Topic: My professor docked points and gave me a dumbass fucking comment
Anonymous A started this discussion 2 years ago#114,447
Taking classes online from a local college and all the classes have a discussion board that you're required to post on each week. The instructor will leave a prompt, you have to respond to it and then respond to two other students. This particular prompt was very basic, it asked a single question, and had a word count requirement of 50. I answered this basic question with a basic answer. 50 words is a not a lot, and the answer consisted of one single logical thought. As such, I saw no need to arbitrarily break my answer up into multiple paragraphs.
The motherfucker docked points for style and left a comment saying "You need to work on organization. One big paragraph is not college level writing." What the fuck? One big paragraph? Motherfucker it's five sentences long!
The points lost make up less than 1% of my total grade for the semester, so I know I should just let it go. But it's such a bizarre comment that I am very tempted to write him a passive aggressive email asking about his style/organization requirements. How many words or sentences makes a paragraph "big"? Should I never write in individual paragraphs? Should I always insert a random line break where it doesn't belong to inflate my paragraph count? What's the best way to add random line breaks for organization?
For reference, paragraphs 1 and 3 of this post are each longer than my "one big paragraph." Stupid fuck.
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 2 years ago, 19 minutes later[^][v]#1,266,205
Should I hit send on this?
Good evening Professor,
I was hoping to get some clarification on the expectations of writing style for the discussions of this course. I noticed I was docked points for writing "one big paragraph" and would like to make the appropriate changes to my writing to avoid losing points in the future.
As my paragraph was less than 100 words and only five sentences long, what word/sentence count should I assume as the upper limit for a paragraph of appropriate length?
Perhaps the primary concern was the fact that it was one single paragraph, rather than it being big? Is it common practice in college level writing to insert paragraph breaks into passages concerning a singular thought or idea, such as one comparing two vocabulary words?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
dj cocos nucifera joined in and replied with this 2 years ago, 1 hour later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,266,231
I didn't read the rest of your post but maybe you should learn to take constructive criticism instead of whining about it here for validation. if your Prof said you should break up your writing for style points he was probably right.
also by the spacing in your post it looks like you took it to heart and were extra careful not to make the same mistake! good job!
Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU joined in and replied with this 2 years ago, 17 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,266,241
Some professors are just dumb or have idiosyncratic personal styles you need to pander to. It seems like his response was mostly based on the aesthetic of your work rather than the content. If he's ever read a single academic article, he's seen paragraphs that go on forever. For his class just make your paragraphs smaller than you think you should I guess.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 2 years ago, 1 hour later, 10 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,266,285
@1,266,231 (dj cocos nucifera)
I'm all for constructive criticism, but this is hardly it. There is no context in which five sentences covering a single unified thought is too big. As for taking it to heart, hardly. Like I said, the first and third paragraphs of my post are each longer than the paragraph in question.
@1,266,232 (F)
If he didn't like my answer and provided a reasonable explanation, I would accept it. It's the comment on "college level writing" that irked me. I've been in school long enough to know how to write.
@1,266,241 (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
For sure, from now on I'm going to add line breaks after every other sentence for this class, flow be damned.
Some professors are just dumb or have idiosyncratic personal styles you need to pander to. It seems like his response was mostly based on the aesthetic of your work rather than the content.
If he's ever read a single academic article, he's seen paragraphs that go on forever. For his class just make your paragraphs smaller than you think you should I guess.