Like just about everything else in the modern world, technology has completely changed the educational process for both students and teachers. Kids are assigned work online and complete it in that matter, the student-teacher conference can be replaced by an e-mail exchange or a FaceTime chat, teachers and professors input all their grades digitally and have final averages calculated by computer programs, etc. [pullquote]We’re practically at the point where classrooms don’t even need to exist. So why has technology not yet killed the term paper?[/pullquote]

And yet the term paper still survives. It’s the dreaded assignment that every student has had to complete at one time or another, that time-honored process whereby kids plow into reams full of research and come out with ten pages, double-spaced to show their knowledge on a single subject. You would think in this age of technology that this endeavor would have gone the way of the dodo bird, and yet still it’s a common requirement for high school and college students everywhere.

If you’re a student and have had it with these things but don’t want to get into hot water, check out Prescott Papers, a surefire way to get around the plagiarism-checker Turnitin. Barring that, prepare to live with term papers, because here are some reasons that they probably aren’t going away anytime soon.

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Teachers Like Them More Than Kids

Some teachers and professors are still of an age where a term paper was the end-all, be-all of the educational process. And, since younger teachers tend to be fond of their formative educational experiences, chances are that they’re fond of term papers too, especially now that they get to be on the receiving end of them. That’s why it’s unlikely that term papers will be aged out of the educational process in the near future.

Nuts And Bolts

Multi-media presentations, websites, and podcasts: These are just some of the alternatives by which a student might be able to show his or her knowledge about a particular subject without having to sit down and write a lengthy paper. But the truth is that a kid who knows the ins and outs of whatever technological medium is chosen can fool even a veteran teacher into thinking that he knows more than he does by upping the creativity and entertainment value. There aren’t many ways to be creative or entertaining about a stodgy old term paper, so they might be the best gauge of the student’s understanding, or lack thereof, of the subject at hand.

Writing Is Cherished By Academia

The ability to turn a phrase, construct a powerful sentence, or even just use the exact right word at the right time: All of these abilities tend to be rated higher by teachers and professors than by people in the everyday world. And that’s true even for teachers of other subjects besides English. That’s why big projects will always have some element that’s devoted to a student demonstrating his writing ability.

These are just a few of the reasons why the written term paper is still a stalwart of lesson plans everywhere. So grin and bear it, students, and get out that thesaurus.

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Why Technology Has Not Yet Killed The Term Paper

IMAGE: PEXELS