, to disregard the foundation of knowledge built before us when we are writing our own ideas on paper. Properly citing our sources, whether it be in quotes or paraphrasing, is a great way of acknowledging the ideas that made our arguments possible.
Of course, not all prior existing information is appropriate for scholarly discourse. We must learn to identify suitable sources to use in building our own work. Bad evidence often leads to poorly supported arguments, so it was also important for us to discern good sources of evidence. In general, academic papers and experimental studies are more trustworthy than say, newsletters and video clips, but not all papers and studies are equal, as Paul would show us. We were given an exercise: evaluate the reliability of a fictional experiment on caffeine consumption and student performance and identify the flaws in the design. Our work process demonstrates that despite having all elements of a scientific experiment, the example study was designed so poorly that the data would likely be useless in providing a concrete conclusion to the initial inquiry. From the test variables and subjects to the experimental methods, all components of an experiment should be designed to provide the most accurate and relevant results possible. In this sense, when we are looking at academic sources, we should take all the elements of scientific inquiry into consideration before incorporating them into our papers. Not every aspect must be perfect, but any flaws should raise a tiny red flag of doubt, for the sake of being accurate.
From academic sources, we then moved on to popular media and learned about Paul’s hatred for misinformation. Apparently, news outlets have the unfortunate habit of misinterpreting and sensationalizing scholarly articles and research. It was very entertaining, at the very least, to look at some of the examples of how popular media take scientific studies out of context for mass consumption; I, for one, found the “smelling farts might prevent cancer” (Scientific… 2016) example highly amusing. By looking through some of these ridiculous examples, we were able to conclude the many “mistakes” popular news make that we should actively avoid in our final projects: sensationalism, fabricating evidence, disregarding any parties of interest…lest we contribute to the abundance of online misinformation.
In this spirit of exchanging knowledge and giving credit, we also workshopped our drafts of Feeder 1.1. We thought about the types of feedback we were given in the past, both useful and useless, before giving our own to our peers, and reached an understanding that specific feedback was more effective than nitpicking on grammar or spelling. Asking questions, actively exchanging thoughts rather than giving a monologue of people’s mistakes allows the author to find inspiration from another perspective. I knew personally I would prefer people to ask me “Why?” or “How? Please explain” than simply saying “You misspelled this” or “This sounds weird”. Afterward, we dove right into peer reviewing each other’s papers in pairs. Although time was limited, it was very refreshing to see how my peers interpreted and completed their assignments, which pushed me to do a better job of analyzing my paper of choice. I was also compelled to give more specific advice to my peers, and the workshop proved to be very productive in that sense.
Looking back at this week, we covered a lot of content than I remember. Despite feeling a bit burdened with assignments (in all fairness, any kind of work is a bit of a burden), I enjoyed quite a few of the reading pieces. UNC recognizes the importance of teaching students good writing habits, and I’m very grateful, if not a little bit disgruntled, for the school showing its commitment to properly educating its students in the form of this English 105i class.
On a side note, today is Lunar New Year’s Eve, and though the school is not celebrating, many clubs and organizations have planned for the festivities that come with the holiday. Even the harsh winter wind cannot dampen the high spirits of students preparing special dinners and hanging New Year’s Couplets (a pair of consecutive lines of poetry written on red paper and hung next to doors); tickets to the Spring Festival Gala sold out in a blink of an eye, and red packets are in the rage among celebrators again. And for the third week in a row, Chapel Hill has brought us snow! It might be a busy beginning to a busy semester, but Tarheels are nothing if not resilient and resourceful, and we stay strong in the face of tormenting schoolwork and frosty winds. It’s in times like these I find the strength to keep on grinding despite the nostalgia.
Happy Lunar New Year!
References
Scientific Studies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). YouTube, uploaded by LastWeekTonight, 09 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rnq1NpHdmw
Featured Image Source:
Year of the Tiger. 2021. now that’s logistics, 31 Jan. 2022, https://nowthatslogistics.com/preparing-for-chinese-new-year-2022/.