First post ever.
In GQ.
Asking some insipid question about trains leaving San Francisco and New York at the same time.
Giving some stupid caveat about not needing too indepth of an answer.
Don’t be surprised if I respond to your linear question with an exponential answer.
Don’t be surprised if I give some blank response like, “Is this in Euclidean Space?”
Sure I can use simple algebra to tell you what time the two trains meet, however I’m gonna open up a big can of caluclus and start doing some massive integrating! HA!
I just want to see your effin’ face when you present this and the teacher asks you how you found your answer!
Just pull some random number out of your ass, back it up by a few “mathematical statistics”, and say it quite sincerely. They return to school all smug because they now know that it would take 75.2 hours, assuming, of course, that the trains remain at the 17 mph pace. It’s usually more fun though when you can see the look on their face when the teacher laughs at them for being a complete idiot.
I have, on occasion, posted links to searchengines for students looking for help with their homework. They then had to do the research themselves, but it gave them a jumping off point.
Actually doing the homework for them would not really help them at all, especially when it came to test time and they didn’t know how to figure out answers because someone else had done the problems for them.
ONce realizing it’s a kid wanting me to do a book report for him/her, I would’ve said yes, I’d read it and started making shit up.
“Ok, here’s the deal, kid. In “Winter of Our Discontent” Steinbeck uses the main character, Stan, to symbolize man’s struggle against his own id. It takes place during December in rural Wisconsin. Stan is a dairy farmer married to Zelda, who cannot shake a cold bug she’s got and therefore they haven’t had ‘relations’ in guite some time. For this reason, Stan is discontented… etc, etc”
Hey, maybe he just really, really wanted to talk about Winter of our Discontent? Even though you hadn’t read it, it seems logical, you being in an on-line Steinbeck fan club, that you might know that Steinbeckdude@sumthin.com was talking about it last week, or whatever.
A while back, I was checking out a couple of sites (and believe me, a couple of sites is all there is) devoted to one of my favorite authors, Truman Capote.
I find one site that has a message board.
“Cool!,” I think.
I click the link.
What do I see? Literally hundreds of little shits asking for book report help. No discussion whatsoever. Bastards…
A few months ago someone posted (I believe at these boards) that this guy they knew was asking everyone if they had any poetry they had written themselves, and asking if he could turn it in as his for an assignment. Someone on the board recomended giving him ‘The Road Less Travelled’ to turn in. I wonder if that ever happened…
I love it when people email our “Ask the Expert” page with homework questions when we explicitly say up front in large, colorful fonts that we don’t won’t answer them. People really have some gall.
Here are some hints, kiddies! We don’t answer questions with word limits, multiple choice answers, or multiple parts helpfully numbered or labeled a, b, c,. . . Calling it a “trivia question” or saying, “Ever since I was a small child, I’ve wondered about the blackbody flux of various planets!” isn’t going to fool anybody. Neither do I belive that “My freinds and me were having a debate about Keplers’s 2nd law of planitery motion.” Also, I find it very unlikely that “imakewldood2000@blah.com” is a “retired engineer, 83 years old.”
At least try to put it into your own words. If you end your question with “Explain.” that’s something of a dead giveaway. So is beginning the question with “Compare and contrast the following . . .”
All the helpful folks who answer email questions have clocked many. many hours writing and correcting homework, so we can smell a homework question from a mile away. Really, if you think we’re too dumb to suss out that you’re trying to cheat on your homework, what makes you think that we’re smart enough to give you a good answer?
p.s. There is a FAQ. For fuck’s sake, copy your homework answers from that.
“Your honor, I’m going to have to file for an extension on the kidnapping/murder case coming up tomorrow.”
“On what grounds?”
“Well, you see, I posted to the online homework helper over three days ago asking them to explain premeditation and to provide a brief of Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb and not one person’s responded yet!”
They do this all the time-- When assigning students to write reports on framistans, the teacher will write on the blackboard the address of the Museum of Fine Framistans, or the Framistan Society, or whatever. The kiddies are told to write to the organization for information for their reports. The organization will then receive 32 letters saying “I am writing a report for school about framistans. Please send me information about framistans, and pictures.” Some stop there, others go on to list the 6 or 8 things they’ve been told to include in the report. (That’s 32 letters if only one teacher does this. Sometimes, it’s evey 4th grade teacher in the school…)
This is one of those dual purpose things. In addition to studying framistans, they’re supposedly practicing their letter-writing skills.
Unfortunately, it serves to plant in the children’s minds the idea that when you need information on a topic, you should write a letter (or make a phone call, or send an e-mail) and someone will hand spoonfeed you exactly what you need. No effort required; just write a letter.
I’ll be damned if I don’t know how you feel. I work in a computer lab on campus. Guess what happens? All the computer illiterate come in here and expect me to “help” them with their homework where as in all reality they are basically saying do it for me! Fuck that I didn’t take this job on to make you pass your class. I’m here to help people who want to learn how to use a program or who have troubles with the computer they work on. I am not here to do the fucking shit for you people.
Bastards…