Comments on: Time Spent Writing My Essays

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:51:36 +0000

Haha, I’ve been doing that for years too. I like the way courier new looks too, but the fact that it’s such a wide font makes it great for taking up more room!

By: omer

omer — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:05:30 +0000

my re teacher was soo stupid, i she asked for the story of joseph i copied and pasted a 10 page essay and gave it in , it had language i dont tihnk even she understood but boy i got a good grade for that lol

By: alex

alex — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:48:55 +0000

You’re not me!

I’m so confused.. :s

By: Me

Me — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:00:34 +0000

You forgot to section off a HUGE portion of the graph for jackin off to nasty pics of your grandma…

By: Trin

Trin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:51:05 +0000

ITS TRUUUUUE

By: Jojo

Jojo — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:11:40 +0000

Well, it is needed for the bibliography…

By: Briii

Briii — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:11:39 +0000

Haha, win.

By: John Curd

John Curd — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:10:21 +0000

so very true

By: failness

failness — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:35:03 +0000

i seriously doubt that you spend that much time with the title, i bet that you spend more than 25% of the time looking at Graph Jam

By: Alex As Well

Alex As Well — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:46:59 +0000

Yeah. You ruined everything.

By: Lyla

Lyla — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:18:05 +0000

What the-? Weirdo.

By: liz

liz — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:17:48 +0000

this is almost exactly what i do hahah.
except i just reform the sentences off of wikipedia & use a lot of synonyms.
hahahah

By: hey idiot

hey idiot — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:17:57 +0000

I’m pretty sure he was not being entirely sincere in that post.

By: cool guy

cool guy — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:57:14 +0000

whenever i get to writing the date (normally last thing i do) i often roll back a few days and write that in…if the date i rote down is before the date it was set…then i can just say it was a mistake i made during the hard work i out in whilst doing the homework.

also the title…if you have office 2007 you click a button and write….not exactly difficult!

By: cTo

cTo — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:57:03 +0000

My favorite trick was changing the spacing between the letters. Very, very subtly. In a short paper, doesn’t make a difference, but in a long paper, could can eek out an extra half a page. Great for high school and undergrad, but for my master’s thesis, the library actually has little old ladies go through the manuscript with a ruler. So, back to the standard values for me. XP

Course, it’s not like there’s a required minimum page limit for my thesis anyway….

By: cTo

cTo — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:51:54 +0000

Sadly, I know for a fact that there are teachers out there who would not be fooled by such a tactic. Or, worse, just not care.

If our society respected teachers more, supported them more, paid them more, then we would see more real intelligent people going into teaching as a first choice, rather than an emergency fall-back. With more competition for teaching jobs, we’d see less lazy/idiot teachers get hired. In my opinion.

By: Sonja

Sonja — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:04:52 +0000

This may be why almost everybody is so damn stupid

By: Maddi

Maddi — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:50:27 +0000

I thought I was the only one who did the date thing!

By: moodle

moodle — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:31:45 +0000

“Deciding what date to put on it so my teacher doesn’t realise I’m doing it the night before it’s due.”

So true!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:41:59 +0000

Only thing here that I’ve ever done is (back in High School) fudging the access date on citations of websites, in order to hide how late I did some of my research.

I only ever did that on websites that I knew to be stable, and only fudged the date by a week or so. I just hated to admit that I found what turned to be my best source two days before the paper was due.

Font-choosing and (borderline) plagiarism are things I left behind in elementary school.

By: dynamite11

dynamite11 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:39:42 +0000

its leik the ppl that write these are following me around…>.>

By: teacher

teacher — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:12:50 +0000

HA! That’s classic. Or the student (high school, obviously) who came to class late and gave me “her pass from the math teacher” that had MY signature on it from the week before. Genius.

By: teacher

teacher — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:03:35 +0000

THANK YOU! I’m pretty sure this graph was created by my students. Like the three I failed last week for Wikiplagiarism. Seriously guys!? Like I don’t have a computer? When your writing goes from “there idea from the books editors note say this” to “After centuries of foreign occupation and short-lived native dynasties, Iran was once again reunified,” you think I’m not going to notice?! (Wikipedia: Iran p.s.) And do me a favor, when you cut and paste from sites online, don’t choose the first paragraph of the first site that comes up when you google your topic. Sometimes I like a little challenge in discovering your thievery. It’s more satisfying that way. And FYI, I never even notice font/date/spacing unless the content of your paper sucks and you give me reason to find problems. So how ’bout you try thinking on your own and writing a paper that puts those thoughts together in a literate fashion. Thanks.

By: brokenyard

brokenyard — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:45:49 +0000

Yes to the date part, no to the last part.

By: Athanar

Athanar — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:54:26 +0000

I’ve graduated from high school anyway.

By: maria

maria — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:49:29 +0000

hahaha. clever.
and so true.

By: meh

meh — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:35:44 +0000

Hey Mike Hunt, don’t you have to go suck off Mike Hawk somewhere?

By: Tobias

Tobias — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Interesting graph…What are the chances this was posted by the student who plagiarized the Wikipedia page I edited and then turned the paper in to me?

By: joshua

joshua — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:37:55 +0000

Because professors never spot that.

By: Your Prof

Your Prof — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:24:31 +0000

Hi, sweetie snowflake.

I regularly FLUNK people like you.

You think your profs aren’t on to your cheating ways?

Wikipedia is ssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooooo lame.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:06:02 +0000

Yes. If it ever happened that the student really were the author of the material that I thought was plagiarized, of course the student wouldn’t be failed for it. But of course that has never happened.

This isn’t about being loose with accusations. Students might believe there’s something subtle about their plagiarism, but in fact there is not. We put some effort into making certain of the offense before we fail ‘em, but it stands out like a sore thumb immediately.

Just failed one yesterday, as a matter of fact.

By: oblomov

oblomov — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:52:53 +0000

I have not written an essay like this since elementary school.
What kind of profs allow you to choose fonts? Or use wiki?

By: Guyontehinterwebs

Guyontehinterwebs — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:50:37 +0000

Odds are, the ‘Writing’ segment should be there, but it got hidden by more important stuff (eg. Making this graph).

Maybe it needs a new slice:
“Time spent making ‘funny’ graphs”

By: Proffie57

Proffie57 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:01:45 +0000

I’m an English professor. And yes, I know when your margins are bigger than 1″, when your font is not size 12 Times New Roman, and when your double spacing is actually 2.5. Do you guys really think that, after reading a million and a half papers, we can’t spot these things? Come on. Give us some credit.

By: Motas

Motas — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:38:27 +0000

Easy rule of thumb: one GOOD source=one page of essay. When you have too much information to fit the assigned length, then you’ve done enough reseach.

By: Destin

Destin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:04:30 +0000

You, sir, actually know what you’re talking about. I like that. But I’d change “rather weak” to “somewhat weak”.

By: Motas

Motas — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:10:16 +0000

While assisting in my child’s school the teacher & I noticed that some research papers were virtually identical. I pulled up Wikipedia and there were 14 of the 26 student papers! 5 or 6 more were paraphrased closely enough to be plagerized, too. The principal’s office was mighty crowded that day. Not only were the kids in trouble, their former teachers were read the riot-act, also. They were 7th graders at a school where research papers are “assigned” (walked through step-by-step with lots of hand-holding) in 4th grade. Lesson learned.

By: Zearen

Zearen — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:38:10 +0000

Two tips:
1) If you spend one day researching, you’ll find the essay isn’t nearly as hard to write the next day.

2) Wikipedia in of itself is rather weak, but it can lead you to good solid sources.

By: Zearen

Zearen — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:28:01 +0000

*realize that annalyzing *sigh* why do I even try. *Kills self*

By: Zearen

Zearen — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:26:54 +0000

You do, of course, that analyzing humor is like shooting it; with a gun.

By: Schnuppe

Schnuppe — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:12:21 +0000

This is SO true!

By: Junkyard

Junkyard — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:54:34 +0000

You should probably spend less time choosing a font for your title.

By: A.S. Galvan

A.S. Galvan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:23:15 +0000

Hilarious. People who pull this crap think the professor didn’t attend college as well.

Just do the work, they’ve seen it ALL.

By: Sanguis

Sanguis — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:34:48 +0000

I agree, it’s not likely, but it IS possible. I assume when you deduct marks/refuse to mark, you explain why an give students an oppurtunity to bring a case.

By: SnowBro

SnowBro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:14:37 +0000

One of my profs insisted on courier font, as well as a specific font size. Margins were also regulated, along with a number of other things. When we handed in our papers, we had to include an extra document, listing all of the regulations. We had to include our signatures at the end of this extra document, to indicate the we had read the rules and tried to adhere to them. Marks were taken off if we transgressed, or if we forgot to include the extra document.

Now I’m a prof. Profs aren’t stupid. We were students once too. We know that you leave your homework until the last minute, especially papers. Besides, unless you hand it in on the date you’ve written on your paper, give or take a day, we’re pretty sure you didn’t actually finish it on that date. We don’t actually care when you do your work, unless you’re coming to us on the day before the due date asking for an extension or a suggestion for a paper topic. That’s annoying. Don’t do that. Likewise, we don’t care what font you use for your title. Don’t use Comic Sans for the body of the text. Or for anything else. That font is annoying. Everywhere.

Actually, I made all this crap up. It’s true that I’m a prof. But I teach math, most courses in which there are no essays. If I did teach classes that had essays to hand in, the preceding paragraph reflects accurately the attitude I would have.

By: qwerty

qwerty — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:45:44 +0000

Actually, when doing a paper for APA format, the font is to be Times New Roman, font size 12, double spaced lines, and one space after each period. Also when doing your reference page, you are to use a hanging indent.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:23:36 +0000

That’s pretty hypothetical. If you edited the Wikipedia page, you could prove that to me, and certainly the part that was identical to the Wikipedia page wouldn’t be the only decent writing in the entire essay.

In fact the students who I’ve failed were not the authors of the Wikipedia pages they plagiarized from. What you’re describing is remotely possible, but is not, in fact, what really happens.

By: Athanar

Athanar — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:04:27 +0000

Thanks for the tip!

By: Sanguis

Sanguis — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:00:02 +0000

But what if they were the ones who edited the Wikipedia page??

(Hypothetically) I do a whole bunch of research and discover towards the end that the wikipedia page is substandard/lacking, after finishing (or nearly finishing) the assignment I decide to edit the page with the information I have.

You receive the assignment, check it, check wikipedia and discover that it’s almost identical (which it would be; I put it there) -> you fail me.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:16:04 +0000

Very true.

Sadly (but not surprisingly), mommy and daddy often have the same sense of entitlement.