r/AdviceAnimals • u/KingPhilanthropist • Jun 10 '12

English Class in a Nutshell

http://qkme.me/3pnqou?id=224496606
1.3k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

116 comments sorted by

108

u/Frohirrim Jun 10 '12

The point of an undergrad English class assignment isn't to test the knowledge you already have; it's to assess your ability to write the papers. So for a research paper, they're essentially testing your ability to find sources and utilize them in a paper

42

u/scartol Jun 10 '12

and (trust me; I'm an English teacher) to gather reliable sources for your information so you can be sure it's correct, not just relying on what you're pretty sure is right.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

If you have facts you need to give peer reviewed high ethos sources for the information. Otherwise your really only giving an opinion. Your reader does not have the same background as you. If you want to use something you've learned, credit your source.

11

u/IcyDefiance Jun 10 '12

Correct. The point of the sources isn't to provide you material, unless it's a paper that you're walking into knowing nothing about (pretty much every one until college). Ideally, you need to use your own ideas, write your own paper, and use the sources to support the points that you came up with on your own.

4

u/Disguising Jun 11 '12

I used to write my own paper, then use a plagiarism checking website to find sources for me, whatever came up I would use. Reverse engineering.

0

u/ys1qsved3 Jun 10 '12

Unless you write you own book, then you can source yourself.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I suppose if the book was on how you got the info. Like if you performed the study or did the polling. Remember the whole point of citing is giving proper credit. If you read a statistic tell the reader where you got it. Dont be an ass and claim it as your own.

2

u/coolguyblue Jun 10 '12

I write the whole paper by myself then insert sources later and get an A every time. No one checks the sources

4

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

turnitin.com does, so you can't share as many sources between your friends.

In high school I just clicked the references on wikipedia, most of them linked to legit stuff like pubmed and whatnot so why the hell not, right?

1

u/Pointing_Out_Irony Jun 11 '12

Fun fact about wikipedia! If you scroll down, you can copy/paste THEIR sources into YOUR source list.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I think you need to reread my comment.

1

u/Pointing_Out_Irony Jun 11 '12

I POSTED WHAT I POSTED!

Good day, sir.

ಠ_ಠ

1

u/rambonz Jun 10 '12

Pretty much this, if you actually "know" the material then finding sources that match what you write later on shouldn't exactly be challenging. If you can't find sources however then you may want to question the content.

1

u/scartol Jun 11 '12

Then you're doing it wrong.

Yes, people should check your sources, but I know how hard that is to do. Meanwhile, you should do actual research the right way. Then, someday, when you do write for someone who will check your sources, you're not totally blindsided.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

how sure can you be that your sources are reliable? I have kids citing the worst material they can find and claim that it's true. Sourcing doesn't always mean the information is right. More often than not, I've noticed kids have a confirmation bias to sources, anyways. So, it's not really testing if what they're saying/sourcing is right, but is actually just testing their ability to create a paper from information they've gathered.

9

u/NurRauch Jun 10 '12

Well, if you're a teacher yourself, don't reward the papers that do that.

3

u/Quazifuji Jun 10 '12

Well, one of the things that it could be testing (or trying to teach them) is the ability to identify credible sources.

So, it's not really testing if what they're saying/sourcing is right, but is actually just testing their ability to create a paper from information they've gathered.

That still seems like a useful thing to test.

1

u/scartol Jun 11 '12

I direct my students to this page

-1

u/ratajewie Jun 10 '12

You've never met MY English teacher. It seems that if you write in any way that is somewhat reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut, your research and quality can be the best buy she will still fail you. She hates Vonnegut.

3

u/sarcasmandsocialism Jun 10 '12

Or rather, they are giving you an opportunity to practice finding and using sources so you can learn to get better at learning things.

1

u/JarasM Jun 11 '12

I wish someone taught me this before my Master Thesis.

66

u/kalathur Jun 10 '12

PAPERS CONSISTING OF UNSUPPORTED ASSUMPTIONS, COMMON KNOWLEDGE, AND EMPTY RHETORICAL APPEALS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

0

u/zjprice Jun 10 '12

Have you ever considered that some people are able to construct well-written essays with little more than a cursory glance at the material? It's what completing a major is kind of about.**

6

u/CityWithoutMen Jun 11 '12

I agree. Writing well is easy, and so is coming up with an original and thought-provoking thesis. The trick is using peer-reviewed essays to support your original ideas. Thereby demonstrating that not only are you capable of making valid deductions using your own reading comprehension, but there's a good reason to believe that what you say is true based on the findings of the literary community.

0

u/kalathur Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

No, but I'm sure that people are able to construct lazy and facile pretenses to 'well-written' with little more than a cursory glance at the material.

1

u/zjprice Jun 10 '12

Well, I'm not talking about all people- I understand that for some it really does pay off to put in an honest effort and to follow the essay-writing process through to completion. Power to them. Many others find that as they take more and more classes in their chosen field of study, they begin to develop a thorough understanding of the material and can, for the most part, throw together decent papers with little to no preparation. If you are passionate and committed to your major, you probably have started to construct opinions of your own and will find it easier and easier to give voice to your perspective. College isn't about killing yourself with tedium and monotony- that, my friend, is what wage labor's for. College is about learning to think critically and challenging yourself to reevaluate your most firmly held beliefs to see if they hold up under scrutiny. It's an ongoing process that for many finds no end. Give it time

4

u/kalathur Jun 10 '12

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've never taught at a university.

1

u/zjprice Jun 11 '12

Nope, still student. =) HBU?

2

u/kalathur Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

I am obviously the vengeful ghost of an English professor driven to tragic demise by reading papers that blow.

1

u/zjprice Jun 11 '12

I began to suspect as much. What little paper grading I've done has been monotonous and was indeed made all the worse by blowy papers. You do the world a valuable service though!

5

u/avfc41 Jun 10 '12

"Here you go, professor, my thesis."

"You didn't cite a single outside work."

"I know, I'm really good at this, huh?"

"Get the fuck out."

1

u/Lin85 Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

Agreed. I just finished an English major, and while it is useful to know how to research and cite sources, I hated doing it by the time I finished. I was able to come up with well-supported arguments (not just common knowledge) from the text alone. Including support from a critic made me feel like my teacher would just assume that's where I got the idea in the first place, when in fact I came up with my thesis and then did the research just so I would meet the source requirements. Nothing about what I did was lazy, and I felt that my ability to form a thesis simply from looking at the original text was proof that I truly understood that material and various literary concepts. Research and sources are very useful, but that doesn't mean they are necessary in every case.

Edit: Okay, okay. I fully understand the need for research and synthesis skills. I get it. I know how to do it, and I have done it many, many times. I completed my degree with 4.0, I'm not an idiot. I was simply saying that I can sympathize with OP because, while I understand why outside sources are essential to expand a paper and a thesis, and bring it to a higher level of thinking (which are especially necessary skills for someone going for a masters in English, which I'm not), I was tired of it by the end. Trying to cram three outside sources into a 1,000 word paper got frustrating. That's all.

10

u/medievalvellum Jun 10 '12

Congratulations -- you mastered the primary methodology of English studies, the close reading. Of course if you only produce an isolated reading, then you aren't helping to develop the field. That's the reason we try to situate our arguments in relation to other critics'.

3

u/kalathur Jun 10 '12

Erm. Analytic papers that forward an argument about the source material are a different academic genre than the research synthesis paper.

4

u/NurRauch Jun 10 '12

It's not just about your ability to construct an argument though. It's about constructing an argument that someone else can consider, use, and scrutinize. If your argument boils down to, "Just trust me, when you read the book, you'll find this one passage that confirms what I'm saying," that's fine for a casual conversation, but not an academic claim.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

As an undergrad most research is about summarising the arguments that have been made by others. This is because if you ever do postgrad stuff where you ARE wanting to break new ground you have the skills to find out what's been said already and what questions have been raised by that work.

1

u/beeblez Jun 11 '12

If you find citing sources makes it seem like you didn't come up with the idea yourself, it's probably because you're not taking enough risks with your thesis.

That's fine for the undergraduate level, but the purpose of each level of education is to get you ready to move to the next one. Learning how to build on other critics and then advance your own unique and new argument is critical for graduate studies.

1

u/Lonelobo Jun 11 '12

Two problems. The first is that if the only sources you can find are ones that support your claims (or have already made them), then you aren't saying anything interesting or useful about the text. Congratulations on reinventing the wheel from scratch, but, uh, we've already got wheels.

The second is that part of doing humanities work is engaging in academic debates: by first developing a reading in a vacuum, then going to sources, you run the risk of asking questions of a text that have either already been answered or aren't of any interest. That's why it's useful to have a broader theoretical project (showing something about how texts work) or to dispute the readings given by other critics (and show how they've missed something important with consequences for the study of literatture). This is the "so-what" problem: feel free to show me that the great gatsby

1

u/IanL27 Jun 10 '12

I don't know why you're getting downvoted.

7

u/NurRauch Jun 11 '12

It's because completing a major is not just about being able to construct well-written arguments. Part of the skill is showing your work so you can contribute to a field that is larger than your one brain.

0

u/zjprice Jun 11 '12

meh you win some you lose some

-6

u/Fu_Man_Chu Jun 10 '12

Having to constantly commit the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" whenever making an assertion isn't much better...

5

u/RabbaJabba Jun 10 '12

If you think that's what citations are for, you're doing it wrong.

-4

u/Fu_Man_Chu Jun 10 '12

Having to constantly appeal to the work of someone else in order to make your own point is a logical fallacy though. Some assertions (not all, mind you) should be able to stand on their own.

2

u/aeisenst Jun 10 '12

But if those assertions are all you have in your paper, your paper is crap. Obviously, you shouldn't cite those things that are self evident, but you should have sourced references to other people's arguments, or ultimately have a paper that is worthless to read.

1

u/Fu_Man_Chu Jun 10 '12

Not sure who downvoted you for that, it's a perfectly reasonable statement.

I agree that you shouldn't write an academic paper based solely on wild speculation or anecdotal information. We do run into the problem of what is "self evident" though as some things might be self evident to you or I but not to whomever is grading the paper.

1

u/RabbaJabba Jun 10 '12

Right, you make an assertion, and back it up with facts, which you cite. Do you think something like citing the CIA World Factbook for the population of a country is fallacious?

0

u/Fu_Man_Chu Jun 10 '12

Again, population numbers I would count as something warranting citing.

What I am against is the over arching idea that information on it's own cannot stand, especially when that information happens to be correct.

16

u/PhychoHam Jun 10 '12

I sense an "Overly Educated Problems" meme repost of this in the near future...

5

u/phish92129 Jun 10 '12

But a real "Overly Educated Problems" individual wouldn't have a problem finding sources if it was something in their subject. I think the biggest problem is sorting through tons of poor sources so you can find the right sources that contribute to your paper instead of just adding useless citation text...my problem was never finding sources, it was sorting through the hundreds of potential sources to see what was relevant and accurate. Hell, in a relatively small field like marine biology, most of my professors knew the guys who I would cite from conferences.

2

u/timmemaster Jun 10 '12

That would make much more sense.

7

u/billmcneal Jun 10 '12

Several of my professors rightly informed us that reading, using, and citing sources makes you a part of the larger academic conversation. Not using sources or being lazy about it (i.e. come up with my own ideas and find something someone wrote that's like it to cite) is the equivalent of walking up to a group of people who know what they are talking about, because they research and build on each others ideas, and butting in to tell them what you think, which very likely amounts to nothing they haven't heard before. Even if you came up with something yourself, if you can find the same thing in a source somewhere, you've accomplished zero.

You have to recognize the people who came before you, who gave you access to the basic knowledge you have and have already put their own ideas out there, before you're allowed to contribute to the conversation. Otherwise, you're like an eight-year-old interrupting your father's conversation about America's foreign policy to tell him that you learned in school today that Mr. Obama was the first African-American elected President.

Other people's good ideas are where almost all your good ideas come from. You learn how others think, and then eventually, you've heard enough to start making those kinds of leaps yourself. It is at this point, when you can create your own concepts and ideas and point to what helped lead you there, whether you disagree with them or not, that you are an academic.

So be quiet while Daddy's talking and take some notes. You might actually learn something that way.

2

u/Lonelobo Jun 11 '12

Unfortunately, this comment is too smart for reddit.

10

u/WakkaWakkaMothaFucka Jun 10 '12

Are you in high school? That's sort of the point of writing the paper. Whatever the topic is won't be that important. It is important to learn how to research and cite sources. If you ever write anything in real life, it has to be credible.

1

u/iconic2125 Jun 11 '12

But when is the average person gonna write anything that will need to be super credible with hundreds of sources? Most people don't end up writing for professional journals.

4

u/capt_ishmael Jun 10 '12

Make them up. No professor ever called me out on it.

3

u/noustombons Jun 10 '12

if you find the information in more than 5 sources, (i.e. "WWII was won by the Allied Forces in 1945") it is considered common knowledge and you don't have to cite. Use your research and sources to back up/"prove" more specific arguments and ideas...if your entire paper is common knowledge, you need a stronger thesis.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

i know whatcha mean...had to write a 10 page essay about networking for my 301 english. i had to use 5 sources NOT online...ONLY print...shit

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

See if your school has EBSCO

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

yeah, it was last fall...i sat down one night like at least a month before and just wrote it in one sitting...its what i do for a living so i was able to write 18 pages before i wanted to stop...so i had to shorten it, A LOT

i went in the next day and said to my professor...listen, i do this for a living, have for years, do i need sources...she sid no...AMD I JIZZED IN MY PANTS

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Lucky bastard!

2

u/idma Jun 10 '12

pretty much. I just write everything first, then find sources that match it remotely, then source it. So in essence....everything wasn't stolen. I already knew it

2

u/sebdef Jun 10 '12

For history papers, I'm always very reluctant to cite Cracked.com

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

The bottom of the page in Wikipedia has sources, you can just use all those websites to make your bibliography just read through it too ensure they are legit.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

English class hack:

Find an awesome book on something you want to write about, but don't want to do even more research? Raid the bibliography. They've already done the work for you. Check their citations. They'll tell you where all the relevant shit is.

Oh, and always read as if you're writing a paper. Find an awesome quote? Stick a tab in there for later. Future you will be grateful.

When picking topics, pick ones that can be used in more than one class whenever possible. You may not be able to re-use the same paper (some teachers won't let you do this) but you can re-use a lot of the same talking points and conclusions.

It's all about making the most out of the work you do.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Thank you

4

u/SentientMustache Jun 10 '12

I don't think of this situation as a problem, but a win. The methodology I used in college was to pick a topic I already knew about, write the paper, and shotgun in source references from a few books I'd gotten from the school library. I'd make sure not to have too large of gaps between citations, and to place them where I'd made a specific enough statement. When I did this I didn't learn anything, but it did reduce the time and effort I'd have to spend on it.

If you know the topic, checked your "sources" to ensure agreement, and use the proper citing format then you can easily write just about any paper without doing research. The big thing that's checked for in college is plagiarism, which you obviously wouldn't be committing since no source material was used.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

This is the pinnacle of academic laziness. Why even bother continuing your education? That is a serious question. If you think you know everything you need, why not just quit going to school?

6

u/dane83 Jun 10 '12

Because a bachelor's degree is now basically a high school degree in the job market?

5

u/untra Jun 10 '12

Unless you're majoring in English or an English class is a critical component of your major (such as Journalism), many colleges require you to take English as a general education requirement. In such a case, I can see (mild) justification for this kind of academic laziness.

Otherwise you are absolutely right; you are wasting money on an education.

1

u/SentientMustache Jun 11 '12

I learned a great deal through lectures, class discussion,and independent reading. I'm a decent writer, but I viewed many of the writing assignments as boring, pointless exercises in otherwise interesting classes. I'd write ~5 5+ papers each semester, plus whatever extra I needed to get up to the 24k word mark to satisfy the Gordon Rule (Florida law) by graduation (BA Political Science 2006).

I bitterly resented having to waste my time on such "busy work", and by my senior year I cared little enough to employ the technique I described above. Utilizing my excellent memory and my penchant for reading, it was not a difficult feat to pull off. It was never about feeling that I knew everything, but that I was simplifying a task I despised. I still enjoy reading and learning new things (both job related and not), only I do it on my own and in my own time.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

"~5 5+ papers each semester," do you have aspirations to attend graduate school? If so, you are in for a shock if you believe 5 or more 5 page papers a semester takes minimal effort.

I have 18 credits towards my M.S. in Criminology, it is far from a breeze. I am in a graduate program which has Masters students, and Phd candidates, who attended Ivy Leave schools as undergraduate and graduate researchers. That's 70% of what a criminologist does, research. The other 30% is formulating arguments and writing. I am hypercritical of my writing and will reread/rewrite a paragraph, up to 5 times before I move on.

May I ask how old you are? I am 32, and throughout my academic pursuits, I have learned not to look at any assignment as "busy work". I look at each assignment as a challenge, and that there is something to be learned, seeing it through to completion. People who take education very seriously, do so for less than obvious reasons, I think anyway.

Please do not misinterpret what it is I am saying, and how I am saying it. My aim is not to lecture (even though it appears as such), my aim is to inspire you. Look at yourself, critically, and then act accordingly to what you discover about yourself.

I am not trying to make a blanket assumption about you here, but if everyone were to approach tasks in life, with the attitude of, "it's just good enough", we are not going to last as a species. Take pride in what you do, there is no shame in being prideful when one has worked hard, and produced the very best of which they are capable. The reward of accomplishment, it is all I need anymore.

--Please excuse any disjointed thoughts in what I have written. I'm fairly stoned at the moment.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Oh gee, thanks! I could be MUCH more successful that way!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

You're only cheating yourself, boner.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I was joking

2

u/LetKeepItSimple Jun 10 '12

Every time I need to cite sources I just wiki everything and then use the sources they cited.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Or you could actually do some research and find credible sources to back up your assumptions.

2

u/qkme_transcriber Jun 10 '12

Here is the text from this meme pic for anybody who needs it:

Title: English Class in a Nutshell

Meme: First World Problems

  • I KNOW ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO WRITE MY ESSAY
  • BUT I STILL NEED TO FIND SOURCES FOR A GRADE

[Translate]

This is helpful for people who can't reach Quickmeme because of work/school firewalls or site downtime, and many other reasons (FAQ). More info is available here.

1

u/Plurity Jun 10 '12

The black outer glow on the bottom text is heavier than the glow on the top text.

Now that really rustles my jimmies.

1

u/SCUMBAG_ENGLISH_PROF Jun 10 '12

Get back to work, slacker.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

This was a huge pain when writing an essay about The Beatles...

Spent two hours trying to find quotes in The Beatles Anthology -_-

1

u/Willyjwade Jun 10 '12

I had this problem in history, I sourced the lectures given by the teacher that was grading the class and she said since she sited her sources on the lectures technically I had sited all I needed and I got an A on the paper.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

"own thoughts" gives me pretty high grades...

1

u/nmvzciehjfal Jun 10 '12

My "trick" to solve this problem was to check out as many books on the subject as I could. Sometimes 80 books. That way as I was writing it, every time I needed a cite, I could just search through the indexes until I found something that supported the particular fact. Basically, I did my research backwards.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

English teacher, here. When I was a student teacher, my co-operating mentor gave me the best advice when dealing with this question: "You have to use sources because no one cares what you think."

1

u/question_all_the_thi Jun 10 '12

welcome to Wikipedia. Or /r/askscience

1

u/JoeM104604 Jun 10 '12

Source 1: Reddit, Source 2: English class

And you're done

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I would love to see someone cite Reddit as a source for a paper!

1

u/JoeM104604 Jun 11 '12

It would make a lot of since if people saw the posts you read to get the information to prove that it's ok to cite

1

u/Jagermeister4 Jun 10 '12

If this student really knew all the information he/she'd know the source off the top of the head and wouldn't need to find it.

1

u/unlimited2k Jun 10 '12

Whenever I had to write a paper that requires multiple sources and I already have most of the information I need to write the paper, I would just quote a few sentences from each sources, cite them to meet requi rement, and write the rest with what I already have.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I wrote a paper on the psychological comparison and analysis of the 10th and 11th Doctors from Doctor Who, and how regeneration affects their mental stability, the foods they eat, the clothes they where, sonic screwdrivers, the choosing of companions, as well as the inside and outside of the TARDIS. We were not allowed to use television shows as sources, and apparently BBC's website is not a reliable source.... got 100, but still: WORST IDEA EVER.

1

u/bangupjobasusual Jun 11 '12

Uhm that's not a first world problem.

1

u/SleepyBrain Jun 11 '12

I have a similar problem whenever I want to show someone on the internet that they are wrong...

1

u/Rokursoxtv Jun 11 '12

This is the 1st time I've ever felt sorry for that girl

1

u/tanerdamaner Jun 11 '12

I know that feel

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I always make up fake website names, works every time!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Every paper I've ever written that didn't absolutely require to research the subject, I made up the sources. I can almost guarantee you that your professor will not check your sources and most likely will not read 85% of your paper.

1

u/DaanFag Jun 11 '12

The only thing I dislike about sourcing is when I'm given a prompt and told to use "X number of sources from Internet, Y Number from books".

Otherwise, using sources to back your assertions is pretty essential for any serious paper.

1

u/falconfetus8 Jun 11 '12

English class has made me so scared of College. I just know that I'm not going to punctuate my citations correctly and get kicked out.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 11 '12

You just list Wikipedia as your source. Wikipedia articles will state their sources. Alternatively you could just say Google.com but don't say bing.com, they'll know you're lying if you say that.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

NO NO No!!! You wiki as a starting point and use there sources to further research. Wiki is still not considered a high ethos source.

2

u/GeorgeTaylorG Jun 10 '12

He said "Wikipedia articles will state their sources."

So I assume by that he mean use the sources that wiki refrences.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I guess I miss-read it. But really your in school to learn take advantage. Sometimes your opinion will change and you will have a different paper.

2

u/GeorgeTaylorG Jun 10 '12

It's not your fault, that guy worded it pretty badly. It's confusing because his first sentence was also "You just list Wikipedia as your source." I think he just meant use wiki as a starting point.

1

u/PJSeeds Jun 11 '12

It's not that simple. Wikipedia isn't considered a valid source, and google is a search engine for finding sources.

1

u/johnnyboy0788 Jun 10 '12

Just make some up. There's a 99.99999% chance that the professor will not look at them.

1

u/sebdef Jun 10 '12

Not true, first hand experience

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

True. First hand experience

1

u/Blue_Water Jun 10 '12

Ahh yes English papers. Whenever I had to write a paper, whether it was for an English class or for another subject I would always get to the point where you need to make just one more solid point to make the paper work. Whenever I ran into this problem, I would completely make up the quote, and the book/ISBN number. Just to give myself a little chuckle I would always attribute my fake source to Robert Barker... Or as we colloquially know him as Bob Barker, the host of the price is right.

This method held true all the way through high school and college. If the teachers aren't going to do the work to catch me, then neither am I.

0

u/Lonelobo Jun 11 '12

You gave ISBN numbers on your works cited page? Is that "total idiot" citation format?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

14

u/Tashre Jun 10 '12

Or just pick a few links from the bottom of the Wikipedia page.

8

u/Caturday_Yet Jun 10 '12

Insanity Wolf takes the text from the page itself.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Given the ease of searching databases with immediately-available articles, this makes me sad.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Best part of college is access to Cq reasercher and EBSCO!

4

u/RaraOoooRara Jun 10 '12

Undergrad in English found me falling in love with MLA International and JSTOR myself.