More academic homesickness (can you be department-sick?)

[vvvexation]

Another screwy thing about writing history as opposed to philosophy papers: I keep coming across stray bits of information that seem kinda significant and figuring I ought to at least acknowledge them, but then I can't find them mentioned or given any kind of coherent explanation anywhere else in all my source material, and I can't very well mention them in my paper if I can't explain how they relate to everything else I'm talking about. I imagine I could figure out their significance if I did some independent research, but I really don't think we were given enough time on this assignment to do that kind of research. So instead I have to ignore those little things and hope I don't get marked down for appearing semi-ignorant.

(This paper, by the way, is due tomorrow and I'm nowhere near done. I emailed a couple of days ago to ask for an extension and I haven't heard back yet. I could stay up all night and try to finish the damn thing (fat chance), or I could go to sleep and hope there'll be a message for me tomorrow morning granting me a day's reprieve. What I suspect I'll do is stay up as late as I can manage so I can turn in a three-quarters-finished paper tomorrow instead of a half-finished paper, and then when I get the extension I won't be able to make use of it because I'll be vastly underslept. Joy.)

Comments

[darcydodo]

Isn't that what footnotes are for?

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Guess so. That would be one more thing I've never had to deal with before. I think the real problem, though, is that I'm not sure how detailed I'm supposed to get. Never having written a paper on a similar subject, of a similar length, or with a similar breadth of scope, I lack that intuitive sense of how much detail is appropriate for one of those that you get when you're familiar with the other two.

[marmaladious.livejournal.com]

You think you're sick of the thirteenth century, imagine how the people living in it must have felt.

Good luck with that *crosses fingers, hoping for V's extension*