<p>Do your professors make significant grammar and stylistic edits to your papers?</p>
<p>If so, how do you feel about it?</p>
<p>If not, do you wish that they did?</p>
<p>I would imagine that it would depend on the class: I’d expect a composition/writing prof to do a serious deep edit but possibly not a prof in a “content” class, who might read primarily for the argument.</p>
<p>I’m an English major so yes!
In my non-English classes, though (mostly History), teachers will still edit. It won’t be as comprehensive as the English ones, but I definitely got used to seeing things like “awkward phrasing” or “should divide this into two sentences” or whatever. A lot of content-related things are naturally intertwined with grammar and style-- transitions, thesis sentences, providing good examples, how you organize your paragraphs, etc-- so really, in any class, a good essay needs to be able to do those things. Also, some professors might let grammar and spelling slide but formatting becomes very important: if they request MLA or Chicago Style, for example, you better make sure the entire paper follows every rule, from headings to footnotes to citations and margins.</p>
<p>No. I’ve never taken straight English classes but no, they will not edit. They do write comments like “so what?” and the like. </p>
<p>At this point, I don’t think it’s the prof’s job to edit your paper for anything other than content. Unless it’s an English class. If you’re in a four year college, you really should not be turning in papers which need editing.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes,</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on this Chronicle article:</p>
<p>[Why</a> We Can’t Farm Out the Teaching of Writing - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Why We Can’t Farm Out the Teaching of Writing”>Why We Can’t Farm Out the Teaching of Writing)</p>
<p>
I’m curious why English (i.e. literature) professors in particular should be expected to edit papers for style, while history or physics professors need not.</p>
<p>Outside of foreign language courses where that’s the only thing they’re editing for, none of mine have. The closest I’ve come was a professor gigglingly asking me why I’d described a suffix as “delightful” in an early draft of a linguistics paper. Though I had had no intention of keeping the adjective for the final draft, he admitted that he agreed with my description.</p>
<p>There’s a writing evaluation given to all freshmen the summer before matriculation, and those who fail this have to take a writing course. These professors edit. All students taking classes with papers are also encouraged to visit writing advisors, and I imagine they edit.</p>
<p>B@r, I had a freshman English composition class in mind when I wrote that.</p>
<p>Mine have, in English and outside of it. Generally when it isn’t an English class, they’ll make mention of the Writing Center because they AREN’T English teachers.
I wrote a paper about Neanderthals and H. habilis for a class last semester and my biology professor edited it for style and content. He offered his exclaimer, “My PhD is in neuroscience, not English,” but still did it.</p>
<p>I disagree with romani. There’s rarely ever a perfect paper and there’s nothing unusual about the occasional mechanic error. You may lose a point or two, but you sure wouldn’t be the only one.</p>
<p>Did I say perfect? No paper is perfect. But at that point, it shouldn’t need editing by a prof.</p>
<p>Romanigypseyeyes,</p>
<p>According to your post, college students are expected to have already acquired certain skill sets; thus, professors don’t have to make non-content related comments on papers.</p>
<p>Then, how do you feel about a student with middling writing skills hiring a private writing tutor?</p>
<p>I am wondering how a person would improve without pointed and thorough feedback from someone else.</p>
<p>Also, what are your thoughts on this Chronicle article: <a href=“Why We Can’t Farm Out the Teaching of Writing”>http://chronicle.com/article/Why-We-Cant-Farm-Out-the/131708/</a></p>
<p>…</p>
<p>There are writing centers on campuses, peer editors, etc. Or, if your writing skills are really that weak, take a writing class that is specifically for writing improvement. Professors may comment on content but I don’t feel it’s their job to edit grammar and such. My personal feelings about tutors are irrelevant. Never needed one so I can’t judge their effectiveness. If that’s what you need then by all means, go for it. Most campuses have free services to help you though so no need to hire.</p>
<p>I read the article. I’m not sure what you want me to say about it. I didn’t comment because I really have no thoughts about it. Relying on spell check and not rereading your essay to see those glaring errors is pure laziness. I don’t think we need more programs that allow people to think even less.</p>
<p>Definitely not. I can’t see any way that it wouldn’t be counted as academic malpractice. This is for politics, but I’ve never heard of it happening in a subject like English either.</p>
<p>Outside of a composition class, I would worry if a professor felt the need to edit a paper. Making comments on the matter being discussed in the paper is certainly expected–but if a paper is egregiously bad enough that the professor feels a need to edit–then that student needs to spend time at the university writing center before submitting papers. I certainly would not want a professor to be distracted from the substance of my paper because of poor writing skills.</p>
<p>I do Lit, and in basically every paper I’ve written, there’s been some kind of grammar/style edit, even if the grade is good. Not very comprehensive, but it’s there. (e.g. changing semi-colons, highlighting the wording of a sentence, perhaps a cross through a typo)</p>
<p>My thesis adviser gave my drafts a thorough edit.
I’m not sure if that was her job.</p>
<p>Nope, not really. I probably spend enough time going over my paper during the actual paper writing process to avoid stupid errors. I’m pretty picky about what I turn in.</p>
<p>I’m trying to imagine how student writing could be stellar enough to nearly eliminate the need for comments about diction, sentence construction, grammar, and mechanics, among others.</p>
<p>Most of the comments I have gotten on papers (working with her both before the submission and discussing the paper afterwards) has been a little on sentence fluency-- I have a tendency to use long sentences-- but (and I checked) most of my comments have been on idea development. This was a literature class, with two long papers (no prompt, needed an original idea), and most of her comments were on areas that were not as developed that could be, or sections that were rougher than others in expansion, etc. The only mechanical comments I received were about lack of antecedents in the sentences, but that’s been about it.</p>
<p>I had a writing class where the editing varied from paper to paper but there were always comments highlighting the major stuff.</p>