Help Needed Please

[Jamie Landers]

Firstly, I would like to say that I am not trying to utilize anyone as a way
to achieve work.  My group and I have found it difficult to find any
research on our topic.  My professor advised me to join this list serve in
hopes that someone out there could point me in the right direction as far as
research.  I was not trying to "fish" for someone to do my project for me
and am honestly apalled by some people's responses to an undergraduate
asking for some help.
My group has lined up an interview with a lawyer, has obtained a court
transcript where a defendant tries to represent himself, but we are finding
it difficult to find any sources out there pertaining to our topic.  One
gentleman provided a list of sources that he thought may be useful and I
appreciate this greatly!  Thank you.  As to anyone else who feels that I am
trying to steal your information/research/time, please just do not reply to
my query.  That is all that I am asking for from anyone.  It is quite
ridiculous to write a diatribe as to why people should not help out others.
Thank you.


On 2/27/07, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Help Needed Please
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Lynne,
>
> I'm right with you, and I know that it's the policy on other academic
> lists that I've been on to not respond to such queries unless there's
> evidence that the student has really hit a wall in terms of
> bibliographic searching. I wasn't sure what the ADS-L policy was, so
> I held my tongue. Certainly, I would not encourage my  Comp. students
> to post to such an academic list as an early research strategy. I
> would encourage them to search the archives, sure; if they hit a
> wall, I'd either forward the query myself or check to see if it was
> all right with the list managers/owners if they posted. It may be
> that ADS-L simply has a laissez-faire attitude, letting subscribers
> decide for themselves to help out such research queries or not.
>
> ---Amy West
>
> >Date:    Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:23:32 +0000
> >From:    Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
> >Subject: Re: Help Needed Please
> >
> >I have a policy against answering 'fishing' e-mails from undergraduates
> >like this, so was a little surprised by others' readiness to answer the
> >query.
> >
> >I call it a 'fishing e-mail' because it had no particular specific
> >question, and it is a means to not do what a student is supposed to do in
> >this situation--use a bibliographic database (and/or the course reading
> >list) to find previous work on the topic.
> >
> >I'm not trying to be a meanie, but answering such messages means that we:
> >
> >(a) take time away from the students at our own institutions who are
> >actually paying for us to teach them (and arguably doing or undermining
> the
> >work of that student's own instructor),
> >(b) do the student's basic bibliographic research for them--which
> >presumably was part of their assignment,
> >(c) can never be sure that the help given to these students is properly
> >acknowledged in their work, and thus could be 'colluding' with the
> student
> >or allowing ourselves to be plagiarized.
> >
> >Now, if the student has  a _specific_ question/request (e.g., 'does
> anyone
> >know where claim X has come from' or 'I'm looking for personal anecdotes
> >relating to Y'), that's a different matter and asking a professional body
> >like ours might well be an appropriate way of tackling that.
> >
> >I think this issue has come up on the list before (but can't be [BrE]
> arsed
> >to look it up in the archives--so perhaps I'm as bad as the UG students
> I'm
> >implicitly criticising here!).
> >
> >Lynne, the grumpy old instructor
> >
> >
> >Dr M Lynne Murphy
> >Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
> >Linguistics and English Language
> >Arts B135
> >University of Sussex
> >Brighton BN1 9QN
> >
> >phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
> >http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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