Yesterday

 Yesterday, I sat down and read, truthfully READ 272 papers recently submitted by my students.  Reading and writing and commenting and grading papers electronically is not an easy feat for me.  

I am much more comfortable with the “red pen” approach to grading real PAPER papers.  

But to facilitate my efforts, I wrote out 20 or so common phrases, comments, guidance statements, etc. that I commonly find are needed in my student’s work. Some include:

“You have subject-verb disagreement.”

“You did not CLEARLY state your idea.”

“You are not having success at adequately using commas.”

“Very strong and clear writing style!”

“It is unclear to me what you are trying to say here.”

“Your citation method is not appropriate APA style, nor is it the acceptable “modified APA style” that I have described as an alternative method in class.”

“Good, well thought out points!!!”

“Excellent in all regards!!”

“Sadly, your essay is utter balderdash!”

(The bottom two are only occasionally used.)

With the above (and a few others I did not list), I would cut and paste these comments at various locations as needed through the paper.  Then, I would write a personal sentence or two at the end and give a score.  

By the end of the long day, I was cyborged out.  I did really want to have a beer or two and a pipe or two after this task was done. For so many years, my routine on the first “big paper day” of the semester would be to travel across the county to share a few pipes and a few beers with my father-in-law.  Sadly, this custom, this pleasant routine way to cap off the day is no more.  

PipeTobacco