Supplementary requirements for Economics 4389

READ THE ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS BELOW. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL REQUIREMENTS AS STATED IN THE COURSE SYLLABUS AND IN THIS SUPPLEMENT.

Requirements for Economics 3351, 3355, amd 4389 and for any course that I offer now, in the future and for removing incomplete.

Note - Please read carefully! In the past, I have been lax in enforcing all the stated requirements for the course. Through time then, students have realized this and drifted farther away from the requirements. This past spring and summer, I began to enforce them more strictly though I did relent in a couple instances and let some students redo their papers. I am now giving notice that henceforth all the requirements will be enforced and failure to follow them will result in a severe grade penalty and very likely, I will not let you redo your paper since you are now forewarned.

ALL ASSIGNED MATERIAL WILL BE USED IN YOUR PAPERS. MERELY ONE PASSING REFERENCE TO A SOURCE IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. EACH SOURCE MUST BE USED IN SUCH A WAY AS TO INDICATE THAT YOU HAVE READ THE BOOK.

Purpose of the rules - There are several reasons for the rules.

1)      Plagiarism has always been a problem that is now made worse by the internet. Requiring you do use all the assigned material reduces the chances of plagiarism but by no means eliminates it. Every fact or idea in your paper that is not obviously from your experience (example - observations from a China Study Abroad program) has to be cited. That likely means at least one citation per paragraph unless you have more than one source in that paragraph. Each time the source is changed, you have to have a citation which tells me that everything in the preceding text back to the previous citation, can be found in the source on the page, the pages cited or in the text online. For all online references, give the URL. If you use the same source through a lengthy paragraph but the material comes from more than one page, you may cite at the end of the paragraph as follows - (Jones 1999, 72, 29, 141) with the pages listed in the order in which they are used. If you use a source other than one that is required, is online or in the UH library, please indicate in your reference list, where or how you obtained it.

2)      Correct citation is simply the proper procedure in terms of giving credit to where it is due, gives the reader information about where they can learn more about the subject and the quality of the material used. Consequently, if your grade is severely marked down because of inadequate citation, it does not mean that you are being accused of plagiarism.

3)      The assigned material is current, I can verify the quality and I know what is in them and can recognize the ideas and data when you use them.

Recommendation - avoid using Encyclopedia type sources such as Encarta. If you use a source that is more than 2 or 3 years old, make sure that the data or condition that you describe is still operative. There are obviously many issues for which much older sources are as valid as more recent ones so show some discretion on your use of sources. In addition, it is acceptable for limited use of material from other classes or to cite lectures from other courses but do not over do it since I want to know what you have learned in this course and not in course for which you have already received credit.

My graduate assistant and I will be spot checking the papers for the sources and also running key words and phrases to check for plagiarism. This will be done on a random basis and students will not be informed that it was done or not done on their paper. My first check last spring brought up the paper word for word in its entirety. It was turned over to the Economics Department and the student agreed to a penalty which delayed his graduation. Another student (not in my class) accepted a penalty of a year suspension while a third is appealing a similar penalty.

Additional suggestions:

One diskette. Download syllabus from my webpage and save. Save each of your papers on it. If you save everything on your hard drive that is fine but save on diskette also. If your computer occasionally gives you problems, you might save on both periodically while you are writing. In other words, your computer crashing should not be a valid reason for not finishing a paper though we all sometimes lose something when our computers crash at an inopportune time but we need not lose everything.

Please turn in a separate sheet of paper with the following when you turn in your final paper:

1) Make a list of your papers and enter your grades when you receive them. Print out and turn in along with your final paper along with all papers that have been returned to you after being graded.

2) Along with the grade for each paper, indicate title, topic, number of pages and the assigned material that you used for each of the papers. This is a checklist for both of us so that it is clear whether you completed these aspect of the assignment as instructed.

3) If you are taking this course other than as an economics course for a major or minor or as a free elective, please indicate the type of credit that you will receive for it - Asian American Studies, Asian, European, African or Latin American for International Business etc.

In addition to being passed out in class, this notice will be posted on my webpage. Please check my webpage once a week under this heading in case there are any further instructions that arise.

Supplementary requirements for Economics 4389 - both courses

One diskette. Download syllabus from my webpage and save. Save each of your papers on it. If you save everything on your hard drive that is fine but save on diskette also. If your computer occasionally gives you problems, you might save on both periodically while you are writing. In other words, your computer crashing should not be a valid reason for not finishing a paper though we all sometimes lose something when our computers crash at an inopportune time but we need not lose everything.

Please turn in a separate sheet of paper with the following when you turn in your final paper:

1) Make a list of your papers and enter your grades when them. Print out and turn in along with your final paper along with all papers that have been returned to you after being graded.

2) Along with the grade for each paper, indicate title, topic, number of pages and the assigned material that you used for each of the papers. This is a checklist for both of us so that it is clear whether you completed these aspect of the assignment as instructed.

3) If you are taking this course other than as an economics course for a major or minor or as a free elective, please indicate the type of credit that you will receive for it - Asian American Studies, Asian, European, African or Latin American for International Business etc.

In addition to being passed out in class, this notice will be posted on my webpage. Please check my webpage once a week under this heading in case there are any further instructions that arise.