Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Yesterday I had a paper from BioMed 1110 about Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). As the student read, I realized he used the phrase "Guillain-Barre Syndrome" in every sentence. When I mentioned to him that he could abbreviate it to GBS as I just did above, he explained that he had considered doing so but that he wanted to write it out so it would take up more space and therefore make his paper longer. I could sympathize with this, but he could have saved himself some carpal tunnel by abbreviating!
As we reviewed the rest of his paper, I had almost nothing constructive to say about the content. Luckily, he composed sentences with some skill, so I did not have to correct any punctuation or grammar. We ended up focusing on APA format, which also turned out to be easy because he had already showed his paper to his professor. She had taken the time to mark each one of his in-text citations. With all of that done, we looked at the References page. This was a mess. We pulled out the APA pamphlet from the Writing Center and covered a few of the entries. From there, he felt comfortable enough to take the pamphlet with him and finish formatting the rest.
Things got confusing when he asked me what I thought of the material he had covered. He asked a lot of questions, which made the session successful and interesting, but he wanted to know if his section on "Ethics" belonged. Wow. I did not know. I have never been a doctor or studied GBS (surprise, I know). I did not know if that section needed to be covered. So, I bluffed. I took a few minutes to read the paragraph silently to myself, rereading the last sentence several times to give my brain some time to think. Then, it came to me. He could combine the "Ethics" section with the "Etiology" section. Because the "Ethics" part talked about a possibility of the flu vaccine causing GBS (why do we have such an irrational fear of vaccines?), it would fit nicely with the other causes of the disease. So, that is what I suggested. He seemed impressed. I felt relieved.
On a side note, his last name is the same as my mother's maiden name, so we talked genealogy for a while. His family and mine both hail from California, so it looks as if I may have found a long lost cousin. I may have to drill my grandma on this before I can be sure.
As we reviewed the rest of his paper, I had almost nothing constructive to say about the content. Luckily, he composed sentences with some skill, so I did not have to correct any punctuation or grammar. We ended up focusing on APA format, which also turned out to be easy because he had already showed his paper to his professor. She had taken the time to mark each one of his in-text citations. With all of that done, we looked at the References page. This was a mess. We pulled out the APA pamphlet from the Writing Center and covered a few of the entries. From there, he felt comfortable enough to take the pamphlet with him and finish formatting the rest.
Things got confusing when he asked me what I thought of the material he had covered. He asked a lot of questions, which made the session successful and interesting, but he wanted to know if his section on "Ethics" belonged. Wow. I did not know. I have never been a doctor or studied GBS (surprise, I know). I did not know if that section needed to be covered. So, I bluffed. I took a few minutes to read the paragraph silently to myself, rereading the last sentence several times to give my brain some time to think. Then, it came to me. He could combine the "Ethics" section with the "Etiology" section. Because the "Ethics" part talked about a possibility of the flu vaccine causing GBS (why do we have such an irrational fear of vaccines?), it would fit nicely with the other causes of the disease. So, that is what I suggested. He seemed impressed. I felt relieved.
On a side note, his last name is the same as my mother's maiden name, so we talked genealogy for a while. His family and mine both hail from California, so it looks as if I may have found a long lost cousin. I may have to drill my grandma on this before I can be sure.
posted by Emily Petersen at 10:07 AM
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