More comments from Grading Hell

My excursions into the land of the brainless idiots gets more amazing as each day passes....

Case #1 - Paper on the End of World War II
  • It was Nixon who dropped the bomb on Japan? OMG. You mean they lied to me all those years in grad school?!!! Hell, they told me it was Truman. Lying bastards.
  • First on Nagasaki and then on Hiroshima? Damn. I guess the textbooks can't even get the order straight.
  • Oh wow. the bombs used were "highly explosive and ready to cause damage"? And here I thought nuclear weapons only fizzled.
  • Did I mention this was her research paper?
Case #2 - Either Incredibly Stupid or Incredibly Insulting. Take Your Pick

Mr. Numbnuts hands in a paper that was over 50% plagiarized. I tell him if he wants to pass my class he must rewrite the paper from scratch using his own words and I'll give him credit for the assignment. The rewrite gets 50% of what it would have originally gotten if that had been submitted in the first place. I call it the "get out of jail free" card that they are allowed to play once.

The not-so-favorite student then e-mails me his new paper. I noticed he did not submit it to Turnitin.com (my very favorite website btw), so I did it for him. Not only was this paper plagiarized, it was even more plagiarized than the first one.

Either this kid is incredibly stupid or incredibly insulting. I mean, come on! How stupid does he think I am?

Case Numbers 3-14 - No Bibliographies

How can a student submit a research paper and not attach a bibliography? Heck, I made them submit a preliminary version of their bibliography to make sure they were citing the works properly and using "good" sources.

Not one, but ELEVEN students "forgot" to add their bibliographies to their papers. When I mentioned this they all said "we had to put in bibliographies?" like this was something unheard of. Of course I am the one to blame because the instructions I gave them would actually require them to READ something. GASP!!!

Have I mentioned I have lost faith in the future of humanity?

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