Citing Your Work – Comments, Comments, Comments!

MYP – TIK208
Linking Subject: History/English

Why the rubrics look the way they do.

Here is the rubric for this assignment. I know that being good students none of you have skipped over it when reading the assignment, so I am merely drawing your attention to the part highlighted in green and bolded.

Now, all things considered, this highlight comments section is only one part out of four. And the parts aren't even weighted evenly. Comments aren't worth as much as the other parts since the other parts are much harder. So why am I going on about it?

This is ACTUAL data collected from 97 final marks in TIK208. I took all of my students and classified them into 5 catagories. Then, I took an average of their final grades for each category of student. (This was real data. I'm amazed at how well it turned out - it looks fake, it proves my point so well!)

1 - Stole blocks of code from other students without sourceing. avg. 61 2 - Stole blocks of code from the internet without sourcing. avg. 67 3 - No stealing, no citing. avg. 70 4 - Cited their ASCII art. avg. 84 5 - Cited their code sources. avg. 91

Even though the citations counted for almost nothing in their final marks, really good students cite their sources. Teachers learn to look for good students this way: good students know where their data is coming from. If you want to look like a good student, you ought to cite your sources.

Questions.

Go to: Modern Language Association (MLA) http://www.mla.org/style/style_faq/style_faq4

(This information is summarized in your planner on page 35.)

1. Why do you need to include the various pieces? Copy this into Word and match them properly.

2. How is each item sourced? Copy this into Word and match them properly.

3. According to the above rubric, what level should each student get for their comments?

1. //Name: Sarah Soda
   //Date: Feb 2, 2007
   //Purpose: To Make a Magic 8 Ball
   
2. //Name: Sarah Soda
   //Date: Feb 2, 2007
   //Purpose: To Make a Magic 8 Ball
   //picture from: Escher, Ian. My Great Pictures. 12 Jan. 2003. 23 May 2007 <www.greatpics.com>.
   
3. //Name: Sarah Soda
   //Date: Feb 2, 2007
   //Purpose: To Make a Magic 8 Ball
   //picture from www.greatpics.com

4. Provide the correct citation for the following things.

1. The tetrahedron from http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~mnaylor/ascii/platonics.html (Original context is on: http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~mnaylor/ascii/)
2. The "Hello World" code on http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/getStarted/application/index.html
3. Something created with this ASCII art generator: http://www.network-science.de/ascii/
4. The Edwardian train station partway down the page on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art

5. Why is the order of a bibliography listing the way it is? (Take an educated guess - why do you think the author's name and the title are first?).

Author's Last Name, First Name. Title of site. Last Changed Date. Page Range. Last Accessed Date <URL>.

6. Look at the MLA's Frequently Asked Questions page. http://www.mla.org/style_faq

1. According to the MLA, should you use italics or underlining for titles? (What if you firmly believe, as Ms. Gorski does, that underlining is evil becuase it cuts off the descenders of letters?)
2. According to the MLA, is it OK that < > get turned to links in Word?
3. If you are citing a web source with no numbers, what do you do?

7. From purely a marks standpoint (ignoring ethics): Is it better to pass off work as your own and have no citations or borrow the code and cite your sources? Justify your response.

8. History teachers report that it is the weaker students who plagiarize. Which would you say marks a better student in History: the number of quotes inside their essay or the number of sources in their bibliograph? Why?

9. Do you agree with the hierarchy of skills in the comments section of the rubric? Justify your response. If you don't agree, what would be better?