COMMON PROBLEMS WITH SOCW 517 PAPERS
The most typical comments I put on papers are these:
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Lack of Critical Thinking. Reading practice
or research material with an uncritical eye (Just because something is
published does not mean it is useful to you or your situation). Acceptance
of published material as "true" without questioning what it is based on.
Please think about how what you read and hear is useful to your work.
Read
an essay about Critical Thinking
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No "I" in the paper. The author does
not draw on their own experience, field placement experience, place of
employment, etc. Its OK to be a person in this paper, to weigh what you
read and hear from others against your own experience.
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Too Broad-Lacks focus. The scope or
topic is too broad. Ask the question, "What about (your selected topic)
makes it an issue for policy or practice in family violence"? The answer
to this questions is usually the title of your paper.
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No logical development of the paper.
Free association is (or was) good in therapy, less so in papers submitted
for a grade. Always write from an outline. Write down the main points
you want to make, and make these points as sub-headings in your paper.
Then fill in the sub points for each main point, and make these sub points
into paragraphs. That sounds like formula writing, but unless you are a
good writer, I suggest you go by the formula.
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Lit Lite. Too much uncritical material
from the Internet or from the popular press or from books. Too many secondary
sources . . . "As Jones (cited in Smith, 1998) said, . . ." Too few references
from refereed journals, or just too few references, period
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Single theory explanations. Rarely can
a single theory, model, or perspective explain everything, particularly
something as complicated as human behavior. There are almost always at
least two competing perspectives. Let the reader choose, after you present
the alternative perspectives, or you can choose a preferred theory, and
tell the reader why this is the best explanation.
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Where's the practice? This is a practice
course, so I expect the paper to be about some area of practice with family
violence.
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Rhetoric! Whatever the problem you are
presenting, it's an epidemic! Its awful and needs to be stopped!
Cut the drama and the spin-doctoring.
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Over-quoting. Using a lot of quotes,
or extensive quotes. The opposite of plagiarism. Very boring, and
the quickest way to convince someone you haven't given the subject a lot
of thought.
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Poor writing. This isn't a writing
course, but its graduate school. See me if you need help.
UIC has a writing clinic across the street, and you should have already
read 33
RULES FOR BETTER WRITING.