How do I ask for better feedback on an essay?
November 18, 2018 10:29 PM Subscribe
I got dinked on my essay on the technicality that it assumed too much background knowledge, making my argument too complex to follow. I had 1500 words to argue whether a thought experiment went one way or another, and I went one way, heavily citing as I did, with the logical extensions and ideas we'd been studying to go oh hey, this definition extended becomes dependent on that so blah blah - it was dense and logical.
The feedback is very clear that I got marked down solely because my arguments were too dense and complex. Nothing else is mentioned.
I know I can't usefully argue for a grade change, and have no real interest in that.
What I am ticked off about is getting for an entire course two short paragraphs of evaluation for an essay that includes: "A good rule of thumb here is to assume that your reader is an educated person who has never studied this topic before." For popular science, yes, but for a philosophy paper?
I'm feeling frustrated - if I had dumbed down the essay to write a very simplified thing I would have gotten a better mark, but that was not mentioned anywhere in the guidelines, and also - what the hell, what's the point?
How do I effectively write to my department/professor to say look, can you actually explain what went wrong, where my arguments are weak, which parts I should rewrite? Can you teach me instead of just sending me a link to "how to write a philosophy paper" again. I do NOT want to piss off the department, but I also want to have some backbone and get some damn teaching for my student money.
The feedback is very clear that I got marked down solely because my arguments were too dense and complex. Nothing else is mentioned.
I know I can't usefully argue for a grade change, and have no real interest in that.
What I am ticked off about is getting for an entire course two short paragraphs of evaluation for an essay that includes: "A good rule of thumb here is to assume that your reader is an educated person who has never studied this topic before." For popular science, yes, but for a philosophy paper?
I'm feeling frustrated - if I had dumbed down the essay to write a very simplified thing I would have gotten a better mark, but that was not mentioned anywhere in the guidelines, and also - what the hell, what's the point?
How do I effectively write to my department/professor to say look, can you actually explain what went wrong, where my arguments are weak, which parts I should rewrite? Can you teach me instead of just sending me a link to "how to write a philosophy paper" again. I do NOT want to piss off the department, but I also want to have some backbone and get some damn teaching for my student money.
That does seem like pretty vague feedback, but here's my best guess at interpreting it. Sometimes a very dense argument needs more unpacking than the author thinks. I used to get this feedback from my supervisor all the time - I would throw in a citation or make a statement, but not make explicit what the relationship was between my statement or citation, and the argument I was making. This would then make following the threads of my argument very challenging, even for my PhD supervisor who was himself a PhD. Remember that you know your own train of thought, but you have to give very clear directions so other people can travel along with you.
posted by ChuraChura at 11:01 PM on November 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:01 PM on November 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
As a person who grades student essays regularly, I usually only give a couple of paragraphs of feedback because maybe 1 in 10 students looks at the feedback at all. Since electronic marking, I can actually see that in the system, and it is hard for me to convince myself it is worth giving detailed guidance when there is so little chance anyone will ever read it.
That said, if a student ever contacts me for more info about how they could improve, I am OVERJOYED. (Not so much if it's clear they only want a better mark and don't actually want to learn anything, but that doesn't sound like you. And it's still better than knowing they didn't pay any attention to feedback at all.) I would drop everything and offer a long face-to-face tutoring session, or at the very least, a phone conversation expanding on my feedback and going through the paper in detail with any student who would like that. (I have always offered that to students and have like twice been taken up on it in the past 10 years.) I am also always happy to expand on written feedback in writing, but usually it is much more worthwhile to have an in-person conversation.
I think a lot of professors feel like me. Please contact the person who marked your essay and ask if they would be happy to give you more detailed feedback so that you can learn. (That last part of the sentence is key to signal that you aren't just going to spend the time trying to argue your grade with them.)
posted by lollusc at 11:26 PM on November 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
That said, if a student ever contacts me for more info about how they could improve, I am OVERJOYED. (Not so much if it's clear they only want a better mark and don't actually want to learn anything, but that doesn't sound like you. And it's still better than knowing they didn't pay any attention to feedback at all.) I would drop everything and offer a long face-to-face tutoring session, or at the very least, a phone conversation expanding on my feedback and going through the paper in detail with any student who would like that. (I have always offered that to students and have like twice been taken up on it in the past 10 years.) I am also always happy to expand on written feedback in writing, but usually it is much more worthwhile to have an in-person conversation.
I think a lot of professors feel like me. Please contact the person who marked your essay and ask if they would be happy to give you more detailed feedback so that you can learn. (That last part of the sentence is key to signal that you aren't just going to spend the time trying to argue your grade with them.)
posted by lollusc at 11:26 PM on November 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
(Also, on the off-chance that you come from more of a sciences background, or have had professors in the past who "take marks off" for mistakes). There are two ways of grading. One is more prevalent in the sciences and allied fields, and one more in the humanities. The more sciencey way to grade is to start with the assumption that everyone gets 100% and take off marks for errors or problems. That's how I, as a linguistics prof, used to mark.
Since I've moved into more general humanities subjects, I've come to realise that most of my colleagues mark by assuming a good essay is worth something like 60-70%, and they add marks on for stuff the student does that really impresses them. To get anywhere in the 90s, a student would basically have to write something that could be published in an academic journal.
That is to say, if your professor is marking according to the latter approach, it might not be the case that you got "dinged" for being too complex and dense. That feedback may be something they thought could be improved, but at the same time, it might not be the reason you didn't get full marks. The grade may reflect a very good essay that just isn't, like, the best essay the professor ever saw in their teaching career, which might be what they would need to give it something close to full marks.
posted by lollusc at 11:31 PM on November 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
Since I've moved into more general humanities subjects, I've come to realise that most of my colleagues mark by assuming a good essay is worth something like 60-70%, and they add marks on for stuff the student does that really impresses them. To get anywhere in the 90s, a student would basically have to write something that could be published in an academic journal.
That is to say, if your professor is marking according to the latter approach, it might not be the case that you got "dinged" for being too complex and dense. That feedback may be something they thought could be improved, but at the same time, it might not be the reason you didn't get full marks. The grade may reflect a very good essay that just isn't, like, the best essay the professor ever saw in their teaching career, which might be what they would need to give it something close to full marks.
posted by lollusc at 11:31 PM on November 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
One final thought and then I'll stop spamming you (and go back to my own grading, which is probably why I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about this).
Many of my students get very overwhelmed if I give them lots of different things they should work on. (As I mentioned, they don't tend to read written comments, but often I'll go over their work with them in class). I've noticed that if I give them 10 things that could be improved in their next essay, they will do none of them, and it will upset and panic them. If I give them one or two things, there is more chance they will do it. So I usually try to pick the one thing that will make the biggest difference if they can work on that, and write that in the written feedback. (And then, as I mentioned, I offer to give more feedback in person or by follow-up email if they want it).
Your prof may have noted the denseness/complexity because it was the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of what you could improve, not because it's the only thing you could do better.
I'll stop now.
posted by lollusc at 11:36 PM on November 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
Many of my students get very overwhelmed if I give them lots of different things they should work on. (As I mentioned, they don't tend to read written comments, but often I'll go over their work with them in class). I've noticed that if I give them 10 things that could be improved in their next essay, they will do none of them, and it will upset and panic them. If I give them one or two things, there is more chance they will do it. So I usually try to pick the one thing that will make the biggest difference if they can work on that, and write that in the written feedback. (And then, as I mentioned, I offer to give more feedback in person or by follow-up email if they want it).
Your prof may have noted the denseness/complexity because it was the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of what you could improve, not because it's the only thing you could do better.
I'll stop now.
posted by lollusc at 11:36 PM on November 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
It's a bit hard to answer this without knowing the course level, your academic background, etc. etc. Some courses assume that students have a shared background in writing (like a freshman composition requirement) and that they "shouldn't have to" teach students how to write an argumentative essay. I can't speak to the particulars of writing a philosophy essay, but I can say that it sounds like perhaps you have a problem with organizing and structuring your research so that it forms a persuasive argument. It's not about "dumbing down" your argument, rather it should be clear, concise, and effective. Describing a 1500-word essay as "dense" is kind of a clue to me that maybe you didn't approach this as an exercise of presenting your very best arguments in favor of your thesis. If your school has a writing center, that can be a good tool for working on these skills outside of class. And there should be no shame in going to office hours and asking for better feedback or for resources to help you develop your skills.
I have over-logical, "left-brained" tendencies but I always did well in the humanities because I looked at essays in a very formulaic manner. I didn't have to re-invent the wheel each time, I just sat down and plugged whatever my topic was into the right structure. I've looked at a few 'how to write a philosophy paper' articles and they seem to be very structured. One exercise would be to see if you can get an example paper that is high scoring from the professor or a classmate, sit down and diagram or bullet-point the paper - no more than one or two sentences per paragraph. Then do the same with your paper. Then see if you can re-organize or rewrite your bullet points to match the structure of the other students paper, not the content. I'm guessing that you'll find for a paper of this length, they spend more space on each part of an argument to form a chain between their thesis and their conclusion.
posted by muddgirl at 11:43 PM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
I have over-logical, "left-brained" tendencies but I always did well in the humanities because I looked at essays in a very formulaic manner. I didn't have to re-invent the wheel each time, I just sat down and plugged whatever my topic was into the right structure. I've looked at a few 'how to write a philosophy paper' articles and they seem to be very structured. One exercise would be to see if you can get an example paper that is high scoring from the professor or a classmate, sit down and diagram or bullet-point the paper - no more than one or two sentences per paragraph. Then do the same with your paper. Then see if you can re-organize or rewrite your bullet points to match the structure of the other students paper, not the content. I'm guessing that you'll find for a paper of this length, they spend more space on each part of an argument to form a chain between their thesis and their conclusion.
posted by muddgirl at 11:43 PM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
I suggest contacting your professor and asking if you could get some more detailed feedback on your essay as you want to improve your academic writing skills. Then set up a time for an in-person meeting or a telephone call. Don't make it about the prof justifying the mark they gave you, make it about an opportunity to improving your writing. It is a skill that requires effort and practice to do well, and in my experience many people who think they are strong writers have a lot of room for improvement.
posted by emd3737 at 11:47 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by emd3737 at 11:47 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
One thing you can do is let a few others read the paper with the specific instruction to tell you how well they follow your argument. (Ideally you'd be able to ask both educated non-specialists and fellow students from your course or field.)
The reason I say that is because sometimes people really do fail to convey what is in their head, and what looks like a complex argument to them looks impenetrable and potentially nonsensical to others. Here, "This would be too hard to read for others" may be a cover for "This was too hard to read for me." If so that's not really a technicality - the grade is not on the knowledge you have in your head, but on the successful processing and explanation of that knowledge.
I don't know if that's actually what happened here and you're right that graders should offer much more detailed, and better, feedback. (I hope they at least did you the courtesy of legible feedback - nothing like comments you have to decipher painstakingly.)
Having once gone to talk with a professor in the same situation, the result was that it took a ton of persuasion on my part that no, I really wasn't there to beg for a better grade. (This may have been because I actually did believe my grade was ridiculous and that probably came through, though I tried to be super deferential.) So if you talk with them, make sure to do it when you're no longer angry and are prepared for a session that may consist of "there's not much we can tell you beyond what we already told you".
(Then again, if your grade is important to you you could fight for it. If so, unless you're confident that the grader has minimal ego issues, I'd still go the very humble and deferential route. (In the situation described above the grade did actually get changed, because it really was so ridiculous that even a very ego-driven professor had a hard time defending it in person - but ymmv, and pointing out the ridiculous in a deferential way was annoying.) Focus on "I'd just like to have your feedback on how well my argument works, when presented better".)
posted by trig at 11:54 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
The reason I say that is because sometimes people really do fail to convey what is in their head, and what looks like a complex argument to them looks impenetrable and potentially nonsensical to others. Here, "This would be too hard to read for others" may be a cover for "This was too hard to read for me." If so that's not really a technicality - the grade is not on the knowledge you have in your head, but on the successful processing and explanation of that knowledge.
I don't know if that's actually what happened here and you're right that graders should offer much more detailed, and better, feedback. (I hope they at least did you the courtesy of legible feedback - nothing like comments you have to decipher painstakingly.)
Having once gone to talk with a professor in the same situation, the result was that it took a ton of persuasion on my part that no, I really wasn't there to beg for a better grade. (This may have been because I actually did believe my grade was ridiculous and that probably came through, though I tried to be super deferential.) So if you talk with them, make sure to do it when you're no longer angry and are prepared for a session that may consist of "there's not much we can tell you beyond what we already told you".
(Then again, if your grade is important to you you could fight for it. If so, unless you're confident that the grader has minimal ego issues, I'd still go the very humble and deferential route. (In the situation described above the grade did actually get changed, because it really was so ridiculous that even a very ego-driven professor had a hard time defending it in person - but ymmv, and pointing out the ridiculous in a deferential way was annoying.) Focus on "I'd just like to have your feedback on how well my argument works, when presented better".)
posted by trig at 11:54 PM on November 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Does your professor have open office hours? I'm a professor and mine are always so empty. I love when students come visit during open office hours to talk about how they can improve their writing. If you came to me and said "I'm hoping to walk through my essay with you so I can learn to write better arguments," I would be very excited. And I would sit with you and walk through your paper with you.
Please do meet with your professor. You may have to tell them this isn't about the grade. You may also need to wait until you're less upset - saying you want damn teaching for your student money makes me think you're upset. When upset students come to me my focus becomes on diffusing their anger and getting them out of my office, not on helping them, unfortunately. And for many profs this enterprise is not transactional the way it is for students. It's about knowledge building, which is uncomfortable and hard and often causes learners to feel bad along the way. It's not about paying for a service. So I'd suggest waiting until you feel less unhappy before talking to your professor.
posted by sockermom at 2:00 AM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
Please do meet with your professor. You may have to tell them this isn't about the grade. You may also need to wait until you're less upset - saying you want damn teaching for your student money makes me think you're upset. When upset students come to me my focus becomes on diffusing their anger and getting them out of my office, not on helping them, unfortunately. And for many profs this enterprise is not transactional the way it is for students. It's about knowledge building, which is uncomfortable and hard and often causes learners to feel bad along the way. It's not about paying for a service. So I'd suggest waiting until you feel less unhappy before talking to your professor.
posted by sockermom at 2:00 AM on November 19, 2018 [5 favorites]
Sockermom and lollusc both have really excellent advice.
I'll just add that in a philosophy essay, often students have to display mastery over argument structure. I would read that comment not as asking you to dumb down the essay but as asking you not to skip steps in your own argument. It's a common issue in analytical essays; the idea is that the writer assumes the reader is with them jumping from point A to point B but really, there are a few steps in between; the reader can't get to B without A1 and A2, or actually B is better thought of as C or D. So a general reader should be able to follow the steps of the argument even if the argument is complex.
Another thing that some philosophy courses try to teach is how to make your argument in a direct way. Complexity and clarity are not incompatible but an argument can suffer from unnecessary complexity. A sophisticated argument can be elegant and straightforward. When you meet with the professor, I'd get them to clarify what they mean by "too complex;" hopefully they aren't really telling you not to have a rigorous, multi-faceted argument but are asking you to streamline the argument you're making into its simplest form. (I'm a professor, and often my comments aren't as clear as they should be. You absolutely deserve to understand what they were trying to teach you. Again, sockermom and lollusc have it there.)
posted by nantucket at 2:13 AM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]
I'll just add that in a philosophy essay, often students have to display mastery over argument structure. I would read that comment not as asking you to dumb down the essay but as asking you not to skip steps in your own argument. It's a common issue in analytical essays; the idea is that the writer assumes the reader is with them jumping from point A to point B but really, there are a few steps in between; the reader can't get to B without A1 and A2, or actually B is better thought of as C or D. So a general reader should be able to follow the steps of the argument even if the argument is complex.
Another thing that some philosophy courses try to teach is how to make your argument in a direct way. Complexity and clarity are not incompatible but an argument can suffer from unnecessary complexity. A sophisticated argument can be elegant and straightforward. When you meet with the professor, I'd get them to clarify what they mean by "too complex;" hopefully they aren't really telling you not to have a rigorous, multi-faceted argument but are asking you to streamline the argument you're making into its simplest form. (I'm a professor, and often my comments aren't as clear as they should be. You absolutely deserve to understand what they were trying to teach you. Again, sockermom and lollusc have it there.)
posted by nantucket at 2:13 AM on November 19, 2018 [14 favorites]
I agree that stopping by during office hours is a good bet. "Professor, I was hoping that we could go over your comments from my essay, so that I can do better next time." You can also ask for clarification during the meeting.... "so in short, the take away from the "How to Write a Philosophy Paper" document is that next time I need to do XYX, right?"
Does your campus have a writing center? If so, the writing center can be a great resource for this essay and future essays.
posted by oceano at 3:58 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Does your campus have a writing center? If so, the writing center can be a great resource for this essay and future essays.
posted by oceano at 3:58 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Writing a clear, coherent essay isn't 'dumbing down.' It is INCREDIBLY CHALLENGING to write clearly about complex issues. I'd wager that 'too complex to follow' is a gentle way for your professor to tell you that your argument was nonsensical or convoluted.
Take advantage of office hours and your university's writing centre.
posted by nerdfish at 4:33 AM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
Take advantage of office hours and your university's writing centre.
posted by nerdfish at 4:33 AM on November 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
The instructor's comment about knowing your audience is a big tipoff to me. If you were writing with the instructor as your intended audience, then the paper almost certainly does assume too much background. To make their suggestion more concrete: write as though your audience is your classmates. That's a more appropriate level for student work, in my experience.
posted by dbx at 5:13 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by dbx at 5:13 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I'm one of the distance students, so office hours aren't a possibility. This course was taught by a brand new teacher as the usual was on sabbatical, and compared to similar papers there was noticeably far less interaction. Essentially, we got a list of readings and then four months later were told to hand in an essay, without any actual lectures or tutorials in-between, other than terse replies to some emails. I'm realising now as I write this that what I'm annoyed just as much about the sheer waste of our time as students for a badly taught course.
I'll draft an email, get a friend to read it and tone it to politeness and then sleep on it and send it, but possibly not to the actual teacher.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:48 AM on November 19, 2018
I'll draft an email, get a friend to read it and tone it to politeness and then sleep on it and send it, but possibly not to the actual teacher.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:48 AM on November 19, 2018
I'd listen to nerdfish and dbx and simplify, especially with only 1500 words. Simple isn't dumbing down; it's making it clear that you understood what you were writing. A new teacher would certainly be on the lookout for someone piling on sources and complexity because they didn't comprehend the material and/or haven't yet learned to write well in the discipline, whether that's true of you or not.
posted by wellred at 5:53 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by wellred at 5:53 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
n'thing that s/he wasn't asking you to "dumb it down", but was rather criticizing you for writing in an unclear, difficult to follow way. It is absolutely crucial when writing ANYTHING that you think of your audience, not just barfing out what's in your head.
posted by kestrel251 at 6:09 AM on November 19, 2018
posted by kestrel251 at 6:09 AM on November 19, 2018
Here's a question for you: is the course you're taking one in which the writing is the focus, or the content is the focus? (Usually, the answer can't be both).
If it's a course about writing, I'd say that the feedback you received is egregiously incomplete, and unwalkable as a path to revision. It's bluntly evaluative, and not really constructive. You should be pissed. However, if the course is about some (other) content, the comment is just fine. It's meant as a description of a stylistic tendency that impeded the effectiveness of your argument – which is the point of the assignment.
The writing style favored by many professors is pompous, verbose, and uses a slew of technically-loaded language. Obscurantist. There's a lot of signaling in the use of certain phrases, and a re-coding of words to subject-specific meaning. Good lord, help the lowly undergraduate who uses the phrase 'deconstruct' in an offhand way...
Which is to say: Many, many, professors aren't trained in pedagogy. Especially in the pedagogies of composition and rhetoric. They're just avid readers of literature in their field – and you are not yet a member of that field. If you try and write 'acadamese' (or 'Engfish' or 'thesaurus-mouth') you're bound to come up short. Many professors are black-belts in that language, and you're an untrained grasshopper. A comment that critiques writing as 'dense and complex' says two things to me. First, that your argument is hard to follow. Second, that the professor is unable (or, less frequently, unwilling) to read 'through' the writing to get to the point.
So: advocate for yourself. Yes, don't be grade-grubby. But specify that you want constructive feedback. If you've got an (online) writing center, go to it and NOT the professor, especially if the professor isn't a writer, per se. Plenty of professors will tell you 'come to my office hours' –– and you should take advantage of that. But often they will help you focus on content and argument and not expression. Also I disagree with the advice above that you should say 'I don't care about the grade, I just want to get better.' It's far-fetched and unrealistic. Who has time/inclination to rewrite a paper for fun? Instead, say neutrally, 'I'm trying to learn where, specifically, I got dense and thickety in my writing. I want to avoid this tendency in the future. Can you step me through a little of your thinking?' Good luck!
posted by mr. remy at 6:44 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
If it's a course about writing, I'd say that the feedback you received is egregiously incomplete, and unwalkable as a path to revision. It's bluntly evaluative, and not really constructive. You should be pissed. However, if the course is about some (other) content, the comment is just fine. It's meant as a description of a stylistic tendency that impeded the effectiveness of your argument – which is the point of the assignment.
The writing style favored by many professors is pompous, verbose, and uses a slew of technically-loaded language. Obscurantist. There's a lot of signaling in the use of certain phrases, and a re-coding of words to subject-specific meaning. Good lord, help the lowly undergraduate who uses the phrase 'deconstruct' in an offhand way...
Which is to say: Many, many, professors aren't trained in pedagogy. Especially in the pedagogies of composition and rhetoric. They're just avid readers of literature in their field – and you are not yet a member of that field. If you try and write 'acadamese' (or 'Engfish' or 'thesaurus-mouth') you're bound to come up short. Many professors are black-belts in that language, and you're an untrained grasshopper. A comment that critiques writing as 'dense and complex' says two things to me. First, that your argument is hard to follow. Second, that the professor is unable (or, less frequently, unwilling) to read 'through' the writing to get to the point.
So: advocate for yourself. Yes, don't be grade-grubby. But specify that you want constructive feedback. If you've got an (online) writing center, go to it and NOT the professor, especially if the professor isn't a writer, per se. Plenty of professors will tell you 'come to my office hours' –– and you should take advantage of that. But often they will help you focus on content and argument and not expression. Also I disagree with the advice above that you should say 'I don't care about the grade, I just want to get better.' It's far-fetched and unrealistic. Who has time/inclination to rewrite a paper for fun? Instead, say neutrally, 'I'm trying to learn where, specifically, I got dense and thickety in my writing. I want to avoid this tendency in the future. Can you step me through a little of your thinking?' Good luck!
posted by mr. remy at 6:44 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
Speaking as a professor of writing, I'll second/third/whatever all the comments above about the importance of audience, structure, and clarity. These are points I return to over and over with my students, reminding them that they can't write for me, and they can't write for themselves; they need to write in a way that will be clear to a reader who hasn't been in our class.
That said, it does sound like a frustrating experience, and a class that didn't offer much in the way of interaction. As you try to calm down, you might ask yourself to think about the circumstances of the instructor, especially given that they're a new teacher assigned to an online course. Are they an adjunct or other untenured faculty member teaching a very large course load? If so, they may be teaching multiple brand-new courses for a very small amount of money, and struggling to get by. Adjuncts often teach many courses a semester at multiple institutions, and they simply don't have time to offer much more support than they do, especially given that many students don't read it at all. They may still be willing to give you more feedback, but consider that their choice not to do so was not selfish or inept, but a result of an untenable situation. You might also wish to think about writing to the institution not to complain about this particular instructor, but to complain about their failure to invest in faculty who have the kind of institutional support necessary to do their jobs well. This isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely given that they are "new" and teaching an online course as a sabbatical cover.
posted by dizziest at 8:08 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
That said, it does sound like a frustrating experience, and a class that didn't offer much in the way of interaction. As you try to calm down, you might ask yourself to think about the circumstances of the instructor, especially given that they're a new teacher assigned to an online course. Are they an adjunct or other untenured faculty member teaching a very large course load? If so, they may be teaching multiple brand-new courses for a very small amount of money, and struggling to get by. Adjuncts often teach many courses a semester at multiple institutions, and they simply don't have time to offer much more support than they do, especially given that many students don't read it at all. They may still be willing to give you more feedback, but consider that their choice not to do so was not selfish or inept, but a result of an untenable situation. You might also wish to think about writing to the institution not to complain about this particular instructor, but to complain about their failure to invest in faculty who have the kind of institutional support necessary to do their jobs well. This isn't necessarily the case, but it seems likely given that they are "new" and teaching an online course as a sabbatical cover.
posted by dizziest at 8:08 AM on November 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
As someone who has graded many, many philosophy essays, I think it's likely you're misreading your feedback. Even if you recognize that "Your argument is too dense and complex" is not a compliment, you seem to think that it is a minor thing you're getting dinged for when it is likely a significant flaw in the entire paper.
I can't speak for your professor, but It is the sort of thing I would write if a student's arguments were too disorganized for me to make sense of them or if the arguments relied too much on the reader doing the work of filling in the blanks for the author. This is a general problem that affects the entire paper, and while I might be able to point to specific examples of the argument being disorganized or overly complex, fixing the problem would typically require substantially revising the paper. Typically, I'd recommend the student meet with me in office hours to talk about what they meant to convey and then work with them to outline the structure of an argument for a new paper. I realize that isn't an option, but I do it because more specific feedback about the argument isn't likely possible if the problem is that the reader can't follow the argument to begin with.
One thing you might find helpful instead of asking for more specific feedback is asking your professor if she can provide you with some examples of good papers that do a particularly good job of presenting a clear and concise argument. It's difficult to evaluate your own work if you've never seen anyone else's, and if you're anything like my students, comparing your own paper to one the instructor thinks is really good will be more informative than anything else she could say. I've had many science-oriented students express skepticism about grades in philosophy until they read other students' work and realized that even they could see a clear difference in the quality of the argument. Of course, this is only possible if other students have agreed to let the instructor use their work as an example.
All that said, I'd encourage you approach this with a little more openness to the possibility that your essay...isn't nearly as good as you think it is. Everyone is different, but the comments you mention aren't the sort of comments that I'd write on a B+ paper, and the fact that you don't have any other comments suggests that they're not incidental to the reader's evaluation. It's also surprising to me that you're surprised by the recommendation that you write for an educated reader who isn't already familiar with the topic. This is one of the first things you're likely to see in any "How to write a philosophy paper" lecture or reading. That you take this to mean that you need to dumb the essay down suggests a significant misalignment between the standards you think your professor might use to evaluate a paper and the standards she actually uses. (This is one of the other reasons I distribute example essays when I assign a paper.)
Lastly, the course you describe sounds very strange even for an online course. You get a list of readings, an address you can email from time to time with questions, and nothing else? No lectures or tutorials or anything? Just the readings, a grade on an essay, and some terse answers if you email with a question? If that's accurate and not an exaggeration, you're getting robbed whatever you are paying for the course.
posted by This time is different. at 12:21 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I can't speak for your professor, but It is the sort of thing I would write if a student's arguments were too disorganized for me to make sense of them or if the arguments relied too much on the reader doing the work of filling in the blanks for the author. This is a general problem that affects the entire paper, and while I might be able to point to specific examples of the argument being disorganized or overly complex, fixing the problem would typically require substantially revising the paper. Typically, I'd recommend the student meet with me in office hours to talk about what they meant to convey and then work with them to outline the structure of an argument for a new paper. I realize that isn't an option, but I do it because more specific feedback about the argument isn't likely possible if the problem is that the reader can't follow the argument to begin with.
One thing you might find helpful instead of asking for more specific feedback is asking your professor if she can provide you with some examples of good papers that do a particularly good job of presenting a clear and concise argument. It's difficult to evaluate your own work if you've never seen anyone else's, and if you're anything like my students, comparing your own paper to one the instructor thinks is really good will be more informative than anything else she could say. I've had many science-oriented students express skepticism about grades in philosophy until they read other students' work and realized that even they could see a clear difference in the quality of the argument. Of course, this is only possible if other students have agreed to let the instructor use their work as an example.
All that said, I'd encourage you approach this with a little more openness to the possibility that your essay...isn't nearly as good as you think it is. Everyone is different, but the comments you mention aren't the sort of comments that I'd write on a B+ paper, and the fact that you don't have any other comments suggests that they're not incidental to the reader's evaluation. It's also surprising to me that you're surprised by the recommendation that you write for an educated reader who isn't already familiar with the topic. This is one of the first things you're likely to see in any "How to write a philosophy paper" lecture or reading. That you take this to mean that you need to dumb the essay down suggests a significant misalignment between the standards you think your professor might use to evaluate a paper and the standards she actually uses. (This is one of the other reasons I distribute example essays when I assign a paper.)
Lastly, the course you describe sounds very strange even for an online course. You get a list of readings, an address you can email from time to time with questions, and nothing else? No lectures or tutorials or anything? Just the readings, a grade on an essay, and some terse answers if you email with a question? If that's accurate and not an exaggeration, you're getting robbed whatever you are paying for the course.
posted by This time is different. at 12:21 PM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
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It is a great skill to write about complex topics in a way that is accessible, even if that means you don’t get to cite everything you’ve read all term. If they had wanted great detail and depth they’d have given you more than 1500 words
posted by koahiatamadl at 10:46 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]