Congratulations! You’ve made it to college- the labyrinth that is high school curriculum is a distant memory– but it shall be replaced; by PAPERS!!! Don’t worry, we all suffer together, in fact, here are some papers we’ve all written:
1. High Effort – Low Results
Nothing validates your position at your school quite like this paper. You probably spent a week crafting this essay- found more than the number of required sources, made some witty biblical allusions, or even did a class survey. Whatever you did, it was above and beyond what the sheet said. You’re gunning to get it back and… A D???? What happened? What did you miss? Whether it was a bad night to grade papers, or just a poorly formulated argument in the eyes of the professor, no amount of pizazz is going to fix that D. Ask for a rewrite?
2. Low Effort – High Results
Yeah, you don’t want to admit it, but you wrote this at 4 am on the day it was due. Sure it’s a 9 am class and you’re miserable every time your alarm goes off, but you’re here and ready to get that D-. You’re emotionally prepared to fail until… HOW? HOW!? By the grace of some deity or the spirit of Nibbles (your dead hamster, RIP Nib-Nib) you’ve got the highest grade in the class! Somewhere in your caffeine fueled haze was a brilliant streak. Don’t rely on this. Trust me, this happens once or twice at the most.
3. Group Papers
No. No way. Who’s idea was this? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THIS TO THEIR STUDENTS? Think about it. Group projects are miserable enough, let alone dealing with the same people in the context of a paper. It doesn’t matter if that one person is responsible for JUST THE WORKS CITED PAGE. It’s going to be wrong, or more likely, not done. Please professors, don’t do this.
4. The Rant
College students; don’t tell me this hasn’t happened to you. You get a great topic, one you know all about. The prompt lines up with everything you believe in. However, this gets the best of you- and before you know it, you’ve gone four pages over the maximum length and none of it makes any sense but frankly it is 3 am and you can’t be bothered.
5. Grammatical Dumpster Fire
This one could be a product of one of the above essays, and it’s usually your professor’s nightmare. Most likely a submission of the first draft, this is just… well it is all a jumbled pile of wiggly red lines and poorly placed synonyms. Just…Take the F and try harder next time.
6. Citation Circus
…WAIT. So MLA doesn’t work as a default? What about APA? Chicago? What IS ASA? You know what? I’ll just google it.