Word: shrier
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...shame to see Tobin's very personal, honest editorial marred by a few cliched partisan attacks. ZACHARY L. SHRIER...
...much should graders be required to have their comments make sense? "I believe in free speech," Knight says. "Teachers are allowed to write whatever they want, but professionally there is a line." Shrier has experienced that line. On his first paper written at Harvard, he wrote an overzealous introduction, declaiming about 'mankind.' He didn't get any comment about his bad introduction, or anything else, he remembers. Instead, the T.F. just circled the word 'mankind' and wrote a "weird cryptic comment that said, 'Use humanity. Though it seems like P.C. mumbo jumbo, they tell me I have to say that...
...Zachary L. Shrier's '99 15-page papers, the professor wrote "Nice paper--but so what?" Shrier comments, "So what? I don't know! You're the professor; you tell me so what!" Davis has also experienced the "So What" Phenomenon. His Expos preceptor would write the inexplicable words "the so what factor" next to various random lines in the paper. "It's easy to interpret that as 'I don't care about your paper' rather than as 'Why is this important to your paper?'" Davis notes. "On one of my papers, she wrote, 'Good title' next to my title...
Sometimes not responding to comments turns out worse than responding would have. Shrier recounts what happens if one does not talk to a prof about comments: "A friend of mine got comments on a paper and couldn't read a single one. Then the professor passed away. The moral of the story is that if you don't get it, ask! Now he'll never know what the professor thought of his paper...
...situations are so drastic, though. Shrier, Knight and Davis, despite the various strange things they've had written on their papers, agree that comments on papers are useful and are often a good way to get to know professors. "The teacher's personality shines through in the comments," Shrier says. "For example, [Dorot] Professor [of the Archeology of Israel] Lawrence Stager writes large, rambling, loving mini-essays at the end of each student essay because he's a large, rambling, loving kind...