The Case of the Empty Page It had already been a long day for Joelle. She’d worked two hours of overtime at her job supervising a call center. She’d driven home and immediately sat down at her computer to start work on her paper for her marketing class the next day. It was already 11:00 p. m. by the time she finished her research on the web. Then she began writing, opening a new file in her word processing program.
Joelle worked hard, drinking coffee to help her concentrate on the paper- and to keep her eyes open. When she was about three-quarters of the way done, her computer screen suddenly froze. Joelle pushed every button she could think of, but finally had to switch her computer off and then switch it back on. She opened the file for her paper…..and saw an empty page.
To her horror, Joelle realized that her paper had been lost. She looked at the clock-it was almost 3:00 a. m. Did she really need to start her paper all over again?
1. How well did Joelle use her time to work on her paper? What advice would you give her about the preparation stage of working on a paper?

2. Clearly, Joelle should have saved her work frequently while she was working. What else should she have done while working on her paper to help her recover from such a catastrophe?

3. Do you think Joelle’s instructor would be sensitive to her problem? Do you think he or she would be willing to give her an extension? What could Joelle do to make her case that she had nearly finished the paper?

4. What should Joelle do next to begin reconstructing her paper and recovering as much of her work as possible?