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
Collection
Halloween
A failed costume, stolen candy and a very real scare: Halloween, the one night when fear is allowed.
Today, a friend of mine asked me to proofread her essay. "Don't hold back," she said. I took a look at it. It looked like it was written by a third grader, and she's in college. After spending a huge amount of time marking all of her mistakes, I gave it back. She got upset at me for being "extremely critical." FML
Today, I had my teacher look over my essay before turning it in. He said it was extremely well-written, so I handed it in. When I got it back, the feedback he left said it was one of the worst essays he'd ever read. FML
Today, I got back the essay I wrote about how my country's education system is fucked. At one point, I made a spelling mistake. My teacher wrote a note about it, basically calling me illiterate, and telling me to pay attention in school instead of whining about it. She misspelled "school". FML
Today, I'm grading final projects for a junior level college class. A student finally turned in their work, after months of encouragement and coaxing. Half of it was plain wrong, the rest had so many spelling and grammatical mistakes, it appeared to be written by a drunk autocorrect program. FML
Today, I lost a grade on an essay, because according to my teacher, I put much more detail into my analytical essay than I should have. FML
Today, after turning in a paper that I worked really hard on, I got it back with a grade of 0. In the feedback section, my professor wrote: “In all my 37 years of teaching, this is by far the worst essay I have ever read.” FML
Today, I turned in an essay after staying up late to work on it. I was away when the teacher assigned it, so I'd asked my friend what the subject was. It transpires that she'd given me the wrong one, all because she was mad at me for not returning her pencil. FML
Today, in the class I'm teaching, I assigned my students an essay to complete for homework. One student asked me if I was deducting points for bad spelling. I teach English. FML
Today, I turned in an overdue English assignment at college. My instructor accused me of plagiarism, writing that my sentence structure was "TO" good. Seriously? FML
Today, my boss yelled at me for ruining the report she was supposed to write with my "terrible spelling and grammar". I've checked it thoroughly, and all of her 'corrections' are wrong. She doesn’t believe me, and is refusing to look at a dictionary. FML
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Top comments
Steffi3 40
Either she chose the wrong major, of you need new friends
kylieh72 25
Next time, double check.
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Comments (110)
NyPokeMaster 7
You really should've checked it over or gave it to her 2 days before the deadline so you could fix it. YDI OP.
DeadHorseman 11
I don't get it. Are you saying your teacher is being a bitch to you?
caseylou 12
If you didn't use spell check, despite having a friend look over it, you're dumb. But if you did, and the teacher is just picking on you, that's a pretty easy check. Have her circle all the misspelled words and then you go look them up.
rockwrench 18
Doesn't computer programs like Word for example, automatically have spellchecker running while a document is typed?
heyLaddieHey 18
As a tutor at my school, it's not your friends' jobs to spell check you. If a student has a few errors I'll correct them on paper but more than that a d I tell them Spell Check. I'm a shitty speller myself but spell check does help.
snarkytruth 37
Does anyone else here want to read the essay to see how bad it actually is for themselves? Wish OP would post it online and update us with the link. Stupid idea to ask anyone majoring in anything to help you. They're just students themselves they don't know anything yet. Ask a Prof,TA or tuitor. Relying on another student to proofread isn't doing your own work anyway. No one is going to do it for you in the real world.
shaifox96 13
It doesn't seem to want to let me post a link. I uploaded it on fiction press. The title is "Roman Essay (Not fiction just didn't have another place to upload)" and the poster is farawayfox. Keep in mind this is my first year of University, and I'm not an English major. I realize it isn't the best essay, but I don't feel it is all THAT terrible.
acommonman 23
I just read the first paragraph of your essay, and it seems to me that your ideas and thoughts are solid and really good, but your organization and way of articulation needs considerable work. There's significantly less spelling errors than there are structural errors, and I can see where such subtle mistakes can be missed.
FieldLeftBlank 20
It seems like it was a case of your professor randomly flinging the word "spellcheck", like people often do. The issues are with the flow and sentence structure and your word processor won't help with that. I don't know what to tell you, reading a lot should help you improve in those areas. You're obviously doing a humanities degree, so the professors are in their right to expect a certain level of articulation. However, one would think that an English major would've been able to help with these issues in particular. PS: roman's =/= romans =/= romans'
shaifox96 13
I'm actually a Linguistics major. I took this as an elective.
shaifox96 13
And it was my TA who marked it. She has marked everything this semester, so I haven't been doing very well.
missambitious 21
I would ask the TA to sit down and go over the essay with you line by line. That way you know for a fact what you did wrong or, simply, if they're an unfair grader.
jazopalchris06 21
I don't get it?
glabberfasted 16
Your professor can't really lie about bad spelling, there's a definitive way to check that, so your essay must have really been terrible. You definitely deserve it
Kasanovastar 18
I was the English major friend. Everyone always wants us to check their papers. Do it yourself! The amount of papers we had to write ourselves.... Ugh. I didn't have time to properly edit someone else's and I hated being asked. I always felt obligated or I was a "bitch" or shitty friend.
shaifox96 13
I only asked the friend because my previous essay was butchered. This is the first time I've had someone look over my essay, I was just worried about receiving a terrible grade.
Bibliovore 26
Far from all English majors are good editors or proofreaders, though many assume we all are. It's also worth noting that writing (though not all English majors write!) is a very different skill from editing. If you're not comfortable editing others' papers, however, it's always a good idea to tell them.
shaifox96 13
I didn't just ask her because she is an English major. I asked because she is my friend and I trust her to help. I also asked a different friend, to be sure I wasn't missing anything.
14Smith15 6
English majors are idiots so there's that.
writerchic85 26
English majors are idiots, so there's that. You forgot the comma. This helpful hint brought to you by an idiot English major. :-)
chinaski7628 32
Also, an ellipsis would add some emphasis to the comment (and I believe the ellipsis is the accepted punctuation for that idiom). "English majors are idiots, so there's that..." Without the ellipsis, you just sound like an idiot.