It seems to me that there are a number of students who are genuinely clueless as to prioritizing research. For instance, the first thing you should do is use the library and exhaust the printed sources and Interlibrary loan for books and articles. Questions to the list should be very specific and formulated only after serious research and study. It's not the job of the list members to provide basic research or papers. But I think that some students don't understand that print research should proceed questions to the list. Perhaps there could be a standard or canned response to these questions that cites appropriate general books and articles to begin research with. In that way you would be giving a response but not feeling like you have to do their work for them. Point them to Twain A to Z, Paine's biography, some critical works. I agree with Jerry O'Brien that these are inappropriate messages, but they seem to stem from basic ignorance of the research process. My 2 cents worth. ;-) Mary Lou Caskey