By winterbee123 - 25/10/2012 08:07 - United States - Portland

Today, I got back my history paper. The whole paper had been crossed out and at the end, my professor had written "Really?!" I still don't know what I did wrong. FML
I agree, your life sucks 26 693
You deserved it 4 369

winterbee123 tells us more.

Hi all - I'm OP. I actually went to talk to my teacher and it turns out when he tells us to do "citations" he automatically assumes we know he actually means "footnotes". I accidentally started crying during our meeting and I think it freaked him out, so he's offering me a chance to rewrite it! Ah, the power of a girl's tears!

Top comments

Have you thought about talking about it to her or him?

unknown_user5566 26

Comments

Have you thought about talking about it to her or him?

bRower 3

The teacher would be expecting it.

Good idea, and while we're at out, OP, did you think about remembering to breathe? Also did you think about buying gas for your car? It's a good thing some of us on fml are so helpful in pointing out the obvious to the OP. (sarcasm)

Speaking of pointing out the obvious, WritingWrongs...did you really need that (sarcasm) at the end of your comment? Your sarcastic tone was painfully obvious.

The only think painfully obvious is that WritingWrongs had an extra bowl of bitch flakes this morning.

54, your comment is one of the best that I've ever seen on FML. Kudos to you

kattylizbeth 19

WritingWrongs- dude. I've read about three of your comments and I seriously hate you. You're sarcastic, but not in the normal kind of funny way. You sir, are an asshole, excuse my French. I personally feel you shouldn't be on this site just to shoot people down and make yourself feel like some kind of smart person for pointing out other's wrongs. You seem like the type of person who, when met off of the Internet, would be either a complete pussy or someone I would really enjoy getting a good swing at. Alright. I'm done. (:

SirEBC 7

Tell us how you really feel, 78.

Hi all - I'm OP. I actually went to talk to my teacher and it turns out when he tells us to do "citations" he automatically assumes we know he actually means "footnotes". I accidentally started crying during our meeting and I think it freaked him out, so he's offering me a chance to rewrite it! Ah, the power of a girl's tears!

Epikouros 31

Really? I guess it wasn't the first paper your professor marked that day...

Well, if you don't cite properly, it amounts to plagiarism. So, you've got to learn how to footnote/harvard real quick. =)

There are other ways to cite your sources than footnotes, like in-text citations. The OP wasn't necessarily plagiarizing, or citing incorrectly, they were probably just using a different method than what the teacher wanted.

thanks for the update! i love when OPs comment on their FMLs.

Evilpirate 10

I love when OPs comment on their FMLs. :D

CommonSenseKarma 17

WritingWrongs, You must be my twin. Don't worry, I'm called an asshole on the Internet all the time, but only ever when I'm telling the TRUTH. People tend to not like the truth. And I read your bio. Seriously. My goddamn twin.

OP, always ask your profs which citation style they prefer before doing a paper. It's usually on the syllabus if they have one. Since it sounds like you do face-to-face classes the first day of class is really important to pay attention to since that's usually when they'll tell you things like that. Most of the time it's either APA or MLA style which does have quite a number of differences between them.

Bludmagnus 13

Normally, I would not condone using tears, but as he OBVIOUSLY didn't communicate what he expected from you on the paper.. Well done!

Maria_Obligacia 14

OP - you cried to make him change the rules for you! You manipulative asshole! And stop this BS that this is the first time the teacher ever said you needed footnotes.

Lovely. Way to set women's rights back single-handedly.

Gwyddone 29

Strange that he didn't specify it before, but I can understand both parties. Thanks for cleaning it up!

It must be nice for all the people who did it right the first time.

Crying to get your way? Great way to set women back years. Twat.

@128 "I aggressively shove my world view in people's faces and treat them like they're idiots for not immediately sharing my worldview and they don't like me - is it my grating personality? My self-absorbed opinion about my worldview? No, it must be that they hate the truth."

At my university, if you don't add citations then you automatically fail.

metalcrazed 21

Why did you have to cry? I'm sure if you discussed it calmly and rationally he would have understood. Manipulating people by fake crying is something a 5 year old does.

She wasn't fake crying she was crying because she was genuinely upset. I've had that happen to me before that I've been so upset about a bad grad I started to cry. It doesn't mean she's being manipulative it just means she actually cares about her education and mistakes

She didn't purposely start crying. It's a reaction. she didn't do it to get anything, she just started crying.

Even if you had known what he wanted and messed up, that's still a horrible way to teach. Not just because he didn't bother to actually tell you what was wrong and went for a "sassy" response, but also because he didn't grade the rest of it at all. A lack of footnotes shouldn't have kept him from being able to actually grade the whole thing.

metalcrazed 21

If that were true she wouldn't be gloating over the power of girl tears.

Historians cite things using Chicago style, which means footnotes.

your a puss for crying to guilt your teacher.

She's not really gloating Id say? I saw it as a humorous observation. The fact so many threw a fit over it is sad. It's not fun to cry in class, even if it's just in front of a teacher. Getting in trouble with an authority figure like a teacher always made me fight back tears, sometimes losing.

I just graduated from college and never have I been asked to write a paper using footnotes instead of inline citations. Glad you got it sorted out OP! And I know the humiliation of accidentally crying in front of a teacher when you're stressed and upset, so I'm glad it ended up working in your favor.

yellowzinnias 20

Unless he told them what standardized format to use, and it was one that ONLY uses footnotes. For example, if I tell students to use CMofS and they use in-text citations then, yes, it's wrong.

Really? The power of girls tears?

thatpeachyperson 12

Go and talk to your teacher, it's not fair for them to say that without an explanation.

TheDrifter 23

Perhaps OP wrote on the wrong topic, in which case the teacher may have considered an explanation unnecessary.

JerryH 9

How many grammatical errors did you have in your essay though?

Op messed up on the citation format. He posted it.

unknown_user5566 26
syley 5

Reminds me of a cyanide and happiness comic I once saw. A guy asked a friend to highlight anything he thought was stupid, he read it and then highlighted the guy's face.

I'm pretty sure an X over your paper would be worse than an F, considering that F's are only 50-40% where I'm from.

Shadow_Phantom 26

I'm pretty sure crossing out the ENTIRE essay constitutes as a "Fail" grade.

You probably got an F on the "making inferences" worksheet.

Probably got a "Now I know my ABC's" minus

Seems like you wrote about the wrong topic.

Or he could have just copy and pasted the while thing from a website maybe.

I think if he knowingly copy pasted, he'd have an idea what he did wrong.

"The History of Edward and Bella" does NOT count as history.

Now see what you've done Doc? You've destroyed the hearts of all the young girls who believe Twilight is real.

Either way, they'll experience heartbreak. Either from the movie or from the truth!

I'm still not sure how you can experience heartbreak from an emotionless bitch and a sparkling vampire.....

Oh and the pedophile werewolf.. Can't forget him..

Yeah or he probably wrote about Abraham Lincoln vampire hunting.

cutiepie292929 18

Ahh your skull picture gives me the creeps every time I see it!

Doc, I can actually say I've never seen the movies or read the books. And I never will. It's sad that the younger generation pays more attention to entertainment than real world issues.

That's quite the basket of assumptions you've got there

Your professor's an incompetent jerk if he doesn't even explain why you are wrong and how you can improve.

bRower 3

Op is incompetent and irresponsible if she/he doesn't take the initiative to go see their professor about what they did wrong.

It's op's responsibility to ask the professor after class what op did wrong. Not the professor to write on the essay what op did wrong. We really don't know much about this FML maybe op messed up the essay completely or had a lot of bad examples. We don't know.

Actually, I feel a need to throw in my 2 cents in here. It's a teachers job to Teach, right? Crossing out everything and saying 'Really' although amusing as hell is NOT educational in the least. As an educator you should at least make SOME effort at constructive criticism, and if not then at least 'Really? See me during office hours so we can talk about this' would have been a bit better I suspect.

JOcoco 14

37 - Look at the above comments. The OP did go to the teacher.

I hope that wasn't about twilight. That's not history, that's retarded.

dancingprancer 6

Hmmmmm. Good thing he elaborated

bandeek 30

This works perfectly with your picture.

36- you took the words right out of my hands.

amandajlucas2015 2
secretsymbiote21 5

ask him! he sounds like a not so helpful professor though.