First Day of School!

[donblood]

BLAZIN HERBS aka Comparative Religion

[elpollodiablo]

App will go in this fall, yeah. It's kind of fucked up to think I won't be starting until I'm 27, but there you go. An MA in English, I think, with a focus in modern American lit. Or maybe an MFA. I haven't decided yet. Now that I'm not regarding it as the first step to a career I feel like I can be a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

[Illest Waffle]

THE WORST

[coldforge]

Wow!

[Greg Nog]

congratulations aaron

[G.C.R]

huh I've got one of those essays for film that is "Basically write whatever you want, about whatever you want, as long as its focussing on one film in particular, and it relates to something that we've studied this year." Deciding is going to be tough

[diesel_powered]

App will go in this fall, yeah. It's kind of fucked up to think I won't be starting until I'm 27, but there you go. An MA in English, I think, with a focus in modern American lit. Or maybe an MFA. I haven't decided yet. Now that I'm not regarding it as the first step to a career I feel like I can be a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

M-F-A! M-F-A! M-F-A!

[Good Intentions]

Must work up enthusiasm to mark essays. Must work up enthusiasm to mark essays. Must work up enthusiasm...

[Bernard]

Maybe there will be some hilarious plagiarism.

[alex]

Fuck marking essays. I just got the revised version of an essay that I'd failed (it was a near-pass, so she was allowed to re-work the existing essay, rather than having to write an entirely new one) and it's hardly an improvement at all over the previous version. The tone is still inappropriate for academic writing, she hasn't improved on her usage of sources, there is still no semblance of structure (though she did randomly insert section headings into the thing, whoopeedeedoo), hell, she even managed to ignore half of the concrete corrections (as in, "this would be a better phrasing: (...)", not as in "think about how you could better formulate this") I'd made on the previous version. The conclusion is a tiny little bit better than it used to be, I'll grant her that. On the one hand, I feel like it would be cruel to fail her again now (I feel like if I was going to do that, I should have just given her a worse mark to begin with, so that she could have written a new essay from scratch immediately, rather than first having to revise the existing essay and then writing a new one altogether after all). On the other hand, what the fuck, I can't give this a pass.

[Good Intentions]

Then don't. If she hasn't gotten the point, then she missed her chance.

Easy for me to say, though. The worst mark I've given thusfar is a B-. Maybe when I run these past the supervisor I'll get told I'm being too nice.

B: I'm actually getting some hilarious citing. One student (in quite a good essay) found it necessary to conduct an interview with a psych student to support the statement that sometimes we follow rules because they are endorsed by figures of authority.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Hah, GI, that actually sounds like something YOU would do.

[Ignatius]

In undergraduate elective classes I used to do that all the time, GI. It's a good cheat when you're afraid the grader will require you to source almost everything. I also occasionally enlist my girlfriend as a source for commonly known biographical details.

[jess]

Yeah, but why would an interview with a psych student be a good/acceptable source for that? I can see asking a psych student for references to use, and anyone who has taken social or maybe even intro should at least be able to suggest Milgram or the like, which would be perfectly reasonable sources to support that concept, but unless that psych student has conducted their own research on the topic, they aren't an expert. Maybe philosophy is different, but in psych if you don't the get a primary source when you reasonably could that's considered poor research. I get that in this case it's probably not an issue because it sounds like it's not something he needed to cite anyway, but if he's going to cite it, may as well do it right.

[silentsigh89]

I have a huge crush on the professor for my analytic seminar. Huge. I've taken classes with him three semesters in row and am just, well. IN LOVE.

So when he asked me to his office I was, of course, terrified.

As it turns out, he wants me to give my final presentation two weeks early as an example for the rest of the class. I am A) flattered and excited, and B) absolutely terrified that I will not do even nearly as well as he seems to think I will and therefore not be a good example at all and be forced to spend the rest of my college career hiding from him.

I was also given official paperwork about my thesis timeline today, which is intimidating in its own right as I have no idea what I want to do. I wasn't even sure I was going to write one.

Basically, I have spent all semester being nudged in (hopefully) good, but certainly very difficult directions by various professors. Now all I can do is hope I don't fall flat on my face. Right? right.

[diesel_powered]

Ahh relax, you'll do fine.

[Good Intentions]

Yeah, but why would an interview with a psych student be a good/acceptable source for that?

That's what I told her. The only thing you could appropriately cite for such a point would be a paper that dealt with that subject. Even the Milgram experiments wouldn't be exactly the the point, because those are about authority getting you to do anything, rule or not - there isn't a commonly accepted rule that you should give extremely painful shocks as a teaching aid, which is part of the point of the experiment.

If I needed a citation, it would have been because the claim was something I wouldn't accept on somebody's says-so, and that citation just makes it somebody else's says-so. What she needs is an argument to that effect, or a reference to such an argument. Luckily, the point is entirely uncontroversial (nor does it do much work in the essay), so I just told her not to bother.

[milesofsparks]

App will go in this fall, yeah. It's kind of fucked up to think I won't be starting until I'm 27, but there you go. An MA in English, I think, with a focus in modern American lit. Or maybe an MFA. I haven't decided yet. Now that I'm not regarding it as the first step to a career I feel like I can be a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

I think I have a GRE study book with practice tests around here somewhere if you want to borrow it.  also, you should ask my advice about the GRE because I fucking ACED it after really only about 3 days of study (I was sick before).  well, I got like 2 wrong on the math part, but still.  (it doesn't often come up that I get the opportunity to brag about that.)

[Good Intentions]

As it turns out, he wants me to give my final presentation two weeks early as an example for the rest of the class. I am A) flattered and excited, and B) absolutely terrified that I will not do even nearly as well as he seems to think I will and therefore not be a good example at all and be forced to spend the rest of my college career hiding from him.

Hey, Beth, if you don't mind I'd like to see this presentation of yours, likely just to reiterate d_p's assurances that you'll be fine.

[edison]

On the one hand, I feel like it would be cruel to fail her again now (I feel like if I was going to do that, I should have just given her a worse mark to begin with, so that she could have written a new essay from scratch immediately, rather than first having to revise the existing essay and then writing a new one altogether after all). On the other hand, what the fuck, I can't give this a pass.

I'd concur with GI here; since you apparently clearly provided her with avenues for improvement, comments on how to make the paper better, you shouldn't feel bad in any way that she hasn't managed to follow up on that. I can see how you would assume you have some responsibility in that, but it sounds to me like you don't, really.

[edison]

Ignoring the concrete corrections is a dealbreaker in itself, anyway, and shows that she either didn't pay attention, or, hmm, would rather like to do things wrong. Which, either way, is not good.

[alex]

Ignoring the concrete corrections is a dealbreaker in itself, anyway, and shows that she either didn't pay attention, or, hmm, would rather like to do things wrong. Which, either way, is not good.

Well, I mean, it's her call to what extent she wants to take in my suggestions, and I wouldn't be complaining it all if she had rewritten it in other ways than I had suggested, but of course that's not what she did, she just left those sentences entirely unchanged.
I just remembered that this is the same girl who, when the results got in, wrote me an e-mail saying she was very disappointment that she hadn't passed the class "due to 0.5 point missing" and wanted to meet me to discuss what options she had other than re-writing the essay, which I found somewhat hilarious (um, no, you were half a point short of a passing grade because I failed you -- the whole point of that is making you rewrite the paper if you want a passing grade), but which does not really inspire me to be lenient. Since she actually handed in the revised version 2 weeks ahead of the final deadline, I might just drop her another e-mail and tell her that, if she does want to pass the class, she'll have to try a little harder.

edit: Also, GI -- that's kind of brilliant. (Also, I may have written "sources?" next to things nearly as obvious as that; I tend to judge the need for citations as much by the context and way in which something is mentioned as by the actual content of the claim; i.e. if you pretend something is some kind of grandiose finding or claim that there is definitive proof for what you're just claiming, then I want to see your sources. Though usually of course I'll just suggest rephrasing; "sources?" is just such a great expression of slightly passive-aggressive resignation. My favourite invocation is when a colleague of mine wrote this in the margin when a student suggested that Hitler might not have had a choice to do things differently...)

[davy]

Since she actually handed in the revised version 2 weeks ahead of the final deadline, I might just drop her another e-mail and tell her that, if she does want to pass the class, she'll have to try a little harder.

That sounds like the right approach.

[silentsigh89]

As it turns out, he wants me to give my final presentation two weeks early as an example for the rest of the class. I am A) flattered and excited, and B) absolutely terrified that I will not do even nearly as well as he seems to think I will and therefore not be a good example at all and be forced to spend the rest of my college career hiding from him.

Hey, Beth, if you don't mind I'd like to see this presentation of yours, likely just to reiterate d_p's assurances that you'll be fine.

Thanks, GI! It's still in the works, but I will certainly be happy to share if you're at all interested or willing. It isn't going to be very exciting-- the work for this seminar, outside of class, is all the same: Pick an article from some decently scholarly source, present its arguments as well as you can, and then argue against it. I'm deciding between a few articles right now, all on the Sophist. I just feel like I'm better at writing these things than presenting them, because I can handle feeling stupid and arrogant in correcting some more experienced person's work, but standing up and doing it? A much different situation!

And, Alex, you shouldn't feel bad at all! Just drop her that e-mail and know that you've done everything you can.

[Good Intentions]

Pick an article from some decently scholarly source, present its arguments as well as you can, and then argue against it.

If that's not exciting, I've gotten myself into a very dull career.