(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Things I was going to post about recently include
- how I watched the leaked episodes of SGA and really enjoyed them;
- how I'm worried about one [casting spoiler] because of one [spoilery] interview at Gateworld, but probably not for the reasons you are;
- how Ahmed Zaoui finally got cleared & granted refugee status, and a sarcastic remark about the SIS;
- how the weather has been so beautiful here lately we had fish and chips on the beach last night;
- how I wasn't all that excited for SPN coming back, and then I read Old Country by astolat (HP/SPN crossover, taking place post-DH and AHBL, wincest, AWESOME) and saw these pictures from filming on set (from a future episode, IMO 100% non-spoilery, but the extremely sensitive should beware) and now I am very excited;
- how I re-jigged half my icons: this one is my sad robot icon.

Thing which is actually motivating me to post: I got an A- for my surrogacy essay and I'm really disappointed. Um. it's one of those things where I can't actually say anything for fear of looking dumb. But I was really pleased with the essay, I thought it was at once concise and thorough - as thorough as you can get within the word limit - well argued and well written, and on a par with every other 300 level philosophy essay I've done if not better. :-/ Obviously the lecturer disagrees, and that's that, but damnit. I hardly ever think I've done anything to the best of my ability but I really did feel that way about this essay. Double-ugh. It all becomes so ironic when I look at the english assignment that I had to trim down from 4000 words to 2000, which I got full marks for and a glowing remark from a lecturer who claims that the assignment in question was one of the few assignments she's ever graded that's she's given full marks in. And I'm just thinking, but that assignment was so much better before I had to cut half the content...

Comments

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

I often find essays that are trimmed extensively are often better than ones that don't require it. If it was good at 4000 words, it'll be even better at 2000, presuming you edited well. Still, have you thought about appealing the mark?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I generally do agree about editing when what it involves is cutting words and paragraphs and too many examples, or whatever. But most of what I ended up cutting was content; I excised whole paragraphs. Obviously whatever I left was enough for the assignment, I just didn't really feel that I'd answered the questions.

:-/ I did sort of think about it, but I figure for an A- it's not really worth it and it's not like he didn't give me a good comment sheet, because he definitely did. It was pretty clear why he felt the essay lost the marks, I just either disagree with him or think he cut too much, but w/e.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

My advice is to sit on it for a few days and if you feel you've got a halfway decent case to make, go and have a chat with the lecturer. At worst you may get a better understanding of why he marked the way he did.

If you were really in a situation where you couldn't properly answer the question set in the word limit stipulated, it means that the essay was badly assigned, and you might just be doing a favour to next year's students. Not that I imagine pressure is what you're interested in right now!

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

It all becomes so ironic when I look at the english assignment that I had to trim down from 4000 words to 2000, which I got full marks for and a glowing remark from a lecturer who claims that the assignment in question was one of the few assignments she's ever graded that's she's given full marks in. And I'm just thinking, but that assignment was so much better before I had to cut half the content...

I'd call that lucky. Almost any other department would have failed you for handing in something that much over the limit.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Erm. I asked her the maximum allowable length, she said 2000, that's about what I cut it to? I fail to see how that's lucky.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

You said you cut it to closer to 3000, and most departments operate a policy of penalising overlong assignments so as to not, say, disadvantage the people who might, for some bizarre reason, believe that they have to stick to them. So, yeah, lucky.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

I got an A- for my surrogacy essay ... I thought it was at once concise and thorough [...] well argued and well written, and on a par with every other 300 level philosophy essay I've done if not better. :-/ Obviously the lecturer disagrees

...
..
.

As a future teacher I don't know what I'm going to say to students like you. Ican't see how an A disagrees that your essay was well done in all those qualities, regardless of plus or minus attributes.

What the hell am I going to do with students like you?

Maybe this is why my associate teacher preferred low achieving classes. It's easy to point out the line and say 'come on, get over that!' rather than say 'Well it was phenomanal but not perfect.'

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

well, OK, let me put it like this: on the marking sheet there were nine criteria, each with a checkbox for VG, Good, OK, and Needs Work. I got VG for every category except breadth of reading, for which he ticked "good", and quality of argument, which was halfway between very good and good. The second one especially is extremely important, I agree. but my mark was 82 - I'm not convinced that one good and one half-way between G and VG justifies a deduction of nearly one-fifth of my credit. The thing is, I have had A- essays before (OK... one.) but I always knew that they weren't quite there, that they were off. I didn't know that with this one. So I dunno.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Okay, given the schedule and the percentage match up to the letter grading scheme, I can see how you would feel dissappointed.

My comment was meant to be more about me dealing with smart kids than you and your expectations of yourself. I don't think you took offence, but I just wanted to make sure...

[thisissirius.livejournal.com]

- how I'm worried about one [casting spoiler] because of one [spoilery] interview at Gateworld, but probably not for the reasons you are;

I'm nosey. What's got you worried?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Hello!

Well, if you know that Sam Carter's coming onto the show (and if you don't, seriously, have you been living under a rock?) I actually really like Sam a lot, and so in some ways I'm really looking forward to her being part of the show. OTOH, I know she's replacing Elizabeth, which is essentially an administrative role, and I just don't get how that fits with Sam's character. I'm not worried about her being smarter than Rodney or cooler than John or whatever it is people worry about, I'm worried about her not being Sam anymore. I mean, she's a brilliant astrophysicist and has three times as much stargate experience as anyone on Atlantis. Why would she take an administrative position? What motivates her to do that? I know that this will inevitably result in her deferring to John and Rodney and that makes me indescribably annoyed - it's not that I want a deus ex Carter every episode like SG1 had, it's just. I don't know. It seems like her character will be weakened in favour of strengthening John and Rodney's, which is really distasteful to me. And is pretty much the exact opposite of what everyone else I know is worrying about, so...