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kittydesadeWell, I got an e-mail with 'help!' in the subject line. And the body read:
[Me]
hi! can you please please do me a huge favor and revise my lit paper for me? i know it sounds desperate but my final grade depends on this one piece. :( i need your expertise BADLY!!!! thank you sooo much!
[Weird Student Person]
And I made this face: O_O
I mean, what the hell? Where the hell did this person get my e-mail address from? (I subsequently learned they got it from my column) And what the hell makes this person think I would want to help, much less be able to? At least the person had the sense to tack the paper into the body of the message rather than attach it. I delete attachments from people I don't know. To do otherwise invites viruses. And I don't like being a plague-carrier.
*whimper* The person used the word 'humanness'
I'm not entirely sure I gave him or her what he or she expected or wanted. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure I didn't. I went through each sentence of the damn paper with a fine-tooth comb and pointed out comma mistakes, agreement mistakes, citation needs, clumsy phrasings, and non-words. I chopped up run-on sentences. I painted the damn thing red. It was bleeding and gasping for air when I was done with it. And then I went and made some sweeping assumptions about the nature of the assignment and tacked on some overall comments.
Rule #1: Get a thesis.
Rule #2: Your introduction, conclusion, and everything in between should all match. They should be talking about the same thing. You should not start off looking like a compare and contrast paper and end with an in-depth character analysis. No. Bad writer, no cookie.
I have no idea what kind of class this was for. I don't know where this person's attending school, I don't even know if this is a high school or college student. For the person's sake I'm hoping he or she is still in high school. Because a paper like that would have gotten raked to hell and back over fiery hot coals in my college. By any of my teachers. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's well spelled, and the grammar mistakes aren't too numerous, but damn. Coherency is lacking. Paragraphs are spaced weirdly (although I gave it the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was just due to icky e-mail stuff) and citation has no footnotes, endnotes, or paranthetical refs. I would kill any paper handed to me that didn't have citations. That one got drummed into my skull early.
Anyway. That's my bizarre story for the day. Sad person that I am, I did procrastinate all the shit I have to do long enough to read and edit the poor sap's paper. I hope they don't mind brutal, 'cause that's what it ended up being.
Bleh. But the next time someone e-mails me something like that, I'm charging them money.
[Me]
hi! can you please please do me a huge favor and revise my lit paper for me? i know it sounds desperate but my final grade depends on this one piece. :( i need your expertise BADLY!!!! thank you sooo much!
[Weird Student Person]
And I made this face: O_O
I mean, what the hell? Where the hell did this person get my e-mail address from? (I subsequently learned they got it from my column) And what the hell makes this person think I would want to help, much less be able to? At least the person had the sense to tack the paper into the body of the message rather than attach it. I delete attachments from people I don't know. To do otherwise invites viruses. And I don't like being a plague-carrier.
*whimper* The person used the word 'humanness'
I'm not entirely sure I gave him or her what he or she expected or wanted. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure I didn't. I went through each sentence of the damn paper with a fine-tooth comb and pointed out comma mistakes, agreement mistakes, citation needs, clumsy phrasings, and non-words. I chopped up run-on sentences. I painted the damn thing red. It was bleeding and gasping for air when I was done with it. And then I went and made some sweeping assumptions about the nature of the assignment and tacked on some overall comments.
Rule #1: Get a thesis.
Rule #2: Your introduction, conclusion, and everything in between should all match. They should be talking about the same thing. You should not start off looking like a compare and contrast paper and end with an in-depth character analysis. No. Bad writer, no cookie.
I have no idea what kind of class this was for. I don't know where this person's attending school, I don't even know if this is a high school or college student. For the person's sake I'm hoping he or she is still in high school. Because a paper like that would have gotten raked to hell and back over fiery hot coals in my college. By any of my teachers. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's well spelled, and the grammar mistakes aren't too numerous, but damn. Coherency is lacking. Paragraphs are spaced weirdly (although I gave it the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was just due to icky e-mail stuff) and citation has no footnotes, endnotes, or paranthetical refs. I would kill any paper handed to me that didn't have citations. That one got drummed into my skull early.
Anyway. That's my bizarre story for the day. Sad person that I am, I did procrastinate all the shit I have to do long enough to read and edit the poor sap's paper. I hope they don't mind brutal, 'cause that's what it ended up being.
Bleh. But the next time someone e-mails me something like that, I'm charging them money.
