In-class essays

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>Anyone else hate these?</p>

<p>For me, it seems rediculous to ask a student to write a real comprehensive essay in-class with only about 1-2 hours time. I understand there is a strategy involved, and that some professors make it a little easier by giving the essay topic/questions before the day of the in-class writing so that you can practice what you write (with some students writing out their entire essay beforehand!). However, there's only so much you can do in such a little time - most students will be able to develop a thesis and build some points around it, but are scrambling most of the time just to make sure they get the information on paper that they want to get out. There's actually very little time for cohesive organization and you can almost forget about proofreading. You have even less time if the professor includes a multiple choice part of the exam (although sometimes the MC questions reveal some facts or evidence that you can subsequently use in your essay).</p>

<p>Basically, the in-class essay, to me, isn't an essay at all, but a "long" short answer question and should be labeled as such. Give me a couple days, not hours, and I'll give you a real essay.</p>

<p>/finals preparation vent</p>

2

<p>I like in class essays. They aren’t supposed to turn out exactly the same as a regular essay, so I don’t mind the time constraints. I’ve never had a problem finishing my essays on time. But, I had a hard time writing 6+ 20 page research papers in a matter of a week or two like I always seemed to have to do when I had regular essays to do, so I would take an in-class essay that is done in two hours and graded accordingly over that any day.</p>

<p>In many of the classes I took, we were expected to cite from our course books without having them in front of us. We didn’t need to include a page number or necessarily even an exact quotation, but you had to be able to cite which of the 10+ books we read different concepts came from That was actually pretty tough but not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I’d never had to do that before.</p>

3

<p>Any time I’ve had an in-class essay, the professor told us that we won’t be graded on the same level as if we’d had two weeks to write it. They grade it for what it is-- a draft/sketch of an essay. Are the ideas there? If you had time, COULD this be a solid essay?</p>

4

<p>You’re right OP, they are long answer questions, not essays, and as rebeccar said, every professor grades them as such.</p>

5

<p>An hour or two is one thing. I became an expert at that in IB. And yes, they grade accordingly. The expectations are not the same for in class and out of class essays.</p>

<p>But I just took a practice GRE, where you have 30 minutes for an essay on a topic for which there is no way you can prepare. That’s just strikes me as a load of bull crap. You expect a 30 minute essay to tell you if a student is fit for graduate school?</p>

6

<p>I see a big difference between in class essays and what I consider to be real essays. What professors call an in class essay usually ends up being much closer to a very extended short response.</p>

7

<p>

Then they should quit BS-ing us and call it what it is. -.-</p>

8

<p>I was really only saying that to calm you down. Quite frankly, by the definition of the word, it is an essay question.</p>

<p>

[Essay</a> | Define Essay at Dictionary.com](<a href=“ESSAY Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com”>ESSAY Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com)</p>

<p>Consider yourself lucky if this is the worst part of your finals period.</p>

9

<p>I much, much, much prefer in-class essays to papers.</p>

10

<p>I think in-class essays are representative of life. There will be a lot things you’re going to have to do on the fly, and in general, sometimes you won’t always have time to fully gather your thoughts and generate responses. </p>

<p>If you’re a manager and a customer comes up and complains about something, you can’t say “let me think this through for a day or so and I’ll get back to you with a fully fleshed-out response.” You have to eloquently handle it at that particular moment; you have to muster all of your strength. </p>

<p>If a professor grades an in-class essay like a take-home essay, then that’s wrong. But at least IME, they see the potential of your draft and pick out your good ideas. In life, things like this might happen, and it’s good to have some experience so that you can handle it.</p>

11

<p>1-2 hours doesn’t sound too bad?</p>

<p>over in australia the whole state in high school is expected to churn out 3 essays in 2 hours. around 4 pages minimum each to get a decent mark and you have to put in memorised quotations.</p>

<p>just plan out your essay before you start writing. figure out your main point (thesis) and then jot down the paragraphs you are gonna talk about to support that. Also talk with your professor about what kind of structure they want.</p>

12

<p>I’d rather write a paper, only because I have more time to prepare for it. Now if it was a 20-page paper, that would be a totally different… Especially if it’s a topic that I’m not interested in; then I’d write the in-class essay.</p>

13

<p>Professors often give in-class essays because of the high rate of plagiarism in out-of-class writing.</p>