College - advice from the other side....
 

Many of us worry about preparing our children to succeed in college, should they wish to go. Right now I'm working as a graduate teaching assistant and my job is to grade papers. So I thought I'd offer some suggestion for how to prepare your student to write a research paper:

Teach them about voice. Telling your professor you are going to give them the 'hot take' on a subject or reference TikTok as a place you learn a lot is not the 'voice' of an academic paper. Submitting a paper to a PhD. who specializes in women's health should not include verbiage such as 'you might be wondering if you should be worried about this...'

Teach them the difference between a research paper and a persuasive paper. Leaving out important information to make your opinion look like the only right choice is not appropriate.

Teach them to read the directions. If it says four pages, it means four pages. If it says five sources, it means five sources. Remind them to reread the directions before submitting the assignment. The first thing the grader is going to read before grading should be the last thing the student reads before submitting.

Teach them that writing does not have to happen in isolation. Ask people to read their work, listen to them read their work, ask for help when they need it. What we do as homeschoolers is optimal for improvement, it's not just because our kids are at home with parents.

Teach them to proof read beyond the spell checker. Check the basics - does it list the correct professor, for example.

If your topic had to be approved, do NOT change it without approval.

Make sure they know that a real person is going to read this paper and if you make things up, they are very likely to catch you (and it will magnify all the other errs you made). I just read a paper that discussed the beginning of Birth Plans in the early 2000s. Clearly having had babies in the 1990s when birth plans were very common place meant everything else she wrote was suspect.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

excellent advice.

sad that you have to give such advice.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

Thank you for making it in to a consis list.

If it would be ok I might copy them out to share with early bird in a year or so.

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Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

:tu

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

Feel free. I'm working on a list to post at the beginning of next semester. This is just my second semester grading and its depressing to read some of these papers.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

It amazes me that they not only got through high school, but also a bachelor's degree and still turn in papers like this.

The idea of getting your topic approved is one they might not have encountered as an undergrad. But the rest should be old habit by the time you get to grad school.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

yes, I agree. It is baffling and concerning honestly.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

No. :no They are undergrads. I grade because it's how I get my grad school tuition waived and a stipend. BUT some of them are seniors, so it's close.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

Good advice. And I'll be honest, homeschoolers have a advantage here if their parents are teaching these things. Because quite frankly the schools aren't. I don't think this is a unique situation you're seeing -- now that my children are of college age, I'm seeing more and more college papers, talking academically to college students, etc., and honestly, I've been startled.

Where we've failed them... I'm not entirely sure. But absolutely we (our society as a whole) have failed this generation of young adults (for the most part) in the education front I strongly believe.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

I’ve proofed and edited for people at work and realized Ds who I was so concerned about due to learning issue already writes better than most college seniors. It’s shocking.

Dd1 skated through both English classes required for her degree w almost no effort obtaining A’’s. And it’s not the school cuz it’s Not true for science gen Ed’s especially and for sure not core classes of her surgical tech degree is actually cut throat and brutal (she’s in core semester 1 and the clas dropped from 8 to 5 and they are not even finished w the semester- she’s not struggling and has an A average right now but it’s really hard work)

Sharing that to say , it seems to me English skills from High school seem to be sorely lacking compared w the other gen Ed’s and college students are showing it.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

I highly recommend the Analytical Grammar workbooks.

https://demmelearning.com/products/analytical-grammar/

We are doing the orange and yellow books with a 5th & 8th grader. Green will be used in high school. Green can be used by younger kids who are motivated.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

My suggestion is IEW college essay preparation. That’s what dd1 did

Another great College prep writing program is fortuigence.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

"females are the only species that reproduce" I'm just going to leave that with you to ponder.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

I'm thrilled you brought this up. The grammar books we're loving have a $22 curriculum that covers everything you're mentioning. :). It's for 8th-12th.

Re: College - advice from the other side....
 

What book?

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---------- Post added at 08:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 AM ----------

But who do females reproduce with since I though one of the characteristics of a species is they only produce young, that can reproduce, with in the same species?

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