Left Behind at the Fishbowl

Iraq and Swear Words

2008-09-10T00:31:00.003-04:00

I'm still waiting to hear back from the submitter as to exactly what college this is from, but Submitter says it's from that college's equivalent of the fishbowl. I'm assuming the highlighting is the submitter's doing. This is supposed to be the text of a speech. I'm really hoping that wherever this was given, no one took Author seriously. I'll update this as more info comes in.

Page after page of pages

2008-08-28T18:29:00.004-04:00

It feels good to put a pen to horrible writing again. I'm not sure what college this is from, but it was one of the submissions I had in my inbox from forever ago. I looked through some of the other submissions briefly and could see I had some other website-worthy writing, so check back next week for more.

One Last Hurrah?

2008-08-22T10:11:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone. Sorry it's been so long. A few things:

1) As is obvious, I'm not able to maintain this site as I used to. A key component of writing a site about fishbowl papers is being able to get papers at the fishbowl. While I still live in Ann Arbor, I'm not able to get over to the fishbowl anymore.

2) If you wish to reach me, the best way to reach me is by leaving a comment. If you have submissions, email them to the address at right and then leave a comment saying you've done so.

3) It has been a long time since I checked my fishbowl email address

That being said, however, upon checking my email for this site, I found I had a decent number of submissions waiting for me (10-15). I'm going to read these over and see if there's something that will be worthy of posting online.

I really miss doing this site. Perhaps we can get it started again. At the very least, let's see if we can get a few papers up before this site just becomes a bad paper archive.

High school a microcosm of U.S.

2007-11-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

Generously sent in by someone who wishes to remain anonymous.

For this assignment, the graduate student had to (among other things) go to a local school to observe. A part of the assignment also was supposed to include research through scholarly websites. Check out the source of the first quote.

How a feminist would see the story of Icarus

2007-10-04T21:28:00.000-04:00

See? When readers send me stuff I post it.

This was forwarded to me by everyone's new pal Chris M who got it from a UMich alum working at the University of Maryland. The last paragraph is gold.

No, I'm not dead

2007-10-01T22:50:00.001-04:00

But I fear this site may be without your help.

As the careful reader already knows, I'm no longer a Michigan student. I am however still in Ann Arbor, but with entering the working world, I'm unable to make it over to the fishbowl. I'd get into further details as to why I've been so busy, but then we'd lose that whole anonymous thing, wouldn't we?

So here's where you guys come in.

If you want this site to continue, I need your grabs. Go dig through some papers (at your college, your high school, your office even) and scan and send me the best ones. You'll remember my email is fishbowlfinder@gmail.com. Just make sure they're high enough res that they'll be legible on screen.

Because the world needs its horrible papers mocked,
AHFB

p.s. Thanks for sticking with me still after all this time.

another p.s. how come no one called me on my bad verb agreement last post?

A New Year of 'Fishbowl'

2007-09-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

Hey all. Classes resume on Tuesday which means a brand new influx of papers. I myself can't make grabs like I used to, but there are measures in place to get papers to me. If you're on a college campus and wanna help out, start grabbing, scanning, and emailing.

See ya once the first set of papers come in.

A "great" brochure about a "movie"

2007-08-07T04:31:00.000-04:00

No, friends, I haven't forgotten about you.

Today's post is a little different: my Fishbowl material is pretty slim pickings right now, so I thought I'd bring you something I found as entertaining as a bad paper: a bad brochure that I picked up from a random place I was a couple months ago.

I'm "sure" you'll "enjoy" it.

(larger mirror)

/also submitted to The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation marks.

Betting money on the Lions is always a bad idea

2007-07-24T19:07:00.000-04:00

A script that dares to go where so many movies have already gone before.

UMich Makes Spelling Error on Diploma

2007-07-19T05:03:00.000-04:00

Blatantly stolen from this UM Livejournal Community Post, I bring you a spelling error right on a graduate's diploma.

A commenter in the post also says that hers had "Literature" misspelled. The errors aren't widespread, which makes me wonder: is there someone who's typing up each individual diploma?

In other news: I'll get back to my regular paper critiques soon.

Mike Anglin City Council Flyer

2007-07-15T03:45:00.000-04:00

Chris S. sent me an email a while ago containing a flyer. He says it all, so I'll just quote his submission email:

"I found the attached flyer in my driveway yesterday

June 26, 2007 Tuesday

I thought you might enjoy it

It is very motivational

I particularly like the author's use of punctuation.

I hope "the campaign to elect Mike Anglin for Council" didn't overpay

(larger version)

I hope that Anglin's speech writer does a better job than his advertising manager. Oh, and his webmaster.

More notes in the comments.

Edit: Also, our pals over at AAIO have some Mike Anglin-ness going on as well.

Bridge Burner

2007-07-09T04:18:00.001-04:00

Anyone care to explain to me how this is a good idea?

Also, check back late this week for another entry (from a local Ann Arbor political candidate).

Let's Randomly String Sentences Together

2007-07-01T21:45:00.000-04:00

So bad I don't even know what to do with myself. I can't believe some of the mistakes in here: rough draft or not.

Has anyone read Mama Day? Does this paper make even a little bit of sense?

Asians are good at being minorities

2007-06-25T16:50:00.001-04:00

Some people really can't write intros. Or conclusions for that matter.

[mirror]

If you want to see what the photo being discussed looks like, freedomvoices.org has a copy

Search for an Identity

2007-06-19T18:10:00.001-04:00

No, it's not a short story about trolling resume websites looking for social security numbers. It's the first ever paper about a character's sense of identity in a work of fiction. Except it isn't. Mostly it's a paper that ambles its way through the plot and throws out the word "identity" from time to time.

This is just the first page and a half because it got [more] painfully boring as it went on.

[Link] This is literally a great site.

2007-06-19T00:44:00.000-04:00

First off, let me tell you that I've got an actual update coming today (Tuesday).

Literally, A Web Log is a site that keeps tabs on the misuse of the word "literally". Take, for example, this quote from NPR.

"In a few hundred words, McGhee simply and elegantly charts the arc of motherhood — from birth and childhood through adulthood and the next generation.

McGhee says that in Someday, her ninth book, she literally put her heart on the page."

Or this, from Jerry Falwell:

"If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way … and our nation will pay a terrible price!"

/was unaware that steamrollers had a sexual preference.

Anyhow, a new post will be going up once I'm able to scan it, so I'll literally see you back here later.

[Link] Catalog of Passive-Aggresive Notes

2007-06-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

PassiveAggressiveNotes.com is a depository of notes left by roommates, neighbors, co-workers, and strangers. Figured this would be a site of interest to the Fishbowl community.

Africa, List of Questions

2007-06-10T20:09:00.000-04:00

This Sunday's post is two pages, each from separate grabs.

The first is evidentally from the same assignment that bought us "The Caribbean."

The second is a numbered list of sentences that don't seem to go together.

Breaking News: Street Sweeps Hurt

2007-06-05T03:10:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. I'm still out of town (though this week in a different town), so this week's update is a little different than usual.

After plagiarism showed up in the local college paper, I started watching other college papers to see what I could find there. So far I haven't found much in the way of plagiarism, but I've found plenty of the bad college writing that keeps this site alive.

I subscribed to the email edition of The Lantern from Ohio State so I could stay current. Today's commentary and comics center around the lead stories from April 21 to June 1 (the current issue).

[mirror if above image is slow]

Sorry for the quality of scanning: I'm not able to scan on the usual scanner back home.

Some quotes from different articles:

"For those Ohio State students who have been experiencing chicken wing withdrawal this school year, fear not. The new Buffalo Wild Wings Grill and Bar will open June 25 at its new location on the corner of Lane Avenue and North High Street." [This was the first sentence of a lead story]

"According to dictionary.com, a wiki is 'a collaborative Web site whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it.'" [arggg dictionary.com citations]

If there's anything that you noticed and would like to point out, feel free to do so in the comments.

All about garages!

2007-05-25T19:23:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna be out of town this weekend, so here's the Sunday update early.

Yes, from the author that brought you 'Yards,' we now have a discussion of garages. Looking through Author's other journal entries (which are about articles aren't as amusing as these two), I think these are probably for some sort of urban planning course.

If the above link goes down, I made a mirrored version here.

Also, while I appreciate all our new visitors' comments, please don't link your blog unless your site is relevant to the kinds of things on this site. If you write about fiction, grammar, or teaching? Cool, thanks for the link. If you write a run-on sentence spam advertisment blog? Deleted.

Please bear with me

2007-05-24T20:40:00.000-04:00

We got featured on blogger which has brought in a lot of traffic. The site's gonna be going slow while we deal with this huge traffic spike. I'm working on making sure that mirrors of all files get up soon so you can read at a decent speed. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before all my imageshack links go down

/needs a for-real image host

edit: for the imagesocket mirrors, you may have to click on the image to make it readable once it loads.

All about yards!

2007-05-20T21:05:00.000-04:00

Yards are amazing! Yards!

Mirror in case the above link goes down:

ur baby

2007-05-15T01:13:00.000-04:00

An anon reader so kindly sent in this written conversation he found in the fishbowl

Cletus (pages 8-12)

2007-05-13T02:55:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure about how I feel about how satisfying the ending is or isn't. Maybe I'm just too scared that the conclusion of this paper shows clear signs of revision.

Mirror:

Cletus (pages 1-7)

2007-05-06T02:59:00.000-04:00

A lazy story devoid of a plot other than the fact that the mother is fat and that angers Cletus. Despite my claims of "foreshadowing!" I haven't read any further than these seven pages (of ~~fourteen~~ twelve) so get your own predictions in now.

Found right on top of a Fishbowl scanner, already stapled and inside a bluebook.

Mirror:

[Web] Alternative Spring Break - w4m - 20

2007-05-01T07:34:00.000-04:00

With material low during the summer, I thought it might be a good idea to extend Fishbowl's reach to the Web. What to you guys think about having the occasional (preferably college related) post?

Today's gathering comes from this Ann Arbor Craigslist missed connection:

Date: 2007-04-17, 2:22AM EDT

I met you on ASB in North Carolina. I was the blonde sorority girl who blacks out. You were the burly, nature-loving wilderness man. I think I saw you at the UGLI tonight. I can't get you out of my mind, boy your loving's all i think about...

* Location: University of Michigan

Also, I like her "girl who blacks out" typo. It reads as if blacking out isn't something that happened once (like if she said "I was the girl who blacked out"), but rather something that happens habitually to the point that it's a distinguishing characteristic.

My Model Card

2007-04-29T16:22:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the fact that I had to ultra box this up, but you understand. HC found this in the scanners. It seems that while I've been hoping I could live off book royalties, someone else out there has been hoping he'll be able to live off his face.

Left Behind at the Fishbowl the Book?

2007-04-26T15:08:00.000-04:00

Here's an idea I've been kicking around: do you think the papers contained on this site would work as a book? I know about submitting fiction to places, but not how books get pitched.

I mean Found Magazine has their books, and PostSecret has theirs. Of course they're considerably more well known than I am.

Hiatus

2007-04-26T04:15:00.000-04:00

Fishbowl will return on Sunday with new content. I'm thinking that updates over the summer will happen once or twice a week, depending on the amount of stuff we can find around our respective campuses during summer classes.

Art at War

2007-04-19T18:36:00.000-04:00

[p.s. this is Fishbowl's 200th post]

Exams.

2007-04-19T18:17:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know: this is another one of those "sorry, another entry is forthcoming" entries. But once summer hits I won't be able to post as often anyhow.

Preview of the short story that'll be up eventually: "CLEEEETTUUUUSSSS!!!!!" CLETUS!!"
^actual quote. excellent use of extra quotation mark and quituple exclamation mark.

Caring about others is selfish

2007-04-17T14:41:00.000-04:00

mirror:

Word Choice in the Irish Examiner

2007-04-16T19:15:00.000-04:00

Hey all, while I don't have the time to do much more than write my paper today, I've been keeping up with the horrific story over at VA Tech.

During my constant refreshes of Google News, I came across the following paragraph from this Irish Examiner story

"The un-named killer took his own life after murdering two victims in a hall of residence and then, two hours later, gunned down 30 people in an academic building on the campus of Virginia Tech university."

Which sounds to me like the killer:
1) Murdered two victims
2) Killed himself
3) Reanimated and killed 30 people

Of course I'm not making light of what happened: only of the poor writing in the story about it.

Edit:
Events on Campus today:
There's an event going on on the Diag right now. It goes from 11-4pm. They're raising money to help out.
New Life Church is having prayers before their Overflow Event. The event is at 8, the prayers are at 7.

Traxex the Drow Ranger

2007-04-15T01:23:00.000-04:00

Despite what I wrote on the above pages, after some more googling, this actually seems to be about a specific Warcraft 3 Scenario, not WoW. This, in a way, makes it all the more ridiculous considering that the person writing this is looking at not something humanoid, but rather a small 64x64 pixel sprite and judging looks based on that.

No Politics = No War

2007-04-12T12:22:00.000-04:00

An anonymous philosophy grad student who, to quote, "[takes] a stand against the abysmal quality of papers that students try to pass off to educators these days" puts MSU on the Fishbowl map with this paper, submitted with his/her comments shown in red.

If you've got friends at MSU, now's the time to bust out the facebook shares.

edit: Submitter adds: "Although I have TA'd that class before,
this was not one of my students."

Torn Writings

2007-04-11T13:30:00.000-04:00

Doom makes people kill

2007-04-10T15:57:00.000-04:00

Just a heads up

2007-04-09T15:48:00.000-04:00

With it being finals season and all, it's gonna be hard for me to keep up with doing updates as regularly as you're used to. I'll still be making grabs so I have plenty of content for later, but just be aware of the situation.

Until next update, enjoy these examples of "awful" quotation mark "abuse" that "will annoy" you.

High Drama Equipment

2007-04-04T12:09:00.000-04:00

Italics and random line breaks all over the place:

Secret Society Initiaition Song

2007-04-03T12:22:00.000-04:00

Yep: that's right: this (assumedly) is the song sung when the Order of Angell initiates a new member. Complete with parts for backup singers.

Is it just me or does this whole thing about the longest week of your life sound like hazing?

FAMILY & WORK CONFLICT

2007-04-03T00:56:00.000-04:00

Meredith and Kate write:
"While completing a project on a computer in the civil engineering construction lab in GG Brown, we found the attached file on the desktop."

Given the fact that they fwd'd me the full ppt file, I know that slides are in order and that I'm not missing any, which makes the last slide all the more confusing.

Pistol

2007-04-01T01:19:00.000-04:00

Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, PETA

2007-03-30T01:18:00.000-04:00

My favorite part about this one is the comment in the margin. And the only English words.

My friend was kind enough to offer a translation from Korean. It goes something like this (I took notes while he dictated):

"At one private detective office, there was this detective named Hoon. He is a cool person and always wore khaki pants and a white overcoat. Usually he wore a cowboy hat. He smoked 2 cigarettes at a time. He was very smart. Once he arranged for the popular Bugs Bunny to be hidden. Bugs Bunny was always being pursued by Elmer Fudd. Elmer Fudd is escaped from jail. PETA worries for Bugs Bunny. This morning, Elmer Fudd was captured by Hoon. Bugs Bunny and his cousin are safe in an undisclosed location.

Suddenly, Hoon's sexy secretary came into the office. She came in with an anonymous gift which was a cut tree (boom! Hoon hits his desk)."

Link: Student newspaper suspends editor after he gave false information

2007-03-28T16:05:00.000-04:00

No paper today: I've got two papers of my own due tomorrow and a limited amount of time to write them in. So instead, I thought I'd point out this story about The Stanford Daily. How it all went down was a news editor at the paper claimed that he had a heroic role in restraining a woman that threatened to open an airplane's door.

He, in fact, was not a hero; it was later revealed that he only made the situation worse.

Created IN FIVE DAYS

2007-03-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

Dana Khan comes through again with these three drawings found in the Alice Lloyd lounge. (For those of you at other colleges, Lloyd is a dorm)

Link: Bizarre Frat Story from Michigan Daily

2007-03-26T13:05:00.000-04:00

From this Daily article (which I couldn't even begin to comment on so I'm just linking):

Police have been unable to locate a woman who entered the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house without permission on Thursday and began to masturbate on a couch.

While fraternity members were eating in the dining room, a woman entered the house's living room, took off her clothes and started masturbating, said LSA junior Dan Nye, the president of the Washtenaw Avenue fraternity.

Re: Adverbs

2007-03-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

Ok, so a bunch of people have posted on the recent link entry asking why adverbs are bad. The reason why is they're lazy. Not all the time, but there are plenty of times when people use adverbs instead of good description.

You could say "Tom shook angrily as he talked to Bob" or you could say
"The vein on Tom's head seemed to throb with every stacatto word"
One sentence tells that he's angry, the other shows it.

On another note:
Tom Swift novels are famous for their humorous use of adverbs. A "Tom Swifty" or two [via wikipedia]:
"I manufacture tabletops," said Tom counterproductively.
"I dropped the toothpaste," said Tom, crestfallen.
"I can't remember what I was supposed to buy," said Tom listlessly.

Robots!

2007-03-25T01:45:00.000-04:00

Robots will be widely used in the 21st century.

Found by Dana Khan at the Dude

Link: Ly Detector awesomely finds -ly words

2007-03-22T15:39:00.000-04:00

Lifehacker has a program on the lookout for adverbs. It'll find and highlight all words that end in -ly on websites that you specify. Quote:

"If you're at all familiar with Strunk and White, you know that excessive use of adverbs - words that end in -ly - isn't a sign of strong writing. All of us writers struggle with sentence-weakening generally's and relatively's at times, but now there's a Greasemonkey script that highlights adverbial transgressions on the web automatically."

[via Hackszine]

Poor people are angry

2007-03-21T18:43:00.000-04:00

Soon-to-be Graduate?

2007-03-20T14:57:00.000-04:00

Post-it note found on the floor of the fishbowl.

I leave something of my own behind.

2007-03-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

In a rather ironic moment, I left behind something at the fishbowl. Dan of Electric Countrpoint found it.

He writes in this blog entry:

I note with satisfaction that apparently Mr. or Ms. Fishbowl scans his or her work right here at Angell Hall, not five feet from the front desk of what is certainly his or her most fanbase. My deducing skills aren't revealing any more clues about the mysterious author, but I'll keep the evidence just in case.

Actually, considering the (more or less) love that we Fishbowl consultants have for AHFB, maybe I'll make a little trophy plaque and hang it in the break room...

My work now hangs in a place of honor right next to some Bruegger's Bagels coupons.

Plan of Action

2007-03-15T11:38:00.000-04:00

Found wednesday around 1:40pm at the ugli

Number(s)

2007-03-14T13:03:00.000-04:00

Hate to break it to you, R, but there's probably a reason you don't have her number in the first place. If she wanted to talk to you, she'd probably have already called one of your numbers (note: plural).

From yesterday's Ann Arbor News

"I know, I'll make a list of positive traits"

2007-03-14T12:56:00.000-04:00

"...and then say that I have them. I'll be hired for sure!"

I'll stop posting bad cover letters when people stop leaving them behind.

Clang Clang Clang [...] Me Me Me

2007-03-13T01:13:00.000-04:00

what

what

what

Found by Dana Khan in the CSE building on North Campus.

Photo: Send me 5

2007-03-12T00:36:00.000-04:00

This key [in a photo I took about a week ago] was attached to a pole at the intersection of State Street and South U.

The post-it note behinds it reads:

I found your
key, you are
welcome
[street address]
Send me 5.

which I can only assume means $5. Who does something nice and then tacks up a note asking for $5?

I kind of want to send the person a letter and find out. Except I would need a not-me address the person could write back to.

Nacogdoche Indians

2007-03-12T00:28:00.000-04:00

Paul at the College of Mt. St. Joseph sends this our way.

This reminds me of third grade when I turned in a paper about gorillas that was supposed to be a page long. I only had a half page of text and was convinced that I had every bit of important information available, so I solved the problem with wordart. Wordart that took up half a page. I got it back from the teacher and didn't do so well, so my dad took me to the library and showed me how to find more stuff.

On another topic, remember when "doing research" meant "going through books"?

Graduation Speech (advance copy)

2007-03-09T17:10:00.000-05:00

I would think that this has to be the student speaker's graduation speech. While Bill Clinton is the main speaker, every year a student gets up and gives a speech as, like, the representative for the students. It's possible, however, that this is only an application for that position. Still, even if this is it, this speech beats two years ago where the speaker told us all the great things that he was going to do. Oh, and last year's where one of her memories was something about waking up after drinking too much. Guess we'll find out if this is the actual speech or not during commencement.

Link: I've heard of "mail" over the web.

2007-03-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

I stopped by and said hi to the fine people at the Grad's Interlibrary Loan office earlier today. They were looking this FAQ about the INTERNET and I thought I'd give it a link.

Unemployed: A story in two parts

2007-03-08T13:08:00.000-05:00

Yet another short story with a horrible plot.

Spirograph

2007-03-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

Mail Order Brides and Opportunity

2007-03-07T12:42:00.000-05:00

I hope that one joke a couple months ago didn't scare away all the feminists and women's studies majors, because this is a paper they'd find pretty ridiculous.

People are evil.

2007-03-06T15:14:00.000-05:00

Found on the ground near the engineering arch:

Welcome back.

2007-03-06T15:01:00.000-05:00

Because I felt like drawing a comic.

'Some (weak) experimentation with Adobe Photoshop'

2007-03-06T11:49:00.000-05:00

If you thought black text on a black background was hard to read, wait until you try to read outlined, metallic, shadowed text. Sent in by iheartrockwell.

The Fishbowl in Sound

2007-03-06T01:03:00.000-05:00

AHFB reader William Couch sent this my way. He writes,

"I had an assignment for my Digital Animation/Media course (SAC 306, for inquiring minds) where we were to create an 'audio composition' that would recreate a certain space, or place. I chose the Fishbowl. Each distinct sound was recorded separately and then mixed together."

William Couch - Fishfood

Extreme Yeast

2007-03-05T16:12:00.000-05:00

XTREME!

Re: Creative Writing Courses

2007-03-03T02:40:00.000-05:00

Dana's comment on "Living under the Open Sky" about how Author didn't know anything about the drugs he/she was writing about reminded me of this.

Here at Michigan, there are three creative writing classes that contain fiction writing: 223 (intro, also has poetry), 323, and 423. It's probably worth noting that both 323 and 423 require portfolio submissions, and usually around 25 people apply for 15 spots. English 325 (essay writing) is a class that requires students to write nonfiction essays, often about themselves. What I'm about to say applies to all of these courses.

It's been my experience that the bulk of works that come out of creative writing courses fall into these categories:

1) Stories about sex (it's EDGY!!!)
2) Stories about drugs or other dark things (EDGY!!!)
3) Stories that are just retellings of events that happened to the author in real life. Common subject: unrequited love.
4) A story about something that happened to the student while studying abroad. Often combines some or all of 1-3 above.

Additions?

Living under the Open Sky

2007-03-01T23:41:00.000-05:00

Chock full of morals!

Useless PowerPoint Slides

2007-03-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

Settle for what's sufficient!

2007-02-28T01:10:00.000-05:00

Author that uses his last two setences to tell the reader
1) He's never had an internship
2) He's generically alright for the job

Coming Thursday: A cautionary short story about drugs!

The BG News and Wikipedia

2007-02-27T22:50:00.000-05:00

I'm sure that plagiarism has happened at college newspapers across the country, so I set out looking. So far I haven't come up with much in googling through a few articles, but this Kid Icarus review from The BG News and its similarities to the Kid Icarus Wikipedia entry got me thinking.

Let's check out a few quotes.

-----

From Article:
"Pit runs and jumps vertically and horizontally across levels, just like Mario. He shoots arrows much like Samus Aran shoots her gun in the original "Metroid." He also collects treasures just as Link does in "The Legend of Zelda" series. There are also some RPG elements involved."

From Wiki:
"In volume 204 of Nintendo Power, an article was written about the game describing it as blending together elements from The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Metroid, stating that Pit can 'jump like Mario, collect items like Zelda, and shoot enemies like Metroid.' "

From Article:
"Released on the same date and using the same game engine as the original "Metroid," "Kid Icarus" was overshadowed and forgotten by those who had not played it."

[By the way, this fact seems wrong. My own wikipedia search says that Kid Icarus was released in July 1987, and Metroid in August of the same year]

From Wiki:
"Kid Icarus is often compared to Metroid (which was released the same year), as it uses the same game engine."

-----

So, is this plagiarism or coincidence? What if, instead of a video game review, this was a sociology paper submitted to a journal (and, obviously, was about sociology instead of wii virtual console games)?

I emailed BGNews editors yesterday, letting them know this was going up and asking for comment. They did not respond.

Ethnic studies credit?

2007-02-26T23:36:00.000-05:00

Sarah Hewitt was kind enough to submit this, adding Albion College to the list of colleges we've seen submissions from.

Know someone at Albion? Why not forward this site to them to help us spread? More readers = more papers.

Updates over break

2007-02-23T16:57:00.000-05:00

Michigan just started its week long winter break. I think I have enough papers to do a couple updates over the next week, so check back.

Ban Me

2007-02-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

I think it's pretty obvious why Middlebury College banned Wikipedia.

Also, what's with including "Ann Arbor" in the citation? Last time I checked, Wikipedia loads the same around here as it does anywhere else in the world (China and Iran excluded).

Daily Writer Commits Plagiarism

2007-02-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

According to an Editor's Note in today's paper, an Arts Writer committed some serious copy-and-paste style plagiarism. Given this now-ironic entry, our previous plagiarism discussions, and the fact that the Daily is all over the fishbowl, I figured this was relevant to this site.

The Daily's editor's note (figured this would be more legible than a scan)

I did some googling. Here's what I came up with.

Here's an Image Socket mirror in case the ImageShack link goes down:

Plagiarism is bringing the world to an end.

Congrats Devika: You just got yourself fired and made the Daily look stupid. I don't know how you figured you could plagiarize four out of your seven articles (according to a search on the Daily website) and make it out unscathed.

Edit (3/26/07): See also this editor's note. Daga also plagiarized in four other articles. In other words, it seems that every article she wrote had plagiarism in it.

Link: "Cancer #1" Flash Animataion

2007-02-21T00:55:00.000-05:00

Too bad I don't know how to use Flash, or I could make flash/podcast comics like this: Cancer Has Become The #1 Killer Disease

Current Mood: Freshman

2007-02-20T12:05:00.000-05:00

Ctool-bag

2007-02-20T04:38:00.000-05:00

Better update coming later in the day. Till then, let's discuss this:

This is really just a test print that someone printed hastily, right?

[Insert amazing transition here]
What's the worst excuse you've heard someone give for a late paper?

Edit: today I found a similar printout that said "we can't find gobluewolverine.com," which would support the theory that this is only a test print.

Fresh Meat

2007-02-19T00:42:00.000-05:00

Remember when I found A Comic With Turkeys back in January? It now has a source: one of the author's friends told her about the site, the author commented, and now, after a couple emails, here we have the found page (page 3) in context.

Here are all 5 pages of Emily Canosa's "Fresh Meat."

She writes the following:
"I'm working on a comic compilation of work from various artists that's going to be published in April, and the turkey/chicken one is something of mine I left behind when putting together a grant proposal. It's not 100% done, but here's the rest!
[...]The upcoming publication is called Comic Exposure, and it's all comics from a variety of artists and writers that address social or political issues. It's coming out in late April, and there's gonna be a release event at the Vault of Midnight."

So that answers our questions about that.

As far as I know, this is the first instance of someone claiming ownership of something seen on this blog.

On another note: if any of your are around campus computing sites on Monday (especially at UMich) could you be on the lookout for grabs? It's midterms season which means papers, papers, papers. Kick me an email with what you find.

On Vacation w/ a TV that doesn't receive calls

2007-02-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

Handwritten stuff just has so much more character than printed documents.

My translation:

"On Vacation...
-I don't do anything except tan.
-I am not stressed at all.
-No one talks to be because my phone* does not work when I am not in the United States."

This person also took the time to translate "I <3" to "J'aime"

*Edit: As Srah points out in the comments, télé is actually the word for television, not phone. I'm guessing her TV doesn't receive calls inside the United States either.

Lois is a connector

2007-02-15T12:18:00.000-05:00

The fishbowl is pretty dry for material today: luckily we've got these B-School slides. Taken from a sheet of six, these three slides seem to be about how to evaluate the relationships you have with people to figure out if you can use them in work. I like how everything on the "Weak Ties" list is just the obvious opposite of the "Strong Ties" list.

I'm told that there's a whole class about networking? I guess that would explain the letters to businessmen and women saying "Thank you for your time and meeting with me" early last semester.

How does "The Strength of Weak Ties" in any way relate to the material on this slide anyhow?

I'll be checking again later for more stuff at the fishbowl. If I find anything good it'll be up early tomorrow morning.

Ecofeminism!

2007-02-14T00:12:00.000-05:00

Dana Khan keeps us updated on what all those school of natural resource kids at the Dana Building are up to.

Elsewhere on the internet, someone wrote this regarding this poem:
"Whether I agree or not with your stance or your feelings, this is a very, very well-written poem. Surprisingly so. I'm quite impressed. I like your repetition ("Should you desert, revert, undo") & that sense of not being able to take back love already given, which makes your poem more universal.

Like all truly brilliant poems, this one is occasional, written for a specific situation and emotion, yet it is universally identifiable, all with clear & concise imagery & wonderful diction. Well done."

Praise be upon Wikipedia

2007-02-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

And Wikipedia said "I shall be a voice for the people on this Earth."

Only found one page of this, but I like to think that I found the very best one. I'm sure there's a lot more comments that could be made on this person's perspective on medicine and eating disorders, but I don't even know how to address it in such a small space.

SomethingAwful: Mystery Box

2007-02-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

Given the found-item nature of this site, I figured some of you out there might be interesting in this recent SA forum thread in which a goon has a big box of random old photos, notes, and booklets left on his doorstep. The thread isn't NSFW, but I still feel like you don't wanna be caught browsing forums if you're at work. Just a heads up.

The Five Paragraph Essay

2007-02-12T01:44:00.000-05:00

New horrible papers are on their way. Until then, I wanted to write about something different:

If there's any form of paper writing that needs to die, it's the five paragraph essay. They're really popular for standardized high school tests in Michigan, mostly because they're easy to grade. Oddly enough, they still have a place here at the University of Michigan. The format goes like this:

Paragraph 1: Introduction
Paragraph 2: Antithesis
Paragraph 3: Info
Paragraph 4: Info
Paragraph 5: Conclusion

And the writer is not to deviate from the structure!
Back in high school, I had to do one of these essays in preparation for the MEAP. I did all this research and put together an essay I thought was pretty good, but my slight deviations (saving the antithesis for the fourth paragraph for example) earned me a C: not because I didn't write well, but because I observe the rules of the five paragraph essay.
Furthermore, the red ink suggested that it was a huge error on my part to allow my conclusion paragraph to analyze and wrap up. According to the powers that be, the conclusion cannot introduce any new information. The author is not allowed to analyze: only to repeat what he has already said as if the reader might have forgotten the point of the paper in the time it took him to read a few paragraphs.

In the end it goes something like this [if I were writing about five paragraph essays]:

In this blog post, I am going to convince you that five paragraph essays suck. They're awful.
Some may say that five paragraph essays are great. They are wrong.
This is a short paragraph where I can't cram in any info.
This is another short paragraph. Too bad I can't have a third info paragraph.
Conclusion paragraph that consists of what I just wrote less than a page ago.

Is this how we're going to teach kids to write a good essay? A child would do considerably better if someone taught him how to write a several-paragraph essay where the paragraphs transition nicely from one to another. Why teach a kid to fill up all his essays with dead words? There's something wrong about an essay where only two out of five paragraphs have good, solid information.

Dentistry is Rainbows

2007-02-08T15:49:00.000-05:00

It's also a hands-on profession.

Blockhead

2007-02-08T15:39:00.000-05:00

The first of two posts for today.

Quick Hits: Listening, Critique, Language

2007-02-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from three different papers.

Let's talk about internships.

2007-02-06T15:09:00.000-05:00

Found by our pal Dana Khan

Now, I give these resumes I find a lot of crap for being sneaky ways to say you did data entry, and I thought i'd be interesting to start up a discussion about this. Who out there knows somebody (or is somebody) that's had an intership that's something more than fly-on-the-wall experience? What percentage of interships are really great ones, and how many of 'em are glorified data entry? Are the intereships in this resume more than I think they are? It seems to me that if they really did anything of major value, they'd be more specific about it rather than using all the vague words like they do.

If that's too small to read, here's a version thats 1000px wide (click on it once you get to the image to make it bigger):

Updates this week

2007-02-05T03:08:00.000-05:00

Updates this week may not be as regular as usual: my desktop computer is down and out and , until I have the stuff I need to fix it, I can't get at certain files. I may just end up posting a couple days worth of stuff on fewer weekdays.

Morphine Emails

2007-02-02T02:30:00.000-05:00

I really can't believe I found these emails. Below are emails from a daughter to her father here in Ann Arbor. Googling of the sender and recipient's names tells me that "Dad" was born before the 1920's and the daughter now has kids of her own and has moved away across the country. [I'm fortunate that both of these people are known enough to have webpages that mention or profile them]. I don't wanna give too much else away about the letters' content. But if this were a book, I would read it.

Sorry that I had to blur so many names. I wanted to be extra careful.

Global Warming Soapbox

2007-02-01T01:51:00.000-05:00

Because whit found this paper in the library, we now have the knowledge necessary to save the planet!

Memes!!!!11!!one!!!

2007-01-31T16:02:00.000-05:00

If you're lost, see this boing boing post or this wikipedia list

Rodney King Commentary

2007-01-31T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'll post the full paper here after I write a paper of my own, but for now, here's a sentence from a paper about the Rodney King beating.

"I, for example, would not remain still nor willingly accept a beating by a group of people, regardless of the authority they have over me." -Amcult 350 paper.

A Comic With Turkeys

2007-01-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

I must be missing some other pages.

This is what a good cover letter looks like.

2007-01-30T15:16:00.000-05:00

No comments on this one, but it's been so long since I've even seen a decent cover letter in the fishbowl that I had to post this. This guy knows what he's doing. Note the lack of awkward transitions or extraneous filler text.

Windows Vista Ads

2007-01-30T15:14:00.000-05:00

I didn't actually "find" these but I still had to write on them.

Before a PC v. Mac war starts in the comments, I'd like to identify myself as being on the side of the PC.

So Awkward it Hurts

2007-01-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

This paper hurts my face. I wish I could write the word "awk" all the way across it, but then it would be hard for you to read.

Grabbed by HC at the fishbowl.

You may say "AHFB, are you sure this isn't an English as a second language student?" I thought the same thing, but I got on facebook and he's not an ESL student [someone I wouldn't make fun of].

Here's what's really ironic: he's a member of the facebook group "If I See Another Group Name With a Grammatical Error, I Will Flip a Shit"