APA and Online Submissions
Today at the writing center we had some questions about APA formatting. A couple of tutors and myself went through a couple of manuals that had APA summaries, as well as the official APA manual, and could not find anything about the rules of bulleting.
The student’s professor had some kind of problem with her listing of points in a bulleted format, but she couldn’t remember, or didn’t know, what his suggestion or problem with the formatting was in general. She wasn’t sure if it was a spacing or indenting problem, or if he wanted her to take the whole thing out. In looking in the manual, we found the rubric for a listing of points in a paragraph format, but could not find anything about using bullets in an APA paper, either for or against.
In looking through the manual, our agitated confusion was worsened by the several, almost perversely proliferating number of bullets used in the manual to organize the explanation of APA formatting. Nothing on bullet formatting could be found, but every three pages of text had bulleted information telling anything and everything about APA formatting we didn’t want to know.
I’m not sure if the other tutors would agree, but I’m willing to concede simple operator error, knowing full well I have been too distracted this week to even operate a simple style guide. I will have to look through the APA manual at a different time unless any of you know the rule.
Also, it has been interesting trying to help the many papers coming in from LeTournoue’s (spelling?) class concerning the place/rights/struggles of women. There have been papers asking about the question of whether they provide enough common ground with their audience, if they have considered their argument well (both in supporting the argument and considering the opposing argument), and in trying to help them, I have noticed it has been hard not to get sucked into debating the issue with them.
For me, this isn’t much of a problem when the student comes into the writing center and I am dealing with them one-on-one. However, for the online submissions, I find my strategies for tutoring have to be completely reconsidered. When I have a five page paper submitted online, with the author mainly concerned about audience, and the rest of her paper quite clear of most other global and local issues, it is hard to address what the student might want to consider in addressing her target audience without sounding like you are trying to argue with them.
It is a little strange because you are telling the student to consider their audience, establish common ground, anticipating questions and concerns they might have concerning the main and supporting arguments, while you the tutor are trying to write your suggestions in a way that establishes common ground with the student, anticipating their questions and concerns with your advice. The comments you give the student in an online session have to carry a main point concerning writing that is, however, carrying several other implicit sub-meanings that communicate to the student that you are not attacking their argument.
This is especially needed in online sessions dealing with controversial subject matter, and especially when the student is asking you if their rhetorical constructs and considerations are sound. In asking this, they are asking you to consider how the argument is presented and what counter-arguments need to be taken into consideration. Answers to such questions will have to do with fallacy and logic, asking the student to consider opposing arguments they may be violently against in their paper.
I had never thought about online submission in that much detail before, but they present the need for different rhetorical strategies in order to apply our tutoring skills.
The student’s professor had some kind of problem with her listing of points in a bulleted format, but she couldn’t remember, or didn’t know, what his suggestion or problem with the formatting was in general. She wasn’t sure if it was a spacing or indenting problem, or if he wanted her to take the whole thing out. In looking in the manual, we found the rubric for a listing of points in a paragraph format, but could not find anything about using bullets in an APA paper, either for or against.
In looking through the manual, our agitated confusion was worsened by the several, almost perversely proliferating number of bullets used in the manual to organize the explanation of APA formatting. Nothing on bullet formatting could be found, but every three pages of text had bulleted information telling anything and everything about APA formatting we didn’t want to know.
I’m not sure if the other tutors would agree, but I’m willing to concede simple operator error, knowing full well I have been too distracted this week to even operate a simple style guide. I will have to look through the APA manual at a different time unless any of you know the rule.
Also, it has been interesting trying to help the many papers coming in from LeTournoue’s (spelling?) class concerning the place/rights/struggles of women. There have been papers asking about the question of whether they provide enough common ground with their audience, if they have considered their argument well (both in supporting the argument and considering the opposing argument), and in trying to help them, I have noticed it has been hard not to get sucked into debating the issue with them.
For me, this isn’t much of a problem when the student comes into the writing center and I am dealing with them one-on-one. However, for the online submissions, I find my strategies for tutoring have to be completely reconsidered. When I have a five page paper submitted online, with the author mainly concerned about audience, and the rest of her paper quite clear of most other global and local issues, it is hard to address what the student might want to consider in addressing her target audience without sounding like you are trying to argue with them.
It is a little strange because you are telling the student to consider their audience, establish common ground, anticipating questions and concerns they might have concerning the main and supporting arguments, while you the tutor are trying to write your suggestions in a way that establishes common ground with the student, anticipating their questions and concerns with your advice. The comments you give the student in an online session have to carry a main point concerning writing that is, however, carrying several other implicit sub-meanings that communicate to the student that you are not attacking their argument.
This is especially needed in online sessions dealing with controversial subject matter, and especially when the student is asking you if their rhetorical constructs and considerations are sound. In asking this, they are asking you to consider how the argument is presented and what counter-arguments need to be taken into consideration. Answers to such questions will have to do with fallacy and logic, asking the student to consider opposing arguments they may be violently against in their paper.
I had never thought about online submission in that much detail before, but they present the need for different rhetorical strategies in order to apply our tutoring skills.
posted by Anonymous at 7:00 PM
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