As the end of the semester approaches, we all see our final papers being turned in, waiting to be scrutinized and graded with our futures hanging somewhere in the balance. Perhaps it is a reasonable to assume that all of the papers we turn in are not going to receive the grade they deserve, probably in a negative way due to the short amount of time there is for professors to grade them all before semester grades are due.
In our syllabi for many classes, we see that at the end of each semester we have papers due which are of considerable length. Possibly aside from those students in classes where tests are more the norm, such as mathematics and science, many classes at Ball State culminate in an all-encompassing paper where we are essentially asked to compress four months of information into a single document. No matter the length of this essay, this is a daunting task. It brings great stress and pressure to the end of the year.
The obvious counter-argument here is that students procrastinate on papers anyway, and thus they get the grade they deserve. Senioritis certainly strikes a lot of students at this time of year, in addition to procrastination from sheer laziness. Many students will spend these last few days scrambling to get everything written and turned in. Students rush to finish papers they have known about all semester. Once those papers are turned in, though, they deserve the same scrutiny that any paper gets.
When we turn in a paper, it should get the same level of grading no matter what time of the year it is. When a paper is turned in during finals week, it should be scrutinized with the same criteria as any other.
Throughout the semester, many of us have had professors who don't return papers for several weeks. Although this may be frustrating to students who like to monitor the grades closely through the year, at least it indicates that the papers are being graded at a pace where they get the grade deserved. This is far more comforting than seeing that an assignment you turn in is going to be graded, along with the papers of all of your classmates, in just a single short weekend.
According to the Ball State Web site calendar, professors need to turn in their final grades by noon on May 7. Perhaps this date could be moved to a later point in time, or perhaps professors could be made to collect all final papers before finals week, giving them at least a week to grade the papers thoroughly and accurately.
Professors should give each final assignment the grade it deserves, instead of simply assigning a grade that reflects the type of work that student has been doing throughout the semester. Grading an essay that could be more than 10 or 12 pages in just a few days is one thing, but to do that for a class full of 20 or 30 students in the same amount of time simply does not make good sense.
Many professors here do take the appropriate measures in seeing that papers get the grades they deserve by having final papers turned in early. More professors should follow suit and see to it that all essays are read with the right amount of scrutiny and depth - procrastinators and all.
Write to Alex at apcarroll@bsu.edu
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