Archives for November 2011

It’s really a common tragedy, and it plays out like this:

Jane Etudiante-Jones has a paper due and she has procrastinated. Or maybe she hasn’t really procrastinated, but things have come up that prevented her from getting the paper done, sports; Greek events; work; you know, life in general.
Now, she’s looking at a whole bunch of assignments, some major social obligations, and her calendar and realizing that that she needs to bust her hump to get it all done.

So the hump-busting commences with a marathon session at the library, maybe some coffee, and a laser-like focus on her paper. Miss Etudiante-Jones is able to find a whole lot of articles and websites that are just perfect for her work, it’s looking like the paper is a slam-dunk. So, she starts writing, copies and pastes several sections from articles into her draft, knowing that she can come back tomorrow and get the citations right, but it feels really good to have pulled together a solid-looking draft. Now it’s on to the next one, this paper is harder and she needs to take more time on it, so the first paper gets back-burner-ed, I mean why not? She already has a draft, right? Do you see where this is going?

Deadlines are amongst the sneakiest of all the monsters created by the civilized world, so when they begin popping up in Jane’s breakfast cereal, and in her e-mail, and in her “OMG, it’s REALLY DUE!” Jane does what she meant to do in the first place, she polishes up her draft and turns it in. Here’s where tragedy takes hold. She has forgotten exactly what information is from which sources, and which is her own. The paper seems to have taken on a mind of its own, and the clock is ticking, ticking, ticking, also some tocking. So, our heroine musters the best of the forces, puts together a plausible-looking works cited page, adds as many parentheticals as she can remember, and sends the paper on its merry way.

Then the letter arrives, the one informing her that she is being brought up on charges of plagiarism, Holy Cow! What happened?

What happened is that Jane did not cite her sources as she went along, hoping that her memory would be good enough to carry her along. It wasn’t. The best (and easiest) way to manage your citations is to go it as you build your paper. Sure, it may take an extra minute (or less) for each bit of material you quote, but it’s worth it. It’s so worth it. The databases in the Fintel Library collection all provide tools that pre-format citations, making the works cited page a no-brainer to create, and that only leaves the in-line citations for the student to create in a few deft keystrokes.

Save yourself the trouble, and please, please, please cite as you go.

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has released its first mobile Web application (app), which provides the public with quick, easy access to information on Members of Congress. Based on the Guide to the House and Senate Members and information in the Congressional Pictorial Directory, the app allows users to browse for Members of Congress by last name, state, chamber, or party. Additionally, users can search by first and last name.

Of the new app, Public Printer Bill Boarman says, “GPO has experienced an incredible transformation in its 150 year history from handset type to handheld devices. We are very excited to release our first app for the public and provide a tool that will connect the public with Members of Congress. GPO looks forward to developing more apps in the future to provide the public with new options for accessing Government information.”

To access the app on your mobile device, go to or scan the QR code with your mobile device that is available at .

Supported Devices

* iPad or iPhone (iOS 4.3.3 or higher)
* Android devices (Android 2.1 or higher)
* Blackberry devices (Blackberry 6.0 or higher)

Lucas E. Morel is the Lewis G. John Term Professor and Acting Head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University, and he will be speaking tonight about Lincoln and race in the Wortmann Ballroom at Roanoke College.
Professor Lucas Morel has published “Lincoln’s Sacred Effort” and “Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope: A Political Companion to Invisible Man”.
This event is sponsored by the Fowler series and the Turk Pre-Law program. No tickets required.

“Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal” —-Address to Chicago Abolitionists (10 July 1858); quoted in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 501