http://www.papermasters.com/blog/term-papers-made-easy-for-esl-students/ College News and Writing Tips Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:52:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.papermasters.com/blog/term-papers-made-easy-for-esl-students/#comment-1378 Jessica Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:26:46 +0000 http://www.papermasters.com/blog/?p=125#comment-1378 It's a shame that modern schools seem to emphasize structure and proper citations over substance and originality. When I was an undergraduate, we had to reference our sources but we didn't have to worry that confusing APA with MLA or a few grammar errors would substantially hurt our grades. Was it really that long ago? Today's professors seem more interested in teaching citation styles than producing original ideas or critical thinkers. I do recommend professionally prepared examples to ESL students to help them in their preparation. It's difficult enough to write a term paper in one's own language; writing in another language must be a real challenge and studying the work of a native speaker will reveal issues not readily apparent otherwise. It’s a shame that modern schools seem to emphasize structure and proper citations over substance and originality. When I was an undergraduate, we had to reference our sources but we didn’t have to worry that confusing APA with MLA or a few grammar errors would substantially hurt our grades. Was it really that long ago? Today’s professors seem more interested in teaching citation styles than producing original ideas or critical thinkers. I do recommend professionally prepared examples to ESL students to help them in their preparation. It’s difficult enough to write a term paper in one’s own language; writing in another language must be a real challenge and studying the work of a native speaker will reveal issues not readily apparent otherwise.

]]> http://www.papermasters.com/blog/term-papers-made-easy-for-esl-students/#comment-1377 Shari Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:02:06 +0000 http://www.papermasters.com/blog/?p=125#comment-1377 It is intimidating enough for most non-native English speakers to research and write a term paper, let alone format one correctly based on various academic standards like APA, MLA, and Chicago. That is one of the biggest benefits of having a professionally drafted paper available to serve as an example. It shows exactly how the text and citation formatting should be done based on the specified standard for the assignment; it removes any guesswork for the ESL student. If the student uses the same source for his own paper, he can simply copy the full, properly formatted citation into his own work. If new sources are added, the student only needs to copy a citation for the same source type (book, article, etc.) from the sample paper into his own paper and replace each component (i.e., author, title, date) with the corresponding information from the new source. That way the correct formatting remains intact. It is intimidating enough for most non-native English speakers to research and write a term paper, let alone format one correctly based on various academic standards like APA, MLA, and Chicago. That is one of the biggest benefits of having a professionally drafted paper available to serve as an example. It shows exactly how the text and citation formatting should be done based on the specified standard for the assignment; it removes any guesswork for the ESL student. If the student uses the same source for his own paper, he can simply copy the full, properly formatted citation into his own work. If new sources are added, the student only needs to copy a citation for the same source type (book, article, etc.) from the sample paper into his own paper and replace each component (i.e., author, title, date) with the corresponding information from the new source. That way the correct formatting remains intact.

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