Are Research Papers the Best Way Forward?

Want to irritate the entire world of academia? Try suggesting that professors should stop assigning papers.

In an essay on Slate.com, Rebecca Shuman suggests that college professors should stop assigning papers in required courses and instead should give “old-school, hardcore exams, written and oral.” Her reasons will sound familiar: teachers hate grading papers, the emerging generation can’t write properly, and everyone plagiarizes. Her proposal engendered such vitriolic feedback (e.g., social media threats and attempts to contact her university and have her fired) that a group of academics had to write an open letter in defense of her right to even propose such heresy.

I disagree with Schuman’s analysis that since students can’t write and teachers hate grading, we should stop assigning papers except maybe to English majors. But I wonder if the broader argument – namely, that we need to rethink text-only research papers – doesn’t indeed deserve some attention.

Required Papers: The Good and the Bad

What professor hasn’t finished grading a few papers at the end of the semester, thrown up her hands, and then made some comment about no one being able to write a coherent paragraph anymore? My wife refuses to be around when I’m grading papers. My demeanor is apparently somewhat similar to when I’m working on a (not-so) handyman project at the house. I thus remove myself to a coffee shop, where at least I can enjoy a good drink while consigning a whole class to Sheol.

So while I understand the complaints against research papers, I’m not ready to give up on the idea of good research yet. Instead of admitting defeat in the area of sharpening students’ critical thinking and writing abilities, I think we need to consider writing assignments that still achieve these goals but might use broader methods.

Text Only in a Multimedia Age

Why, in a multimedia age when many of our students are going to use much more than just text in their chosen fields, do we continue to assign major projects that are indeed just text? Is it possible to present a well-researched project that also includes photos, music, and video where appropriate?

To be clear, I’m not talking about simply inserting a stock photo that has something to do with a word that appears on a certain page. I’m talking about allowing students to do a paper on the reception history of Exodus that includes photos of Charleton Heston, videos of an MLK Jr. speech, and audio of Bob Marley, rather than just text descriptions of these media. I realize this would look different for a straight exegesis paper, but even still, surely there are things that can help enhance the text of the paper.

From Static Text to Interactive Project

At the university where I serve as an adjunct, we have an add-on to our Blackboard course management software that allows students to create wiki-style pages – individually or with collaborators. I am experimenting with allowing students to produce a comparable word-count project that also includes other forms of media. I still mandate certain types of scholarly sources and still expect a robust word count. I still expect well-written paragraphs and a unifying thesis throughout the paper. But I also expect relevant graphics and other media to accompany the text.

In no other area of students’ lives are they expected to leave out visuals. If, for instance, the students will go on to serve churches in some way, they will absolutely need the skill of using good multimedia to enhance what they’re trying to say. I’m proposing that we can find a way to help them in this area while still demanding high-quality research and critical thinking.

As a bonus, I am no longer staring at page after page of text. Maybe the pretty pictures will put me in a better mood and the students’ grades will reflect that.

Photo Credit: “Endless grading of term papers” by Jo Guldi — CC by 2.0

[sociallocker] [/sociallocker]

Add to favorites