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This Week's Finds in Planning is the blog of Martin Krieger, Professor of Planning at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning, and Development.

November 20, 2009

Plus ca change...plus la meme chose--

I am told that today's students do not respect authority, they feel that since they pay tuition they should be able to negotiate their grades, etc... I suspect that nothing much has changed over the past fifty or one hundred...

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"How can I improve my work?"

In general, you will get nowhere arguing with your instructor about the grammaticality of your writing, or whether your instructor gave you incorrect guidance ("you told me so"). You will do much better asking, "How can I make it better?"...

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November 18, 2009

Outline, Don't Be Craven, Be Respectful

Two unrelated notes: 1. When you write something or prepare a presentation, whether it be a report, a memo, a love letter, or a speech--make a rough OUTLINE before you start drafting. You can start by listing your main points,...

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November 10, 2009

Learning the material... by being courageous and resourceful...

Recently, I helped a student work through some problem in the statistics for planning class. They wrote me, "Again, thank you for your patience and assistance. I now realize that I should have been checking in with you for...

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November 8, 2009

Plagiarism or Theft in the Age of Google, Turnitin, and Competition

By chance, in the last day or two I have heard of several academic integrity violations. Namely, when papers and projects were checked with Turnitin or just Google, the source was discovered. Often, substantial quantities of a paper or...

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Doing Stronger Work. Be Resourceful and Ask Questions. No Excuses. Don't blame others. Be Autonomous.

1. You need to draft, redraft, and polish. 2. Show your instructor your BEST work. If you receive a marked-up paper, and want to redo it, redo it based on those indications, plus the perspective you have on your...

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November 5, 2009

Professional Writing (even Seminars and Talks)--BLUF! (BOTTOM LINE UPFRONT), DIVIDE INTO UNITS, PROOFREAD, SPELLCHECK

In conversations with my colleagues, I realized that many of our students do not realize that most of their professional writing is for a busy audience: bosses, clients, community members, other scholars, etc. They have lots to read and...

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October 26, 2009

Ways to Self-Destruct as a Student and Worker--

1. Some of you have now asked me for help with your data choice. I'll do my best, but for the rest of the semester you need to get these things settled much sooner--then I can help you more...

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October 8, 2009

How not to brag...

The way to think of a scholar's work is its contribution to the community of researchers and perhaps more widely. Those contributions are described in substantive terms, and it might be that a small number of publications have great impact,...

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September 26, 2009

Take Charge of Your Career and Being a Student...

I received the following note: Dear Professor Krieger, Next weekend I will be attending a conference and I won't be flying back until Tuesday morning. I will be missing class on Monday, I am a little concerned about what I...

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