I wish someone would burn the damn college down.

My illustrious English 3 teacher assigned an essay assignment. Normally this would not be a problem, as i can pull a fairly decent essay out of my a** (not literally) every time and turn it in without too much hassle. writing is a skill of mine, I've always had it. in past years, I could go through writing classes on cruise control while everyone else busted their a**es over writing something coherent.

This time, it's not so easy.

The assignment in question is a simple comparison essay, but of al lthe topics to assign, this one has to be the most esoteric and illogical that I have ever written:

"What are the basic differences in the values, beliefs, or backgrounds of the authors that lead to their conflicting perspectives in these articles?" (re: affirmative action, racial profiling, or any other race-related subject). This is asinine b/c the stuff I did find was written from a neutral standpoint and the author did not mention their backgrounds or beliefs. Everything was presented on an as-is basis. F***ing wonderful. I guess I'll have to make s*** up to have something to write about.

The part that really pisses me off is that we are limited to newspaper or magazine articles, no internet. ( The logic being that the CSU (cal state university) campuses do not permit internet sources in student papers, b/c the internet consists mostly of opinion. ) The f***ing morons in charge of uni don't seem to realize that you get opinion in offline sources, too. That's no reason to force us to live in the f***ing stone age. A**holes.

Finding sources for this is a pain in the a**. I've been to magazine stands and combed through countless magazines and found only one article in Newsweek. (which happens to be about a quarter of a page in length) and I need two sources. I have to write 3-5 pages on this and I'll have to add a s***load of filler to meet the quota when all I have is a little block of text.

Do you have any idea how much it pisses me off to be able to google "affirmative action" and get countless articles that have exactly what I need to write this paper? Who appointed these stupid douches at uni to have authority over me when they show their ignorance by pulling s*** like this on students?




So, post the most asinine thing that your school has ever done to you.

It blocked IRC ports and proxies.

That's about it.

An essay topic I once was given was, "What if all circular objects in the world turned into triangles?" That was fun.....

1) Google it
2) Find online sources that also have printed publications
3)
4) Profit

Gave me a £15/hour job.

Schools not wanting online sources is pretty common, at least out here where I am. Heck, my high school would hardly let us use online sources. If I remember right, I was limited to like 1 or 2 out of the 6-10 I was required. The rest had to be all print. Go with what CadetLee said. I can always find lots of good sources online that are also in print, and you can get the stuff you need for a bibliography off their pages usually as well.

My last college English class's last paper (class was ENC2301..Advanced Composition) had a resource restriction; we were only allowed one internet source.

That doesn't mean you can't research online, though...you can easily use the internet to find sources that fit what you need.

My entire Greek history course this year. The prof rambles on and on about seemingly nothing, then tests us on it. I actually have a test in a couple days. If it weren't for textbooks and those 'dreadful' online sources, my *** would be grass.

I can't wait for the essay. He's allowing us to do it on whatever we want within the covered timeline of the course.

That is EXACTLY what my Psych teacher does. I want to shoot him... GTA style. He is the ONLY teacher I have ever had that has the ability to talk for 50+ minutes STRAIGHT and never say anything of any importance at all.

I hate that man. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. And I hate the fact that I can only miss (in this case, read "skip") the class 8 times during the semester.

BAH!

He's a psych teacher, and I swear to you that he needs a psychologist himself.

I've been able to get away with using internet sources for papers (CSU San Marcos)

Actually, you get almost nothing but opinion from ANY source. Unless it's some reporting of data pretty much every media imparts an opinion. At least with the internet you have access to more of them. Now it's not necessarily a bad thing that opinions are part of reports. It's just bad when they camouflage them.

Talk to people who are a few years ahead of you in your course. They probably did it a year or two ago, and might be able to give you some pointers.

Just find an internet source and cite it's sources as your sources.

Easy :p

Most newspapers and magazines put their printed material online. And like Detty said, fuse the net to find some stuff that works for you and use the sources that are cited there.

I've always been able to use online sources, but the need to be peer reviewed or from credible news sources.

You know you are paying them to teach you, not to force their stupid opinions on the validity of sources on you. It's your money and your education...

Yes, because we know in the real world people don't care about getting information from credible sources. Darn those teachers forcing their crazy ideas on us.

Validity of sources is extremely important . . . if you want to graduate, go to grad school, succeed in grad school, not be laughed at, be published in your field, write a PhD disertation. I can go on if you want me to.

Indeed. Hate Mizzou.

Oh yes, Sharon Ryan and Dr. T.G. Engel are the worst professors I know of, ever. There's even a Facebook group at our university entitled "Engel killed my GPA."

MWF class? oh, i can miss 6 of thoes classes
TT class? i can miss a grand total of 2

*#$% i need to skip more damit!

also; at my collage, were limited to the sources that the professor gives you. cause thay dont want to go chacing round the libary or internet to see if your stuff is credible.

oh yah. visitation ends at 12 AM... and there anal about it too.

lets see.... thay have rules abotu sex... you cant have any on this campous.

hurray for private schools, not.

Oh no! Normally you could put no effort into an assignment, but this time, you're going to have to actually do some work. How horrible!

Seriously. Get a grip.

Googling for information isn't the only way. Perhaps you could go to your campus library, and read some of the journals they have in there? You know, where they keep all those pieces of paper that are bound together in what we call "books". Yeah, some Stone Age invention, where you have to physically turn the pages to get to the information you want. Crazy, eh?

Apparently capitalization is not a skill of yours.


You knew it was coming.

wow... I'm allowed to get all of my sources off the internet(I go to PSU, Penn State University, in case you were wondering). The only teacher who has problem with that says to just get 2 or more sources on the same subject to check for accuarcy.

Page: Det gave you pretty much the answer I was going to give you. Just check those sources if they are valid.

That's a pretty stupid topic, pagewizard.

Generally I've found that you can get away with inferring things from the text in question instead of actually researching their beliefs and backgrounds.

South Carolina and Georgia have online periodical collections (Real things, stored online). Those things are a godsend. You can find stuff there that you would never run across in a library. Send me a PM if you want the access info for it.