We were assigned someone else's paper for peer review, after weeks of working on my paper, I had what I thought was a decent paper, even for a rough draft, so when I submitted mine to the professor for her review and for peer review I thought, "OK, maybe I'll get an interesting paper in return." Wishful thinking.
What I got was a paper that was poorly written, poorly formatted, and not even what the assignment asked for. The paper has to do with homosexuality (and I am a homosexual--bet she didn't see that coming when she was thinking about peer review) But the author of the paper does not take a stand, out right tells her readers to decide for themselves (our whole assignment was to research a hypothesis and prove our point...with valid and sound arguments--HELLO). But I am not pissed about that part, so much as I am pissed because I feel bad for the student who wrote it. Not only does she not understand APA format at all, nor the coherent transition from paragraph to paragraph, but also doesn't have a clue of how disorganized and confusing what she's written is.
So as I am preparing for my assignment to review her assignment I think back to the basics of writing. What a sentence is, how to transistion from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, how to pull it all together, and how to use spell check along with Word's grammar check...Several mistakes are blatant spelling errors, grammatical errors, formatting errors, and problems with transition (did already mention that, only about ten times already I know). SHe has homosexuality spelled "hosexuality"--my 15 year old cracked up when she read that, and has now found a new word...but she asked me, "Mom, doesn't it bother you that she thinks it as simple as men wanting to be women and women wanting to be men?" I told her no, that didn't bother me, what bothered me is that this woman is in college and cannot write a simple paragraph without major subject verb agreement problems, and that she thinks she has a decent paper. What bothers me more is that I can help her, and will try to, but will she listen?
As hard as it is to be unbiased when reading her paper, I can achieve that, but what I cannot stop doing is feeling sorry for her. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about all the work she put into her paper, and how she must have saw all the red and green lines in Word when she was writing...did it not register? So I am using trackchanges and the appendix we're supposed to use for our peer review to help her with her paper. One way or the other I will do the very best I can to help her see the potential in her paper, and help correct the mistakes, no matter how many there are, but what I will not do is write her paper for her.
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It is possible that she didn't put all that much work into it. I mean, most people I know will actually try to spell words correctly with spell check. She sounds like she just threw the paper together at the last minute because any grade is better than a zero.
~C
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Yes but even with a "thrown together" paper you should still know how to write a proper paragraph...even if you are rushing. And especially if you're in college, it should be like second nature as far as format, etc, etc. But then again in my first year when I had to take writing, some people didn't know how to do MLA format. O.o
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See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
You'd be surprised how bad some thrown together papers can be. I know that when I'm in a rush to get my paper into the writing center for revision (I have to send it 2 days before it is due, so that I get it back in time to make revisions), I just write, do a quick spell check, and send it in. Sometimes it's coherent, and other times it's not. And I write pretty good papers overall (I've made A's or A-'s on all the college papers I've written).
~C
Visit my blog.
I suppose some people are just good at it maybe?
And I just checked my grade on my essay exam...84% and I was talking out of my ass the whole time. Luckiy I have the talent of being good at b.s-ing and still sound like I know what I'm talking about. But I don't it all the time, it can only take you so far :)
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See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
That is the most useful skill to possess whilst in college! If it weren't for that one, I'm sure I'd have bombed world conflict last term. But, I made it out with a 95.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
I can tell that she tried, for example, she tried to cite, but it's completely wrong. She tried to attempt to set up the paper by using numbered headers, it doesn't call for headers, but the way she threw it together it's not even thrown together.
But it's more than the format. It's all of it combined. I wish I could show you an example, but as close as I can is to say that she puts words together that don't belong together, Like...she starts a sentence with "Yet though..."
Does that help you see the problem?
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
" Like...she starts a sentence with "Yet though..." Does that help you see the problem?"
*speechless* wow, yes it does. I really hope it was a one time thing for her...Yet though? :(
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See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
"Yet though"
I am still cracking up at the "hosexuality" instead of "homosexuality"...and thinking that when my daughter goes to school tomorrow she and many of her friends will all being saying "hosexuality"...:)
My daughter's papers were better than this one when she was in elementary school...makes you think "hmmmm"
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
the paper you'd understand. I would use examples from the paper but it might be a violation of privacy or something.
Believe me, it's the worst paper I've ever seen, and I used to work in the Writing Lab at my old college.
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
On the bright side, at least it's in word, so you can actually read it. In my junior year history class (HS), we did a peer review of an in class essay, and I could barely read the essay, let alone critique it.
Oh, and I can't tell if you did this or not, but hitting the 'reply' button at the bottom of each post will indent your response. Just thought I'd tell you in case you didn't know...
~C
Visit my blog.
Thanks.
I hit reply to the comment I wanted to reply to but it didn't quite work the way it was supposed to...
Am still getting the hang of this, but at least it's fun and interesting, not to mention elightening at times.
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The times I've had to do peer reviews went over really well. Several of the papers were really well written and I loved it. Others, however, were like the one you described and I cringed. How do you not hurt someone's feelings when you tell them, as tactfully as possible, that their paper is crap? I didn't want to totally discourage these people and I definitely didn't want to give them so much assistance that I essentially ended up writing the paper for them.
In the end, it went over really well though. I offered as much assistance as I could without doing all the work for them and they appreciated it. One thing that helped me was asking questions. Instead of saying, this would make more sense if you said X or Y, ask things like 'what point are you trying to convey here and is there another way it can be worded so as to give the reader a clearer picture of what you're trying to say?' Keeps you from doing the work while being useful at the same time.
The number of people that manage to make it all the way through elementary, junior high and high school and still can't write a grammatically decent sentence is astounding!
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
But at least his made sense. I used lots of the "What do you mean by this?" and "What might work better here?" type things. This time I decided to help where I knew she really had no clue, and to offer the "What does this mean?" "Where are you trying to go with this?" I have even suggested a site that is credible and has a great deal of information about her topic. That is really as much as I can do without writing the paper for her, though I did strike through words that did not belong in the sentence, did some basic grammar and spell check examples for her, etc.
I really do feel bad for her.
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Are ya'll allowed to use APA formatting software (you input the information, it spits out the formatted reference)? If so, that might help her figure it out, or at least keep her from bombing that part.
Noodletools.com has a decent APA format program. I've never had any problems with it when I've used it and don't know of any students that I've referred that direction that have had a problem so long as they input the correct information. It doesn't give in-text citations, but does the reference formatting... might help.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
I've never used one, but I'll check it out, and suggest it to her.
Thanks
"A prime part of the history of our Constitution...is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded." ~US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Most of them are crap, but like I said, I've never had a problem with that particular one so long as the correct information is inputted (is that even a word?!).
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
"inputted (is that even a word?!)."
Yes it is,lol. Although, it sounds weird when you actually pronounce it...at least to me. :)
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See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18