Saturday, December 8, 2007

Final portfolio advice

I'll be holding an optional session on sunday 3:30-6pm, 2nd floor of the union. The portfolio is due for class time on monday.

Q: Hitting the 1000 word-cap, what do I do? What if I go over the limit?
A: The word cap is in place as a challenge - on getting to the point and expressing ideas succinctly. Look for ways to say the same thing in fewer words (the advice given below works for this as well). I'm going by a soft-cap on enforcement, if its a little over, 2 possibilities a) everything fits and to the point, let it go, or b) get hit for being unnecessarily wordy as many parts has little to do w/ your question. For a frame of reference, its about fitting 10pages of info into 3pages. It's also acceptable to use abbreviations for long or frequent terms in your paper.

Q: Advice on working through the final rounds of the paper.
A: "I'd advise you to write a 1 line descriptor of what the main point of each paragraph is about, match that back to the main question - see if you can spot anything from that. You may realize the need to revise the paper items or the question itself."

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