Comment on Transcribed text of Samantha Fulnecky's assignment, paper, and professor's comments

• merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, the TA does a pretty good job explaning where it is lacking.

  Again though: Which aspects of the grading rubric do you think she failed at? The TA talks about things that aren’t on the grading rubric, or if they are they fall under “bad writing” which is only worth 5 points.

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  • 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    you are confusing the assignment and the grading.

    they are two separate things.

    the assignment was:

    1. A discussion of why you feel the topic is important and worthy of study (or not)
    2. An application of the study or results to your own experiences

    the submission failed on both these points, and thus it is automatically disqualified, no grading is even applied.

    there was no discussion in the submission.

    “discussion” in an academic context is a technical term that means “examining a topic based on evidence from some point of view”. you may have encountered something similar in school as a pro/contra essay. in academia this gets expanded on by requiring evidence in the form of citations in order to support one’s positions and conclusions (or lack thereof).

    since the student did not provide sources, this point of the assignment is not fulfilled.

    the same goes for the second point, for the same reasons: insufficient evidence was provided.

    the teachers explain this in their response.

    since neither part of the assignment is fulfilled no grading is applied: it’s an automatic failure.

    this is also explained in the response.

    you may want to carefully read the responses again, and keep in mind that all of this is happening in an academic context. providing evidence is expected by default.

    “i believe”, “i feel”, 'the bible says", etc., are NOT evidence in a scientific context…

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    • jacksilver@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nice breakdown, I’ve seen a couple people commenting that are missing the fact that quoting a personal religious belief isn’t the same as empirical evidence to back up an arguement.

      Not to mention it feels more like the student was just trying to personally attack the TA.

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      • 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        yes, exactly!

        what i think is rather important to point out:

        even in theology this shit wouldn’t fly!

        that’s how absurd this “controversy” is.

        because even in theology you need to provide sound argumentation and sources. even there you need more evidence than this “student” submitted.

        it’s just…so, so absurd.

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    • Doorbook@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think defining discussion here is the critical point. If someone take the assignment literally, they don’t need to provide arguments to describe how they feel about the topic in the article.

      Since this part can be interpreted differently, the students should get some points. Or ask the resubmit their papers with “scientifically supported evidence”

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      • 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        the problem here is that this is in a university setting.

        the student has almost certainly been made aware of what “discussion” means.

        i explained in a different comment (check my profile if the link doesn’t work, not sure how to properly link comments…) why this is not a sufficient excuse.

        because the previous comment seemed well received, I’ll try to give another example of how this sort of course might generally play out:

        at a typical university you’ll get some general orientation at the beginning of the first semester. this will include things like the rules for exams, the rules for the campus, the rules for the dorms (if there are any), the rules for general conduct and behavior on-campus, and a ton of other shit like safety drills in case of a fire or other catastrophe, laboratory training (if relevant), and on and on. there’s a LOT to cover in the first few weeks. you’ll probably sign a bunch of forms that say “i have read the rules” in legalese, so that there is proof that you have been made aware of the rules.

        this orientation will include, or be closely followed by, a class on scientific work.

        this course will cover the scientific method, scientific literature, scientific citations (in the specific style of your field and university), the formatting of all your submissions (there’s usually a template you are supposed to use, though this is somewhat dependant on the teacher of any given class.)

        there will also be sections on scientific language: the difference between a scientific theory and a “theory” in casual language, what a scientific paper really is and how to tell the difference between a high quality and a low quality paper (or if the paper is just complete nonsense.), and so forth.

        this is were the student in the OP almost certainly learned how the assignment given was supposed to be written.

        there’s literally entire classes for this specific thing.

        and yeah, that’s because it’s actually difficult to do properly!

        there’s nothing “unfair”, or “unexpected”, or “insufficiently clear” about this work assignment.

        it can seem that way to someone who hasn’t been to university, but to everyone who has, it’s clear as day.

        there is never a need to point out things like “you need to use proper citations in your work”, or “you need to follow the scientific method”, because this has already been covered and is then expected in damn near every assignment afterwards.

        it’s the expected standard.

        so there are two possibilities here:

        either the student hasn’t absorbed the material of the previously mentioned class, and just kinda winged it, hoping for the best, and is thus simply an exceedingly bad scientist, which means the failure was entirely deserved.

        …or they did it on purpose, and the failure was entirely deserved.

        my money is definitely on the latter.

        TL;DR:

        she damn well knew this submission would be disqualified.

        because all students know this.

        it’s literally the scientific method, and thus one of the very first things they teach you at university.

        hope this clears up why none of this is explicitly mentioned in the assignment, but feel free to ask more questions!

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You can claim that there are requirements that are not mentioned anywhere in any of the instructions given to the students, but there’s no evidence for that in what they were actually given.

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      • 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        the evidence is: this is a university course.

        this is normal for every university in the world. everyone that’s ever taken a university course knows this.

        it’s quite literally the scientific method.

        it’s almost never spelled out anywhere, because students generally have dedicated courses that teach this method and related things like researching, proper citations, writing structures and styles, etc.

        usually called something like “scientific working” or something (don’t know what it’s called in english, german is usually something like “wissenschaftliches arbeiten”).

        this isn’t kindergarten; there are prerequisites and they are expected by default.

        these aren’t children, they’re adults.

        and everyone involved knew this in advance.

        this is not “hidden” oder “secret”.

        it’s a standard.

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      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        There is no requirement listed that the assignment be written in English, or submitted on paper. An assignment written in Latin on the side of a cow (with a 1 inch margin) is not explicitly forbidden.

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  • a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The rubric gives only a small amount of context. Do you think it should explicitly say “contains college-quality writing?”

    I usually put that crap in the syllabus.

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