Fish it out

In Stanley Fish's What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3 , Fish says that high schools all over are graduating students with a lack of knowledge on how to form English sentences correctly. Fish blames middle and high school teachers for not teaching students the adequate information they need to travel into higher level of college reading and writing. This ultimately makes it harder for college professors, when trying to do their job efficiently professors are ultimately enabled to teach their requirements at the level needed because students are not knowledgeable on the information needed. I agree with Fish’s observations and statements in this column that high school students are not taught enough information on proper English, I say that having correct citations is also a huge part in college writing that gets ignored more than not in high school writing courses. 

When word tries to read your mind.

I have personally experienced this all throughout grade school. In relation to Fish's statements about not being tough proper English in high school, I personally, all through out high school experienced little stress when it comes to citing sources was not stressed very heavily.  High school focused on how to do citations correctly through easy-bib, but only touched on the topic briefly. Often in earlier years through grade school I would leave citations out of my smaller essays or they would even wrong sometimes without even knowing it. As high school went on it was more of a requirement but citing sources was never thoroughly explained to me as a student in high school.

During my first semester of my college career at The Ohio State University- Newark campus, I have done research on how to cite courses correctly in college essays. I collected my own data in The Ohio State University- Newark Writers Studio to gather information by conducting some interviews which helped me realize citations are a bigger deal than most college students, along with myself, might have thought they are. My research has consisted of a tutor interview, teacher interview and a tutor session observation along with reading through books and online information. Within my research I found a better explanation on how to create correct citations along with why they are so important in college writing courses today. 

Different websites have tons of information.

There are several steps a researcher should take early on in the research process to make the citation process on themselves easier. Taking notes on exactly all of the information needed while researching for the source (for example; author, title, page numbers, chapter, ext.),in the long run will lighten the load  along with taking notes of page numbers while taking notes on specific text needed for the research being conducted. Anyone can write a paper on anything at anytime. That is why it is important to have citations at end of a research essay for several important reasons. First reason being -since the last statement is so true- researchers need back up on where they are getting their information from, readers and other researcher’s cannot use the information provided in extended projects if work is not cited correctly, nor can a research use information if they do not know where the information is coming from and do not know how reliable the information is. Secondly, giving credit where it is due is always the way to go. It is important as a researcher when writing to cite the researchers who taught them the information. Failing to do so is otherwise known as plagiarism. There are even a few websites that I have discovered during my process of researching in the writers studio that a struggling researcher can use, one important one being easy-bib.com, which helps the researcher by having areas where information goes (title, author, publication, ext.) then will create the citation for the student. Simple as that. 

Most students don't understand the importance of having citations in every essay that has sources. It is not only a liability to college careers if not taken seriously in english classes, but will organize the researchers work and possibly another researchers work if used in extended research. Citations are a much more efficient way of finding other sources also. Your citations could help the next researcher, which is always appreciated. There is never an excuse not to cite.