Tuesday, November 27, 2012

End of the semester, part I

It's the last week of classes, and there's good news and bad news.

The good news:  Two linguistics students came by the office worried about being able to finish their papers on time.  Their problem: too much material.  The paper is a squib, defined as a usually relatively short exploration of a topic, often incomplete.  I had to talk them down, explaining that squibs are not term papers and that at a convenient point they needed to just stop and suggest where they might go next in the exploration of their topic.  But it is good to know that some students seem to be finding linguistics engaging and relevant.

The bad news: A student emails asking which chapters, in addition to 18 and 19, will be on the final test next week.  Our textbook only has 13 chapters.

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