Is a faculty member allowed to have his/her own standards?

Does a college have any obligation to teach APA format if it considers this to be up to 20% of the student's grade? Since faculty members have so many conceptions and misconcepts of what 6th edition APA format is, and grading is inconsistent between courses, is there any responsibility of individual instructor to teach APA format if they use it as 90% of the course grade?


My teacher singled me out and is threatening to expel me because I wrote a citation on a discussion board as (Smith, 2002) - there was no page number or paragraph to site, and she states I should have written it as: According to Mr. Smith (2002, p.?)... She is calling this discussion board "a test" even though she is not calling it that for my classmates. Also, classmates with t posts not cited at all, and some with bigger errors are not being threatened. In the past the dean of our school sided with this teacher when she singled me out in a previous course, but did not allow her to expell me. I was a straigh A student prior to her class and she was the only B I got (math and science courses were much mor difficult than her course). Now I am in a Masters program, she is the final course and I am told the only educator. I feel she wants spite for me not being expelled last time and is going to make sure I do not complete my MS. Prior to this final course, again I have a 4.0 average.


Would reporting this to the school's credentialling agencies do anything? What else can I do? I feel I have wasted $40,000.00 because this teacher doesn't like me.|||From my experience, most professors know that students struggle with citing properly and are usually pretty flexible. Sure they may take off a few points for wrong citations, but usually they are more concerned with your knowledge, what your learned through the research, and your writing ability.





I would start by apologizing for not citing properly (even though with most people it is not necessary). Ask her if she can correctly show you how to cite the source both in the essay and on the works cited page (even if you don't really care!). Thank her for showing you and apologize again for not citing correctly. Let her know that you are always worried that you are going to cite wrong or accidentally plagiarize for not citing correctly or in every situation and would never purposely cite something wrong.





I have never put a page number in my essay when citing in APA any my professors have not complained.





Freshman English teachers usually teach you how to cite in MLA, and then education courses require APA and history require Chicago style, but many times the professor assumes someone has already shown you. My school has a librarian who teaches classes how to cite and shows us websites for research and websites for citing, not every professor takes advantage of this before having students write a research paper, but when you have to sit through it 80 times you are thankful for the ones who didn't make you do it again (even though you probably needed that extra time!). Usually they use it when it is a major research paper and they are more concerned with you learning places to research online and how to phrase things for the best results, not the citations.





If the professor is going to be strict with citations, then they should teach you how to cite. Don't use noodle tools, I believe they are not using the new APA format as I get many mistakes on my citations. try using Ref works, the only problem with refworks.com is it doesn't always include the doi number or retrieved from (only need one or other), but that is easy to fill in after.





While they are not obligated to teach it, they should teach it if they are going to be strict on minor errors. Many courses request that you buy the APA handbook, but some teachers even tell you don't bother just use the internet (these are also the more lenient professors).|||It is a power struggle. The teacher wants to be Right even if Wrong. Continue you


r fight to Win, or you can seek a Win-Win compromise. I would definitely seek legal counsel, as this is very important. She will be dragged through a review process if she won't find a compromise. Remember, the Law is on your side!|||The teacher is not failing you for not putting a page number in your citation. She's failing you because she thinks you plagiarized. I read your previous question on this topic. Most school have an appeals board that consists of students and faculty. You can appeal the case to them, show them the original document or website where you found the information, and your posting. If they think that you did not plagiarize, they can require that your grade be changed.


But I think there are things you're leaving out of this story. Your story doesn't make sense. First APA is 20% of the grade; then you say it's 90%, which cannot possibly be true. Yes, you are expected to figure out how to use APA, or Chicago style or MLA without anyone teaching it to you. When you write for publication, you will have to follow the style sheet specified by the journal. Some journals ahve their own style sheets. You can expect someone to hold your hand and teach you how to use every method of citation. You should be able to look at examples and follow them.


Teachers do not fail students they don't like. I've had plenty of students I didn't particularly like, but that has nothing to do with the evaluation of their work. Get off your high horse, fix whatever it is she really doesn't like about your work, and throw yourself on her mercy.|||I have had a situation with one of my advisees that faced a similar situation to the one you are facing.


It was a case of a graduate student who became my advisee by default. No other faculty member would accept him. It was not a problem with his writing that made him such a liability, it was his boldness and self righteous behavior of always being right that put in that position. well, I was assigned to advise him.





My advice to him was to tone it down, and behave more respectfully to faculty. He taught undergraduate classes and he was very good. But, he was always ovrbearing and always right, and he was driven out of the university.





You are in that same position of being driven out of your education as my advisee was. Put your self-righeous behavior in a bag and don't open that bag at this school. If you don't back off of this minor conflict that you have with this teacher, you will loose it all. My advice is that same as I gave my advisee. Back off. Go to her apologize, tell her you are sorry and she was right all along. I think that will put you back to a B in her class, but you will also be informally reinstated. Good luck.