The SOS forums are intended to be all-inclusive and to provide a helpful and supportive community, regardless of knowledge and experience.

Students are welcome to post genuine questions asking for help with their studies. However, before posting it is worth bearing in mind the following pointers:

1. A great many course tutors read and contribute to these forums, and they may well recognise questions they have set, and even the style of posters asking for answers.

There is nothing wrong in asking for help, but your tutors may not be impressed if they discover your homework is being done completely by SOS forum members! More to the point, it won't benefit you in the way it was intended to.

2. Forum regulars are genuinely helpful and supportive people for the most part, but they have little or no appetite for doing a student's homework for them, and consequently some may receive short shrift if they appear to be too lazy to do even the most basic research themselves. Everyone here has worked hard to gain the knowledge and experience they have, and while the majority are more than happy to share that with those that demonstrate application and interest, they are not here to allow the poster to spend more time in the pub!

Moderators reserve the rights to lock or delete such threads without further debate or explanation, to save bandwidth.

Posting a question such as "Design a studio for $500,000: what should I buy?" will inevitably not be welcome.

Okay, enough of the dont's. What about the do's?

We all need help from time to time. Eveyone on the forum had to learn what they know from someone else at some point. A student who discloses that they are looking for help with a course project and shows that they have already applied themselves to the question with serious effort will be received fairly.

If you can show that you have made a good stab at the topic but have become stuck with one particular aspect, the forum regulars are far more likely to reward the effort with constructive advice and assistance.

In essence, if you do the work but then get stuck, come here and seek help. Don't come here seeking an immediate answer without applying yourself to the problem at all!

Hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

All true and eloquently put Hugh.

I'd like to add the following however as it relates to an issue that I think is of the upmost importance. Namely maintaining the same levels of courtesy in the virtual world as we do in the real world. Make no mistake a large portion of our lives are going virtual from Second Life to Facebook. We have the chance now of establishing social norms and conventions that favour a supportive and non-threatening environment.

In other words, even for those really lazy annoying students we could all think twice before giving them short-shrift, before barking at them for their laziness or mocking their ignorance. Their are two simple alternatives neither of which makes anybody feel silly. Ignoring the thread or politely pointing them here.

Namaste

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Quote jellyjim:

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....barking at them for their laziness or mocking their ignorance....

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...but that's soooooo much fun

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I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

I know you mean it in jest, but Jellyjim has a very good point, and it's one we should all take on board.

I don't want this thread to meander on as it will weaken the original important message, but I think we could all do with remembering the importance of politeness and courtesy.

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Any students posting questions at this time in the academic yerar is one that hasn't done their work on time anyway, otherwise it would have been submitted by now, in other words they're asking people to dig them out of a hole, and any help in those circumstances would encourage people into an industry where excuses just don't cut it, because when they get behind a mixing desk during a live show, or have to engineer a recording, the artist concerned ain't gonna be polite as many lecturers would be - hell hath no fury like an artist messed about by some dumb cluck who can't get it right and right on time!

Guys, all good points, but I'm going to lock this sticky now, not because I want to stop the discussion, but because I don't want the key message to get lost in three pages of discussion, which is what happened with the previous thread! This needs to be an succinct advisory thread, not a debate on the rights and wrongs of student homework.

Please feel free to start a new thread to discuss these things if you like, in he off-topic area perhaps.

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound