Hello everyone:

How often do you think that an article starts on page one of a journal? It doesn’t. [There are all sorts of things that appear first, like the title page and Table of Contents, to name two.]

The surprising thing to me is how often students will cite page one as their go-to page for an in-text citation. Just this past week, I asked two different students to put page numbers with their direct quotes in two different papers and both students cited page one for all of their in-text citations for the entire document.

Did they think I didn’t notice??????? Come on, people. Your laziness or lack of intellectual integrity is showing! This told me that neither student read any further than the abstract, so it was impossible for them to have any depth of understanding of the article that followed.

Maybe you are rushed for time….I understand that, but I will mark you down for this type of thing, and I will make a note in my personal grade book that I will have to keep an eye on you for the rest of the term. That means everything you write for me will receive additional scrutiny.  Be forewarned.

What is the stupidest thing a friend of yours has done academically? I would love to hear that story, to share with my readers.

Best,

Dr. Sheri