By shaifox96 - 17/04/2015 03:34 - Canada - Saint Catharines

Today, I received a terrible grade for an essay I worked really hard on. I had two friends, one being an English major, check it over. However, apparently I "clearly didn't use spellcheck" on this essay just like the last one I submitted to her. FML
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Same thing different taste

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Top comments

Steffi3 40

Either she chose the wrong major, of you need new friends

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Comments

Tylerhudson2014 7

You need new friends or your teacher hates you

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Woody02284 7

OP the problem with having friends review things is that often we don't get honest feedback because they don't want to hurt our feelings ect. I did read your essay and honestly found it challenging to read. There was really no flow to your writing and the ideas were all over the place. Also I didn't see a clear introduction, body, and conclusion without these elements defined it makes it hard to understand where you are going with the paper and finishing. I'm not trying to be harsh just wanted to give feedback that could possibly help in the future.

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shaifox96 13

Feedback is good. This is the way I've always written essays, and have received pretty decent grades in both high school and University. If she had stated that in her comments I'd have saught help, but basically all she said was that I didn't use spellcheck, she was confused by spaces on the cover page (which were not from me, so I assume it was how the website I handed it in through formatted it), and then just put a lot of question marks. The comments came off as rude rather than constructive.

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redpanda39 10

I only read the first paragraph and I can tell you it was the flow of the essay that was probably the problem. There was no introduction, you just jumped right into explaining Christianity in Rome. Any essay has to have a clear introduction and conclusion.

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shaifox96 13

I see. Is not an introduction a topic sentence of attention grabber, followed by the question being answered (which was given to me), and then the body paragraphs and a transitional sentence? This is what I've always been taught. Also did you see what she meant by no spellcheck?

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redpanda39 10

Now that I've finished the essay, I can easily tell you it was the flow. None if the ideas presented were introduced, they were just put in there. I'm also not sure what the numbers are about, I'm not sure why you would put those in an essay like that.

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shaifox96 13

The numbers were for the citation. It had to be chicago. In the actual document they correspond with citations at the bottom of the page. Fiction press does not allow for this.

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writerchic85 25

I would go to the teacher and explain that you had two others check it out and ask her specifically what's wrong with it. It always pissed me off when teachers graded me badly but were vague about why. The whole point of school is to learn.

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mergeterge 24

Try reading it out loud to yourself instead of giving it to your friend. Just because she's an English major doesn't mean she has time to meticulously go over all your essays. Reading it out loud should catch most errors!

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bgbwtp 13

Just adding my two cents here, as an ESL instructor and one who has to help correct the essays of those ESL students. It definitely is flow. What I was taught and try to teach my students is to think of an essay as a road trip. The introduction is where you plan the trip. You give the background of why you want to visit those places (ideas), and end the intro with you're final itinerary (your thesis). Each paragraph is one of those places you planned to visit. You have good ideas, so that's fine for you. The conclusion should be like getting home from the trip and telling all your friends--hit the highlights and reiterate your thesis. What you have is good. Really. But your thesis is unclear (uni professors seem to want things spelled out so simply that a child can point it out, regardless the content), your ideas need a bit more expansion (good ideas need, again, to be spelled out in basic terms), and there are some grammar issues with sentence structure (fragments and the like). Don't give up! It's not a hopeless essay by any stretch! Also, sorry for going all TL;DR on you.

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shaifox96 13

Thank you! I'm in TESL Applied Linguistics right now, and I was starting to doubt if I could make it through 4 years of University if I can't even write a first year elective paper.

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bgbwtp 13

I was originally a Linguistics major--switched to general Cultural Anthropology. :) Still not sure how I ended up teaching ESL with that skill set (I learn new things every day in this job lol). And if you're interested, I enjoy reading papers. I don't pull punches, so I can come off as harsh, but also, I'm not a friend as such so I won't worry about hurting your feelings. I'd be willing to do a proofread for you on future papers.

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bgbwtp 13

Ugh, your* Stupid time limit for editing.

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emcat730 14

As an English major I can say that sometimes when friends bring us their papers to look over, if it's not specified what exactly we need to be looking for, we might just look at the general flow of ideas, the strength of your argument, or something more broad like that. I personally would try to fix spelling and grammar mistakes or at least suggest that you should look them over (since trying to fix all of the spelling and grammar mistakes myself could be really time consuming), but your friend might have assumed that it was a draft and you would be checking those specific things later by yourself before turning in a final copy.

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Redgy22 26

well...did u use spell check?

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jtfrisch 22

How does one not use spellcheck? The words turn red and it pisses you off until you fix it, and if it's an improper sentence it will turn green and frustrate you

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shaifox96 13

I did use spellcheck. Thats the point.

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