Too Many Unedited Papers

A professor I have this semester (who shall remain nameless) for one of my classes has really started to bug me. No guys, it's not Jean.

For this particular class, we have had several books to read for lecture as well as several assignments to complete for lab. After each book and each assignment, we are supposed to write a 500-word summary of the book, or for lab, a one-page critique of how we thought our assignment went. This comes out to be 10 short papers on top of our other 5, much larger papers.

It gets worse. The end of the semester is approaching. Now we have to take those 5 summaries we wrote on each book and write one big one. His summary of the assignment is "to write what you learned in lecture... 2,500 words." In addition, we must do the same thing for lab... "Write 1,500 words on what you learned in lab."

Here's how I interpret this: My professor wants to hear how great he is by having us kiss up to him in 4,000 words. Did I mention he never grades our summaries and I'm still waiting on grades for 2 of my 5 main assignments? Why should I do my work if he doesn't? And he never leaves comments for the grades I have on the first 3 assignments.

My point to all of this is... does editing matter to him? How much time does he dedicate to making sure we know our stuff compared to how much we are supposed to tell him what an excellent teacher he is? I want to know why I got an 85 on one paper compared to a 100 on the other. Did I have typos or misused facts on the first?

I guess I will never know. This is why it is important to know what mistakes you made and how they need to be corrected; so you can always improve!

Peer Edits Make Me Mad

For this week's blog, I decided to talk about a peer editing experience I had in my Latin American History class. I wrote a paper about Cuba's transition to power from Fidel Castro to his brother, Raul. Last week, we were to hand our paper to the person on the right of us and that person was supposed to type a one-page response with suggestions or issues they had with our writing. First of all, I like to work independtly on my paper and once it's done-- it's done. But okay, I guess I can take some constructive criticism.

So the next week, we get the response back from the other person. I read through it and take it home to make the proper corrections to my paper so I can then hand in the final product. The person reviewing my paper went on this rant for 2 paragraphs about the fact that my paper is about Fidel AND Raul Castro and so I should not refer to either of them by their last name only. Yes, this is a very valid point. However, I went through my paper 3 times and I never, NOT ONCE, made this mistake. I always used their first names to address them.

So this leads me to believe this person never actually read my paper further than the introductory paragraph. All this does is firm up my belief that peer edits are a waste of time, especially in a gen ed class like History 106. I was so angry about this that it made me not even want to read the rest of what she had to say. But I did, and it was all positive encouragement and "oh the rest is perfect". So now, I'm turning in the same paper I handed in a week ago. Peer edits are useless.

Cutting down on editing...not effective.

While this article is troubling for the fact that it sounds like the integrity of print news is vanishing, I can't say that I'm too surprised about this. When papers look at cutting back on staff, I'm sure they first go to the departments that have an abundance of people doing the same job, such as copy editors. They overlook the fact that each one is essential to maintaining the paper's value, integrity and credibility and only see an opportunity to save money. I was shocked to read that the Post-Dispatch went from over 40 copy editors to only 21. That's a bit drastic, I will say.

Papers need to keep in mind that the more errors that get printed, the more readership will fall because each error drops down credibility ratings, even if it's only ever so slightly. It's still a difference. If readership falls, the paper is going to be in the same situation, or worse in terms of finances. And it's sad that they are expecting 21 copy editors to do the work of 40. That's a lot of pressure and those 21 people are probably not even recognized for it.

The New DI Staff

Once students got back from Spring Break, the DI switched over to it's new staff that will work the paper for another year. I learned Wednesday night as I was working that I have a love-hate relationship with this. On the one hand, nobody had a firm grasp on their new position, which made my night drag on longer and longer because I can't do my job until the design desk is finished. And of course, they had the most trouble and thus, the worst delay.

I grew angry knowing I'd be stuck at my desk until all hours of the night, facing a psychology exam the next day that I had not yet started studying for. Finally, the paper dropped. Late, but I'll take it. I stomped all the way home knowing this was going to be how nights at work went for a couple weeks until people got the hang of it and work went smoothly again.

But to my surprise, when I grabbed the paper the next morning, none of my headlines got changed by the slotters. It's a big deal. My headlines always got changed last year. Sometimes for the best, and sometimes for the worst. And it's so frustrating. A lot of the slotters just want to see their words printed to say they wrote that. Well, the new slotters must have either been lazy or unexperienced because all my headlines made final cut.

So while I was exhausted from work, I was happy to see something good came of the night before.