As a current student, I can confirm your suspicions about a seemingly complete paper being preferred over one that addresses all information about the topic. “I don’t know” still is not an acceptable answer in many circles and I regard it as an unfortunate phenomenon.
In my second year uni course, I have an outline for writing lab reports that says ‘include in your discussion anything you feel is out of place, or that you don’t understand in this experiment. You will not be marked down for such admissions’.
And I thought ‘NO-ONE is going to take you up on that.’. I hate having to bullshit science papers—I tend to compromise, with a hashed together explanation that I express doubt in, and take the marks hit. Bullshitting is great fun in English courses, but in science it feels like shooting myself in the foot.
As a current student, I can confirm your suspicions about a seemingly complete paper being preferred over one that addresses all information about the topic. “I don’t know” still is not an acceptable answer in many circles and I regard it as an unfortunate phenomenon.
In my second year uni course, I have an outline for writing lab reports that says ‘include in your discussion anything you feel is out of place, or that you don’t understand in this experiment. You will not be marked down for such admissions’. And I thought ‘NO-ONE is going to take you up on that.’. I hate having to bullshit science papers—I tend to compromise, with a hashed together explanation that I express doubt in, and take the marks hit. Bullshitting is great fun in English courses, but in science it feels like shooting myself in the foot.