HOW TO WRITE GROUP SEMESTER PAPER IN LARGE CLASSES

HOW TO WRITE GROUP SEMESTER PAPER IN LARGE CLASSES

Among University students a semester/term paper is a content – based academic writing which requires students to carry out mini-research work using mostly the library as their source. Over the past few years, in my method of teaching I group my students of all levels and are often required to write and present Group, Team/Seminar papers as part of fulfilling their Continues Assessment. The aim is usually to create means of interactive learning by my students and to increase their research capability and their knowledge in a given subject area.

Furthermore, Group, Team/Seminar paper means Group work and Team work. Group and Team work has great advantages for students both for the purpose of learning and for their future career especially in Nigeria where there is no fairness and justice in the conduct of public affairs – at whatever level. Brumfit (1984) correctly observed that Group work provides naturalistic behaviour in conversational interaction in class, and it increases the amount and intensity of practice during studies as well as create a context for activity in accuracy work for reading and writing.

There are a number of other reasons which personally makes me to encourage Group work. These reasons include:
1. If well utilized by students it will give them confidence to increase their active participation and reduces teacher domination in class work
2. Consequently, it will give students more talking time than is possible in teacher centred class rooms
3. It will create a competitive atmosphere which stimulates students to learn.
4. It gives opportunity for self-assessment as individuals and groups could compare and check their work with those of other members of the class
5. As my students could testify this, group work reduces the difficulty I could encounter in teaching and evaluating students in large classes by entrusting students with some of these responsibilities

For a good contribution to knowledge in a term paper the following steps could be followed by the groups.
1. First is the grouping of the students. Although I choose capable hands from among my students who can give academic leadership to the groups it is advisable that students join groups where they do not have many friends and close associates whether in the school or outside the University.
2. Choosing and limiting topics; sometimes I choose topics for students. But usually I allow students to choose their topics, discuss with me its feasibility, amend it if there is need of amendment and approved it. On choosing a topic students are advised not just copy a topic any how, from any source. The group has to meet and choose a topic area e.g. military expenditure in Africa. Then having read some materials on the topic area, you would brainstorm to limit it to manageable title by identifying the scope and aspect to be covered e.g. Military Expenditure in African Countries is a major obstacle to society – wide economic and social development of the countries”.
3. Then divide yourselves to fish out relevant books and articles from the library. Give yourselves time to read them.
4. Since you are many in the groups and as there is division of tasks on reading, books and other texts, in order to retrieve adequate information, it should be done thoroughly. Read the texts, comprehend them, take notes by paraphrasing and summarizing them in your own words. You are expected to do the reading thoroughly such that you can cite any major statement off head and mention the page it can be located.
5. Then reconvene a meeting to review the readings each one has done – noting the title and authors of the texts read; then the notes taken by each student; then you can form an assertive statement which will give a focus to the paper – e.g. “Military Spending by African countries divert resources away from programmes of economic development and social activities”; then form a tentative outline of the paper; from here you can retreat and give yourselves time to go back to the library now with focus and tentative outline of the paper.
6. In this interval of the second library work when the focus and outline of the paper is clear students are advised to explore the modern system of sourcing text materials i.e. the internet
7. While you are doing the second library work and using the internet facilities (I hope you know how to find a book in the library and have the resources and knowledge to use the internet) you must not forget to write down the bibliography of relevant materials used and take notes using outline developed as guide.
8. The next step when you reconvene is to review notes taken and arrange them into sub-heading. At this stage you may wish to revise the title and the focus as well as the original outline if need be.
9. Now, you are in the stage of writing. Write introduction and first draft using notes and outlines as guide for paragraphing and paper organization. There should be division of labour in doing so. As you write you should think of logical ways of linking the sentences and building them into full blocks of paragraphs. When you write you must use only your own words. However, you can incorporate quotations into a term paper. Quotations are only required to support what might seem to be a controversial view.
10. There are other guidelines on quotes in a term paper (Nneka Osakwe, 1998). These are:
a. If for some reasons you find it necessary to leave out port of a sentence in a quote use three dots (…) to indicate this
b. If you add something to the quotation to explain an abbreviation or a reference in the text or for some other reason, this addition should be enclosed in square brackets [ ]
c. If a spelling mistake or other error has been made in the original text you should copy the error. After the error the word (sic) in square brackets is used to indicate that.
d. Whenever you put a quotation into a paragraph the sentence in which it occurs must be fluent and grammatical
e. After quotation the source reference should be in brackets
f. If the original authors name is included in the sentence the name is not repeated in the source reference.
11. When the Group reconvenes the task is to re-write the whole Draft. Here, all members of the group would compile their work to produce one complete term paper. As this is being done, as many hands are on desk, grammatical corrections are made
12. After re-writing the whole Draft then there would be proofreading of it, major errors are supposed to have been identified and corrected.
13. Write final draft with the reference. The final draft of the paper is produced, typed and handed to me for final assessment and grading.
14. Usually there is oral presentation of papers by all the groups and the groups are assessed, evaluated and marks presented showing which has the highest score and which has the lowest score
15. Finally, the following criteria will be used in evaluating and comparing the performances of the groups. These are;
a. Paper title
b. Focus of the paper
c. Paper outline
d. Organization of main paper (scope and layout; style; presentation; technical content; use of English)
e. Logical connection of sub-section
f. Bibliography
g. Each group member will be further evaluated on his or her library work notes on writing the paper.

HOW TO WRITE BOOK REVIEW
My approach has been to develop skills of students in reading, summarizing and reviewing some relevant books and articles that are deemed necessary for my students to know in any particular course I handled for whatever level.

Ordinarily, I don’t have to force my students to read these books. Because, we teachers are bound to believe that our students could do it on their own. However, as a result of the deterioration of the system, I assume the responsibility to see that every week I give an assignment in form of book review which every student must do. Usually I bring the books for the review.

The aim is usually to increase students’ academic competence and broaden their knowledge in a given subject area. Furthermore, it is designed to stop students from relying only on the lecture note they could take from their lecturers.

Some of the skills in term paper are also relevant in writing book review. There are many ways and technicalities in writing, a book review but at your own level I will introduce you to most elementary procedures.

First you must know that writing book review is not only summarizing the book or the article. And making a summary is not just selecting some portions of the text and submitting to me as your contribution. That is plagiarism.

What you are expected to do is read and take notes of the major issues in your own words. Secondly, group the major issues according to same subjects. Thirdly, based on the major issues give a focus or create a thesis. Fourthly, think of a similar field of knowledge which agrees or disagrees with the issues you have now noted.

Then make a first draft of a summary of the Book/Article which contains the major issues. Then in another section after the summary make an assessment of the major issues in view of similar arguments you have come across in your search of knowledge in the University.

Then write final draft of the essay of the review of the book or the article. All the techniques of writing term paper are relevant in writing book review.

My method is that the last 20 minutes of each lecture period is devoted for presentation and discussing a book or article selected for review.

M.M. Yusif
Department of Political Science,
Bayero University, Kano
January, 2006