On April 23, a netizen posted that the Faculty of Arts of a 211 Normal College requires students to copy their graduation theses by hand after passing the defense, and has arranged as many as several documents to copy the requirements, but the number of words above 30,000 can be exempted.
On the evening of April 24, Xiao Ling (pseudonym), a student at the School of Liberal Arts of South China Normal University, told The Paper that the 211 Normal College spread on the Internet was their college, and the students felt that the college's regulations requiring hand-copied graduation theses were very unreasonable. On April 25, The Paper repeatedly contacted the college to verify the hand-copied papers, but received no response as of press time.
Screenshots of the network
According to the content of the online post, the graduation thesis "transcription requirements" of as many as several documents arranged by the School of Liberal Arts of South China Normal University include, the specific format of paper for copying needs to be printed by students, 400 words per page, at least 30+ sheets of paper are required, and the pen for copying should not be too thick.
The netizen said that every year, the students of the Faculty of Arts are miserable, and they report their opinions to the academic affairs department and the college, and the responses they get are the so-called "traditional" and "distinctive", otherwise they threaten students with credits and graduation.
The Paper noticed that a number of netizens had posted on social platforms that they had encountered a situation where the school required hand-copied graduation papers.
Xiao Ling, a student at the School of Liberal Arts of South China Normal University, told The Paper on the evening of April 24 that the 211 Normal College referred to in the online post is their college, "The School of Liberal Arts has a rule on hand-copying graduation theses, which I feel is very unreasonable." I have not heard of such a rule in other schools, and since last year, some students have expressed the hope that the regulations will be adjusted to cancel the hand-copied graduation thesis, but they have not been able to change it."
Hand-copied documents related to the graduation thesis Courtesy of the interviewee
According to the "2020 Graduation Thesis Handwritten Requirements and Attachments" provided by Xiaoling, the School of Liberal Arts requires that "the body of the dissertation with more than 30,000 words can apply for exemption, and the consent form for the exemption application signed by the supervisor will be attached to the end of all materials when the thesis manuscript is submitted in the future." The 30,000-word requirement is only counted as the number of words in the [main text], excluding references and appendices".
In addition, the above requirements stipulate the order of hand-copied and stacked papers, which should be stacked in the order of "cover page - Chinese abstract - English abstract - table of contents - paper body - notes - references - appendix (with figures) - acknowledgment - proposal report - defense record form - grade evaluation form".
Xiaoling told The Paper that on April 23, the college held a meeting to answer the question of hand-copying the graduation thesis. At the meeting, the leaders of the Faculty of Arts came up with the rules for the certification of normal students of the college, saying that the hand-copied graduation thesis is one of the process documents, and the document has been uploaded to the system, "if it is not carried out in accordance with the requirements, it will affect the certification of normal students."
According to the recording of the meeting provided by Xiaoling, the hospital said that there are many contents of teacher certification, and as a supporting material, (hand-copied graduation thesis) is only a small part of it. Hand-copied graduation theses are a feature of the college, and the college established the hand-copied graduation thesis link in the document as early as 1994.
According to the Chinese Academy of Recording, the graduation thesis of the normal students of the Department of Chinese not only tests their ability, but also their writing ability, reflecting the comprehensiveness of the assessment.
Xiaoling said that the students had also discussed this matter in private, and many people believed that the graduation thesis accounted for 8 compulsory credits, and as an academic thesis, it should pay more attention to the content rather than the handwritten or printed form. In terms of writing, there is a special assessment of three strokes and one stroke, and it is not necessary to reflect it in the graduation thesis.
However, although the document is only related to the certification of normal students, there are also some non-normal students in the Faculty of Arts who need to copy papers by hand. According to the recording provided by Xiaoling, the institute said that in addition to the publishing major of the institute, the rest of the non-normal majors have always been placed together with the normal major, and the instructor did not distinguish between them, and after soliciting opinions, it was believed that the 2020 non-normal students of the institute also needed to abide by the content of the document with the normal students of the same level and copy the graduation thesis by hand.
Pictures of relevant documents provided by the respondents
On April 23, the college issued a supplementary notice on the hand-copied manuscript of the 2020 graduation thesis, clarifying the copying form, transcription format, the provision of hand-copied manuscript paper by the college, and the time for submission.
On April 25, The Paper repeatedly contacted the School of Liberal Arts of South China Normal University to verify the hand-copied paper, but did not receive a response as of press time. (The Paper)