On 2/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote:
To an extent they are right for the wrong reasons.
Would the lecturers
have told her not to use Britannica? What students should learn right
away in a short course at the beginning of a university career is how to
evaluate resources. Better still such a course should reiinforce things
that are better learned much earlier. How much she can push the
boundary may depend on her personality, and how open-minded the
lecturers are.
I think I would have been shot if I had ever referred to Britannica.
I had a whole university library available to me, and no excuse to
skimp.
I suppose it's a comment on the sad state of education that the instructor
even felt the need to tell students that encyclopedias are not appropriate
sources. That was made clear to me in the first semester of high school -
refer to an encyclopedia for background if you want, but never ever cite
it in papers.
Stan