<p>I agree with the suggestion of asking for comments/if you can pick up the graded paper. You’re not accusing the professor of anything, but if the professor has nothing to comment on or have you pick up, it should quickly become obvious.</p>
<p>I’d second suggestions to focus on asking about feedback on your paper as the best tact. Not only will this make the Professor more receptive to give such feedback and possibly even mention the reasoning behind the final grade without your asking, this feedback is actually just as, if not more important than the grade itself.</p>
<p>As for the Professors here mentioning how they don’t give feedback on final papers, I find that an interesting and seemingly recent perplexing trend. </p>
<p>Back when I was an undergrad 15+ years ago, most of my college classmates and I along with friends at other colleges received plenty of feedback on our final papers along with our grade. While some complained about it*, most of the feedback was very helpful in improving our writing or at least, understanding the reasoning behind why the Professor didn’t care for the argument or the way it was written. </p>
<p>However, I’ve heard and seen more frequent examples of undergrad/grad final papers written by younger friends returned with only the grade, but no comments in recent years. </p>
<p>I myself experienced this with one graduate Prof who gave me an excellent grade, but no feedback on the final research seminar paper I written. </p>
<p>A phenomenon I find perplexing as I for one would like to know what areas I did right and what areas I could improve upon even after the draft stage**. Unless someone is a Nobel laureate level genius in writing expository essays or research papers, even A/A+ papers are likely to have some areas requiring improvement, however minor they may be. </p>
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<li>“Being drowned in red ink.”</li>
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<p>** While the Prof. later did provide feedback when I went to his office hours, it wasn’t to the level of detail I received for most previous final papers I’ve written for undergrad and other graduate courses.</p>
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This kind of attitude really makes me shake my head. It’s true, by winter break or year-end, students have a lot of other things on their minds besides hunting down comments on a final paper, especially if, as is often the case, they have left campus by the time the paper is graded. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to have feedback on a major component of their grade. They may not look at it immediately, they may not look at it ever, but that’s not the professor’s business. Writing comments to support a grade is part of the job, and scanning and emailing the annotated paper is the appropriate thing to do. If professors don’t want to do any more than slap on a grade, they shouldn’t assign papers at all. </p>
<p>In the last couple of years I’ve seen so much evidence of laziness on the part of college professors–the prof who took months and months to generate a grad school recommendation and then required my kid to write it herself; the grad school prof who missed a random third of the classes with no explanation or apology; the multiple profs who couldn’t manage to return assignments in a timely fashion so students were taking subsequent tests or writing subsequent papers without a clue as to how they did on the first set or how they might need to improve. I don’t know how people keep their jobs with this kind of work ethic. They’d never last outside the ivory tower.</p>
<p>I’m pretty shocked that professors don’t put comments on papers. I never ever ever wrote a paper in college that didn’t at least get a scribbled sentence or two of comments, and sometimes much more. </p>
<p>My son was telling me that the most recent paper he sent the teacher commented as she read it, so there were comments like “You should have considered xyz” followed a few paragraphs later by “oops I see you *did *consider xyz”. He got an A on the paper, but he thought it was funny that the teacher hadn’t clearly not made any effort to get rid of the critical comments. In any event the teacher received the paper via email and sent it back to him via email. So there was no need for him to go pick it up.</p>
<p>Thats a bit of an overstatement. Women are wonderfully compassionate. Luke, its likely a combination of factors, including the challenging email exchange you described elsewhere, that may have contributed to the unfortunate decision/outcome. Please don’t blame all women. Keep a positive outlook. Things will get better.</p>
<p>I think those of you who are surprised or critical about the lack of comments on the <em>final</em> paper might not realize how much feedback students likely get during the <em>writing</em> of the paper. </p>
<p>My students turn in a thesis statement, an annotated bibliography, an outline, and a rough draft, all of which I often “drown in red ink.” I also meet individually with each student to discuss the rough draft. </p>
<p>Occasionally - probably once every few years - I have a student who wants to discuss the final paper. But usually this is not directly related to the grade, but because the student truly became interested in the topic. Should students follow up and request feedback on final papers? Of course. And I do write a comment or two that sums up the grade (“Nice work, you really explained X well” or “Insufficient attention to Y”) but again, the vast majority of students never retrieve those papers. And if they do come by, I am happy to talk with them about the paper.</p>
<p>Amesie, it does sound like you do more upfront work. I never handed in a rough draft. I did have one professor that had everyone come in and discuss paper topics with him. I loved him and had him for one of my advisers for my final thesis. (Which did go through multiple drafts.)</p>
<p>I’ve been giving feedback on final papers. Most courses have so few assignments that I consider it necessary. I’ll write to the students telling them that I’ve left the papers in my mailbox. If anyone has left campus, they can give me their address and I can mail their paper through the department. </p>
<p>The one class I haven’t done that for was a small class with an extensive draft process built into the course. In that case, it was the professor’s opinion that there was no need since they would already have had so much feedback on the paper that the reasons for the grade would be pretty self-explanatory - had they addressed the initial complaint adequately, or not? I’m not sure I entirely agree, but I thought it was a reasonable position.</p>
<p>Whatever happened to turning in actual paper? We didn’t have these problems in my day. The worst that happened was “the dog ate it”.</p>
<p>^ As a commuter, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for electronic submissions. </p>
<p>Just send an email asking for the grade on your paper. I doubt she didn’t get it.</p>
<p>DH used to shake his head that the kids whose emailed papers somehow went astray in the cloud- or got mysteriously truncated- were, oddly enough, often the same kids he already felt pushed limits, one way or another. Same for kids who claimed to have slipped their paper under the door. </p>
<p>Of course it’s possible for a file to corrupt later. What OP found on his computer doesn’t tell us the prof didn’t receive it. Or that she did and didn’t read it. It does suggest we should check important communications earlier in the game. </p>
<p>Agree to try to speak with the prof, ask for a general chat about the paper, before assuming anything. I am not keen on hiding behind emails when face time is usually such a great way to accomplish so much good.</p>
<p>The comments about female profs, by another poster, are uncalled for. Not a good example in your defense. Not at all.</p>
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<p>I’ve had one freshman writing class that required us to turn in an annotated bibliography and a final paper, neither of which received very many comments or feedback, and that was the extent of the feedback students received during the writing of the paper. In every other class I had during college, we ONLY turned in the final paper. There were no other assignments or formal opportunities for feedback in any class I’ve taken with a paper. You could go to the professor’s office hours and ask for help on a thesis or to discuss the paper, but I didn’t know any professors who would read rough drafts or anything similar (likely because of time constraints). It’s possible that you might not realize how little feedback a lot of students get during the writing of the paper AND on the final paper. The vast majority of papers I’ve written just received a grade and no comments.</p>
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<p>If your comments here are representative of your attitude in your program, it is very likely that there were a multitude of reasons why you were asked to leave your program. There is no reason to blame an entire gender because you failed an exam and gave rude comments to your professors.</p>
<p>bak, and others, he’s clearly a ■■■■■. Don’t respond/feed.</p>
<p>I honestly can’t think of a paper where I didn’t get feedback at some point. Almost every prof I’ve had allowed us to turn in a draft for feedback. Whether or not you took advantage of that is on you. </p>
<p>Then again, I was in a small RC within a huge college so I didn’t have many 100+ student classes (most were 20 students or less).</p>
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<p>That may be the difference. I went to a large state school. Some professors were willing to read some stuff (usually thesis statements or maybe a paragraph and generally they would only skim it if you brought it to them during office hours and talk to you about it), but most had policies that they couldn’t read entire drafts. If every student did that, they wouldn’t have the time to read the final papers.</p>
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<p>Regardless of whether he’s a ■■■■■ or not, the viewpoint that female bosses/employers/supervisors are bossy or temperamental or b*tchy or otherwise “less than” their male counterparts is a very real opinion that many people actually hold. It should be spoken out against regardless of who’s saying it.</p>
<p>You wrote mean letters to your professors and harassed them, but you are blaming it on the fact your professor is a woman? Try to take some ownership for your problems. With attitude like this, no wonder you got low grades for your interpersonal skills.</p>
<p>I, too, think people aren’t realizing there’s a difference between a final paper and one that will be returned during the semester. I usually assign 5 papers. Each are returned with extensive comments and a rubric BY THE NEXT CLASS PERIOD because students need the feedback before they get too far into the next assignment. The final? Like Amesie, I get a request for one back every few years. Is it lazy not to want to spend hours marking up papers that students won’t ask for? Maybe. And feel free to decry the laziness of college professors if you feel strongly about it. But, I do have a rubric, and if students stop by my office in January and ask to see the final, they should be able to see why they got the assigned grade from that.</p>
<p>D2 is a humanities students at a very large U. She works extensively with her prof or ta when she is writing a paper and she also get a lot of comments on her paper. She also goes to see them afterwards to review their comments if she didn’t understand. She said not everyone does that, so she is getting her money’s worth.</p>
<p>Wow Luke, here’s just another example of your inappropriateness.</p>
<p>^In my case I don’t have papers (physics, engineering, math) but on the final exams I often just jot down points accrued without making the types of corrections or comments about why things are wrong that I do on the mid-term exams. The students don’t typically get their finals back, and if someone comes in wanting theirs I am more than happy to discuss their grading.</p>
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<p>How’s that attitude working for you, Luke? :rolleyes:</p>