I too hate this origami ripping mode they use in lieu of a stapler. It makes their papers so much harder to read. But I also can't stand the rising tradition of printing papers on both sides. Where to comment?
Easy. Lack of staple produces lower grade. I've pissed off some students (and received subsequent papers with 4 staples, and a "do I get extra credit?" written in the margin), but it only took two assignments to fix the problem.
That class had 120 students. Staples weren't a nicety, they were a minimal part of document control survivability.
I have this problem, too. I also hate the increasing use of running headers with name and such. I also hate cover pages. I think I'm ok with double-sided printing (said the Lorax, as he disappeared into his treestump)
Bah. In Applied Hamster Fur Weaving, running headers are absolutely mandatory. In fact, they're one of the things that I teach students how to do. Running headers FTW!
I keep two staplers in my desk drawer, one with staples that I use and another that I keep empty. If a student asks for a stapler, I smile and give out the empty one then feign disappointment that it is without staples and that I can't help them. Eventually, I got the reputation of being a friendly professor who does not possess basic levels of office supplies.
Excellent! As I've mentioned before, I once had a student simply walk into my office and help himself to the stapler on my desk -- no "please" or "excuse me."
I, too, have moved toward making no staple = small grade penalty. When a paper is not put together, it announces: hey! I don't give a crap about my work! Don't they know I'll find that out soon enough, when I start reading it? Maybe they're trying to save me time? They whine that they (and no one they know) do not own a stapler, but they're all over the library, which is in the same building where half of them do their printing.
The nice thing is that if I don't get the submission, I can say "it didn't show up on Blackholeboard, can you resend please? I'll be able to tell from the 'last modified' date of your document when it was finished, don't worry - you won't have late marks deducted if it was finished before the deadline."
I think as a newer poster, she doesn't realize how much we like to talk. It was agony for me seeing an empty space where the comments thread should be. I HAVE OPINIONS ON STAPLERS!!
Over here, staples take a back seat to the devices I've taken to calling Special Plastic Folders. It's a misnomer on my part, as they aren't actually folders, but they're protective sheets that, in my experience, only the most anal-retentive, ring-binder-happy students and/or office rats ever use back home. Sheets are tidily stacked and stuffed into one of these instead of stapled together, which works for initial organization, but woe be unto the proffie who decides to pull multiple papers out of their respective SPFs at once...
This is one reason I've tried to go as paperless as possible with assignments, unless a student specifically asks for written notes on hard copy.
OH. MY. GOD. Worse than no staples is when a student turns in EACH page in a separate plastic protector thingie. Pulling out each page to grade it is agony. And creates the worst static electric shock when reaching for a drink. There are worse things than no staples!!!
CM is not your diary. I think it's VERY bad form to post and then close the comments. It's alienating. As in:
HERE'S WHAT I THINK. READ IT. BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT.
If you don't want to read what people think about your post, don't post. Get one of those nice leather diaries at Barnes 'n' Noble's and scribble in that.
Maybelle is welcome and then some! Seriously!!! But we really don't cut each other a lot of breaks around here, from what I've seen. And the sooner that is understood, the better.
Or maybe it's a "Please don't jump down my throat or troll me on my first post." I just didn't have thick enough skin this weekend to deal with any trolls (we know who tends to troll CM, not accusing anyone in this room, as the trolls seem blessedly absent as of writing this). CM isn't always welcoming of the newbie's misery.
I grant you that trolls seem to strike randomly, but I can't think what even a troll would find to object to in a post on staplers. (Now THAT is a red flag.)
In the last few years, the problem took care of itself: All work is now due on-line via Blackholeboard.
Dr D, I couldn't turn in my paper because I couldn't figure out how to staple my paper electronically and the tech support wouldn't respond. So since blackboard would only allow one submission, I could only submit the title page file. The rest is here in hard copy, stapled. I hope you'll accept it. I realize I might not get full credit.
I'm sorry, but rabid wombats ate your hard copy. You will have to submit it online. You will not get credit for anything that is not submitted online, because I am in Antarctica and cannot pick up your hard copy.
Hi everyone. Yes, I hear you about the comments thing. It was Maybelle's first post. She's getting used to the page. I'd ask everyone to remember what it's like to be the new person in class, okay, especially when everyone else knows the rules and the game.
Except, well, umm.... like every other post on the web-site has comments and she had to deliberately turn them off (she even mentioned it). To me, it's a complete disregard for how things work, like turning in a paper without a staple....
This page really takes its swipes at new people or people who hold slightly different views. Maybelle is getting the normal treatment. Ridiculous. I'm only commenting now to show my support for her.
It seems to me that Maybelle's gaffe was a pretty minor one, and Richard's response was both appropriate and inspired (though like F&T, I'm finding Dr. Tingle's increasing tendency toward rhyme a bit disorienting).
Welcome, Maybelle! I carried one of those mini-staplers for many years (though it was more often than not broken or out of staples, so maybe I was using Ben's tactic by default). Now, like Dr. D. and others, I receive papers electronically. The electronic equivalent of not using a staple is, I think, putting the bibliography in a separate file (with no name included in the file or the file name), or, alternatively, putting a crucial note in that stupid "comment" box, the contents of which download, and have to be opened, separately from the main file, and which I'd love to turn off but can't.
OMG--YES! I have an assignment where students respond to various prompts. Invariably, I'll have some idiot who posts the questions and answers in four separate documents. WHY?
Your style has changed, Professor Tingle. You used to write free verse. What accounts for the change?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen I aim to be serious,
ReplyDeletemy verse it is free,
when a joke I hope to utter
rhyming comes to me!
Thank you for this space, Sir Richard.
ReplyDeleteI too hate this origami ripping mode they use in lieu of a stapler. It makes their papers so much harder to read. But I also can't stand the rising tradition of printing papers on both sides. Where to comment?
Maybelle! Turn the comments on!
I shall fight
ReplyDeleteFor Maybelle's right
To turn off comments
Day or night.
But the more seldom the better.
DeleteThanks. It was just for my first post. I had no idea what muddy waters turning off comments would stir...
DeleteEasy. Lack of staple produces lower grade. I've pissed off some students (and received subsequent papers with 4 staples, and a "do I get extra credit?" written in the margin), but it only took two assignments to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteThat class had 120 students. Staples weren't a nicety, they were a minimal part of document control survivability.
I don't give a FUCK if it is stapled or not, but I have a rule that says "Anyone who says WORD ONE to me about a stapler gets a D".
DeleteI have this problem, too. I also hate the increasing use of running headers with name and such. I also hate cover pages. I think I'm ok with double-sided printing (said the Lorax, as he disappeared into his treestump)
ReplyDeleteBah. In Applied Hamster Fur Weaving, running headers are absolutely mandatory. In fact, they're one of the things that I teach students how to do. Running headers FTW!
DeleteAnd two-sided printing saves trees! But I do everything by electronic submission now, so it doesn't make any difference.
DeleteI keep two staplers in my desk drawer, one with staples that I use and another that I keep empty. If a student asks for a stapler, I smile and give out the empty one then feign disappointment that it is without staples and that I can't help them. Eventually, I got the reputation of being a friendly professor who does not possess basic levels of office supplies.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic. I'm stealing this.
DeleteExcellent! As I've mentioned before, I once had a student simply walk into my office and help himself to the stapler on my desk -- no "please" or "excuse me."
DeleteI, too, have moved toward making no staple = small grade penalty. When a paper is not put together, it announces: hey! I don't give a crap about my work! Don't they know I'll find that out soon enough, when I start reading it? Maybe they're trying to save me time? They whine that they (and no one they know) do not own a stapler, but they're all over the library, which is in the same building where half of them do their printing.
ReplyDeleteStaples?
ReplyDeleteWhat's this paper thing you're all using?
I give this 1000 appreciation points.
DeleteAs a bonus, if you move to all electronic submissions, you will catch fewer grody diseases from your students. Fact.
DeleteHow many emails do you get that say "I submitted on Blackholeboard, did you get it?"
DeleteNot that many, and I ignore them. Then, when the students come to me in class and say "did you get my email?" I say "no."
DeleteThe nice thing is that if I don't get the submission, I can say "it didn't show up on Blackholeboard, can you resend please? I'll be able to tell from the 'last modified' date of your document when it was finished, don't worry - you won't have late marks deducted if it was finished before the deadline."
DeleteThey hate this.
It's a meditation, therefore comments are off? I don't get it. Is the meditation in protest of unstapled papers?
ReplyDeleteI think as a newer poster, she doesn't realize how much we like to talk. It was agony for me seeing an empty space where the comments thread should be. I HAVE OPINIONS ON STAPLERS!!
DeleteMy students' crap comes in online, but I also have opinions about staples! I'm glad we all got our chance to vent.
DeleteMaybelle, thanks for the meditation: now, please join the conversation so we can commiserate over the lack of staples.
Over here, staples take a back seat to the devices I've taken to calling Special Plastic Folders. It's a misnomer on my part, as they aren't actually folders, but they're protective sheets that, in my experience, only the most anal-retentive, ring-binder-happy students and/or office rats ever use back home. Sheets are tidily stacked and stuffed into one of these instead of stapled together, which works for initial organization, but woe be unto the proffie who decides to pull multiple papers out of their respective SPFs at once...
ReplyDeleteThis is one reason I've tried to go as paperless as possible with assignments, unless a student specifically asks for written notes on hard copy.
I've tried without success to find an online version of the "Calvin and Hobbes" meditation on the magical powers of clear plastic folders.
DeleteOH. MY. GOD. Worse than no staples is when a student turns in EACH page in a separate plastic protector thingie. Pulling out each page to grade it is agony. And creates the worst static electric shock when reaching for a drink. There are worse things than no staples!!!
Deletehttp://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/11/02
Deletelooks like the one, Lucy.
CM is not your diary. I think it's VERY bad form to post and then close the comments. It's alienating. As in:
ReplyDeleteHERE'S WHAT I THINK. READ IT. BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT.
If you don't want to read what people think about your post, don't post. Get one of those nice leather diaries at Barnes 'n' Noble's and scribble in that.
Seriously, Maybelle's brand new. She's getting used to the process. Let us all cut her a break on this, okay?
DeleteMaybelle is welcome and then some! Seriously!!! But we really don't cut each other a lot of breaks around here, from what I've seen. And the sooner that is understood, the better.
DeleteOr maybe it's a "Please don't jump down my throat or troll me on my first post." I just didn't have thick enough skin this weekend to deal with any trolls (we know who tends to troll CM, not accusing anyone in this room, as the trolls seem blessedly absent as of writing this). CM isn't always welcoming of the newbie's misery.
DeleteHi. Don't eat me. Despite my avatar.
I think assuming that people are going to troll you and then stating that is pretty much a red rag to a bull, to continue the cow metaphor.
DeleteI grant you that trolls seem to strike randomly, but I can't think what even a troll would find to object to in a post on staplers. (Now THAT is a red flag.)
DeleteWe have multiple sites in our area and... I'm not lugging a stapler around.
ReplyDeleteIn the last few years, the problem took care of itself: All work is now due on-line via Blackholeboard.
In the last few years, the problem took care of itself: All work is now due on-line via Blackholeboard.
DeleteDr D, I couldn't turn in my paper because I couldn't figure out how to staple my paper electronically and the tech support wouldn't respond. So since blackboard would only allow one submission, I could only submit the title page file. The rest is here in hard copy, stapled. I hope you'll accept it. I realize I might not get full credit.
I'm sorry, but rabid wombats ate your hard copy. You will have to submit it online. You will not get credit for anything that is not submitted online, because I am in Antarctica and cannot pick up your hard copy.
DeleteHi everyone. Yes, I hear you about the comments thing. It was Maybelle's first post. She's getting used to the page. I'd ask everyone to remember what it's like to be the new person in class, okay, especially when everyone else knows the rules and the game.
ReplyDeleteExcept, well, umm.... like every other post on the web-site has comments and she had to deliberately turn them off (she even mentioned it). To me, it's a complete disregard for how things work, like turning in a paper without a staple....
Delete;)
Gees people. Just relax.
ReplyDeleteThis page really takes its swipes at new people or people who hold slightly different views. Maybelle is getting the normal treatment. Ridiculous. I'm only commenting now to show my support for her.
ReplyDeleteI was scared off by gang tactics a while ago.
It seems to me that Maybelle's gaffe was a pretty minor one, and Richard's response was both appropriate and inspired (though like F&T, I'm finding Dr. Tingle's increasing tendency toward rhyme a bit disorienting).
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Maybelle! I carried one of those mini-staplers for many years (though it was more often than not broken or out of staples, so maybe I was using Ben's tactic by default). Now, like Dr. D. and others, I receive papers electronically. The electronic equivalent of not using a staple is, I think, putting the bibliography in a separate file (with no name included in the file or the file name), or, alternatively, putting a crucial note in that stupid "comment" box, the contents of which download, and have to be opened, separately from the main file, and which I'd love to turn off but can't.
OMG--YES! I have an assignment where students respond to various prompts. Invariably, I'll have some idiot who posts the questions and answers in four separate documents. WHY?
Delete