As Danielle mentioned in an earlier post, formatting continues to be an issue that students refuse to bother to put any effort into. I’ve had one student that has not once had a correct citation on his paper nor turned in a paper without extremely large spacing between his lines. No matter what I say to him or write on his paper, it never changes. One of the most common questions I get asked in regards to this is “Why do we have to format it this way?” Granted, I honestly have no answer for that. Because it’s the way the organization set it up and the university decides to follow it? I honestly cannot answer why we format things the way we do, but I’m sure that if their boss at their job, if or when they have one, asks them to do things a certain way, they aren’t going to put their hands on their hips and ask “Why?” Lest anybody give these types of questions any sort of philosophical importance, the students are just trying to find ways to expand their papers to reach the page limit.
In trying to have students understand formatting, I’ve gone over it multiple times in class. I’ve even had them use sources in their free writing, such as a quote from a family member or friend, and then try to document that source in a Works Cited page. We’ve created citations together in class. I’ve done everything I basically can except hit them over the head with the MLA handbook, hoping that somehow information can be transferred in such a manner. This sounds like a somewhat personal rant, and it is. Formatting is by far the easiest points to receive full credit in, and those points are consistently blown or regarded as useless.
To borrow Natalie’s terminology, I’ve used the Yoga Teacher and Yoga Student approach, pushing them to understand. So, here’s my white flag waving in the wind and white towel strewn at my feet. Help here would be appreciated because I’ve no idea how to handle this.