# Professors, post your student gripes here **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 29, 2001, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383 "2001-10-29T22:50:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/41 "2001-10-30T23:17:14Z")
My clinical teacher gives his students rubrics for their essay assignments. These rubrics list what needs to be in their paper (i.e., thesis statement, quotes, elaboration, etc.). I grade two periods worth of persuasive essays on the Song of Roland. One person scored above a 95. Out of two periods. There was another in the other stack, the twin sister of the first A+. Folks, when it says elaboration YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN HOW THIS QUOTE PROVES YOUR POINT! Simply putting in a quote and saying “This shows Roland was a jerk” IS NOT ELABORATION. Damn tenth graders… On a completely unrelated note, this made me laugh quite hard: > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by robby \* > \*\* > Students who: > [list] > [li]think gravity acts sideways[/li]_\* ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/42 "2001-10-30T23:40:00Z")
I may have mentioned this before, but: Cellphones in class. Gaaahh! _Non si utilizzano i telefoni cellulari nella classe d’italiano_!! ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/43 "2001-10-31T01:47:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SpazCat \* > On a completely unrelated note, this made me laugh quite hard: > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by robby \* > > \*\*Students who: > > [li]think gravity acts sideways[/li] > > \*\* Anyone who’s ever taught physics knows exactly what I’m talking about. _Don’t mix up the x and y components, dammit!_ :rolleyes: (BTW, I’m actually far more civil, professional, and patient with my students than my tone in this forum would suggest.) Last year, in my first year teaching college-level physics, about a third of the class made this error on the final exam. This year, only 3 students (of 70) made the mistake. I credit the improvement to me singing the refrain of the _Offspring_ song “Keep 'em Separated” repeatedly in class. 🙂 Another student anecdote: A couple of years ago, I was teaching general chemistry. A _month_ into the class, a student came up to me **during a quiz** complaining that his calculator “couldn’t handle that ‘avocado’ number.” (He was of course referring to _Avogadro’s number:_ 6.022 x 10[sup]23[/sup].) I looked at the calculator in his hand, expecting to see a basic 4-function calculator. But no, he’s holding a [_TI-92 Plus_](http://education.ti.com/images/product/tech/92p/92Pbig.JPG)_!_ Let’s see: this student is holding more computing power in the palm of his hand than was available for the entire Manhattan Project, and he thinks it won’t do scientific notation?! Sitting there, it was practically humming with power, all for nothing. Of course, this also means that he hadn’t attempted any of the homework or class examples, or he would have run into the problem earlier. In any event, it being a quiz, I told him to do the best he could, and that it was his responsibility to be familiar with his calculator. Not surprisingly, he flunked out by Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/44 "2001-10-31T04:29:21Z")
> [@](#): > > [hijack] > **g8rguy** , you said CHM 2040-2041? Are those common chemistry numbers, or by any chance were/are you at UF? Care to tutor again? > [/hijack] I did indeed say CHM 2040-2041, and I actually am still at UF. Drop me an email and we’ll see what we can work out. ---
**Author:** ![Revedge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@Revedge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revedge)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/45 "2001-10-31T06:18:46Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by robby \* > \*\* > This at least is not as bad as: “g = 9.8 m/s[sup]2[/sup], which exactly matches the theoretical value.” Yes, and I would always have perfect results if I made up my data, too. Oh course, I would at least fudge my data consistently. You can’t even fudge your data correctly! :rolleyes:_\* Actually, When I was a student I would have this problem occasionaly. I always had troubles with my labs. Either my results were way off the scale, or I would get the correst result to the umteenth decimal place. It was so weird. When I got results that were perfect, I would fudge the results so that they were off just a hair (but within the “good” grade parameters) just so my instructor wouldn’t think that I was cheating. Go figure. :rolleyes: As for teaching morons, my idiot students that take my Intro to Theatre course can really try my patience. I have them write 2-3 papers a semester dealing with their OPINION of a film that we have watched in class. There are no “right” answers. When it comes to the arts, everyone has a different reaction to what they see or hear. I just want them to think about what they have seen and tell me what they feel about it and why. I may ask them to focus on a particular element, suchas the directing, acting, etc. Easy enough. When I was a student I could knock these kind of papers out in about two hours. But you wouldn’t believe some of the crap I get. “I thought the directing was bad because it sucked.” Yeah, I know it sucked. You already said that. WHY did it suck? “I thought Samuel Jacksons acting was bad because he shouldn’t have fooled around on his wife.” Moron, you are confusing the acting with the writing. The screenwriter has chosen that his character fools around. Did SJ portray the character in a believable manner? And of course my all time favorite, a copy of the Roger Ebert review of said movie. Moronic idiot! Did I not say in class that I read all of the reviews for the films I show in class? Did I not say if I catch you cheating you will fail my class? Is it not more difficult to find and copy someone elses work, rather than just give me your fucking opinion? (I don’t even count off for grammer and spelling mistakes unless I can’t tell what the fuck you are saying.) Also the two or three morons that turn in the exact same paper with out even cutting and pasteing to try to confuse me. Usually printed in the same font and on the ame printer that has the glich in the “G”. I caught seven different people cheating on my recent midterms. (I guess out of 400 I shouldn’t be that suprised. But, I am the easy instructor on our campus. If they have to cheat on my exams, I hate to think what they are going through for the other profs.) It still pisses me off bigtime! ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/46 "2001-10-31T06:27:50Z")
Background: I teach 5th grade during the day, and children’s/adolescent lit as evening classes and during summer session. Students are expected to read a half dozen picture books, poems, and one novel for each class session. They take a quiz over the assigned reading first thing during each of the weekly two-hour sessions. I emphasize the first session and in each subsequent session that the quiz comes before class discussion. It takes some students four or five sessions to realize that they have to do the reading if they expect to pass. A few random sources of exasperation from previous classes: One half of the final consists of questions over information not covered in class. Students are still surprised that they are actually exptected to do new reading for the final and think for themselves when taking it. Yes, _Jacob Have I Loved_ and _The Giver_ are actually children’s books. See that gold medal on the cover? That’s the Newberry Award for outstanding **children’s** book. Poetry is literature. Really, it is. And yes, I fully expect you to memorize a children’s poem and recite it in front of the class. “The Purple Cow” will do, and it can be memorized in 5 minutes. _Harriet the Spy_ is a book. You must read the book. Every single question on the quiz is one that cannot be answered by seeing the god awful movie. The first question on every novel quiz is “Who is the author of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_.” Students are still getting this one wrong on the final. Plaigarism: If I catch you plaigarising something, anything, you will recieve an F for the class. I have students continue to show up for class after being notified they are going to get an F, no matter what they do. Yes, spelling counts. Grammar counts. Punctuation counts. When I say I want answers to be complete sentences, it should come as no surprise that one word answers do not get full credit. This is a college course. The subject matter is children’s lit, not the instructional level. Half my students come into class expecting it to be a “cruise”. They soon learn the error of their ways. “I couldn’t do the reading this week because . . .” I have heard this roughly a billion times. I have exempted students twice in fourteen years. The grading scale is in the syllabus: A=94-100 B=88-93 C=80-87 D=70-79 I get one or two students each year who put off their lit elective to the last semester, or took children’s lit thinking it would be an easy way to pad their GPA, and are shocked to find that a junior level lit course has high standards. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/47 "2001-10-31T06:39:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by celestina \* > \*\*Oh dear. Let’s see. > > 1. If I go to the trouble to design, proofread for typos, and distribute a syllabus that contains the course objectives, my course policies, the required texts, and a schedule of what will be covered when, is it really so much to ask that you READ IT? If you still have questions after reading the syllabus, you may then ask me for clarification. > > 2. If I ask you to come to class prepared–that means having done the assigned readings and/or other homework and then being able to express some opinion on the topic for the day–is it really so much to ask that you comply? > > 3. If I can make it to class on time, then so can you. > > 4. If you don’t understand what the assignment is asking you to do, then ASK me to clarify it well in advance of the due date, not the day before the assignment is due, and certainly not after I have graded whatever it was that you turned in. I’m not psychic. I can’t read your mind and know that you don’t understand unless you speak up. > > 5. If you can click around on the internet and find all the MP3s, download movies, look at pornography, and, oh hell I don’t know, hack into some company or government database, why can’t you do some research and find some historical information on Ghengis Khan to support your paper instead of telling me that you don’t know anything about him? > > 6. If I ask you to turn in papers that have page numbers on them and that are stapled as well as all your drafts and most of your sources, why is it so difficult to comply, especially when I’ve told you that it makes my job of grading 35+ papers a little easier when I can tell what material belongs with whom. > > 7. When I ask you to do research–that means find sources from scholarly journals, read them, summarize them, think about them, analyze them, then judiciously narrow down specific information that you should directly quote, paraphrase, or summarize with proper documentation–don’t just read the abstracts of the articles in lieu of actually reading said articles and hope to pass that off as research you’ve cited in your paper. :rolleyes: > > 8. If I’ve just graded 35+ midterms where oh let’s say 25 students have written on the same essay, then class please don’t ask if the majority of you can write on the same topic you just answered on the midterm for your course paper. After about the 5th midterm, reading about X topic in Y text gets OLD. Why would you think I want to read about it again. Let’s move on, folks. There are plenty more texts we’re covering in the class, and they’ve got very interesting things going on to provide you with excellent paper topics. > > 9. Trust your instincts. If something in a text strikes you, for whatever reason, then inquire further. Don’t dismiss it because the teacher didn’t validate that perspective. You may be on to an original interpretation of the text, but you’ll never know if you don’t express you perspective. > > 10. Yes, I have office hours. They are listed on the syllabus. If you cannot make those hours and arrange to meet me at a different time that is more convenient for you, then please don’t stand me up. My time is valuable. > > 11. If I have graded your assignment and conferenced with you about how I came to give you the grade that you earned, then don’t ask me to make an exception anyway and raise your grade because of X reason. And please don’t have your parents call me at home asking me to raise your grade because they’ve sacrificed to pay your tuition, and when I refuse to do so have your parents go over my head to my supervisor and tell that person that y’all don’t think I’m fair and/or qualified to teach X class. And, really, I wonder where a few of you get the nerve to tell me to my face in my own goddamned office that I don’t know how to evaluate the goddamn piece of crap you turned in. You earned a D because you didn’t do very well what I asked you to do, and you’re lucky I didn’t decide to give you an F. > > [sigh] I’m sure I could think of more, but I’m getting tired. Gosh, I love teaching. \*\* Bless you, celestina, for all of them–especially #1 and #3. –beleaguered but obviously not alone, Viva ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/48 "2001-10-31T06:41:30Z")
And here is the worst of all the dumb-ass excuses I’ve ever heard in my life, left on my voice mail some years back: “I won’t be in class today because I’m getting my hair braided.” Couldn’t she at least have come up with something a bit less idiotic–like, I don’t know, say, a ruptured appendix? ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/49 "2001-10-31T06:46:22Z")
Just one more for the road: I told everybody during the first week that they would lose points for unexcused absences, excessive tardiness, and ducking out of class early. My policy is stated in the syllabus (not that they read the thing). Well, judging from the high number of violations, I’d say that they have either forgotten everything I said or don’t care about the fact that their lost points are pulling their grades down, down, down. Every semester I warn the new crop of students what will happen, and nothing ever changes. Why oh why do I bother? ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/50 "2001-10-31T07:37:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*I may have mentioned this before, but: Cellphones in class. Gaaahh! _Non si utilizzano i telefoni cellulari nella classe d’italiano_!! \*\* Hey, **matt** , what are your thoughts on **cellphones in class during an exam part of which is _essay question?_** ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/51 "2001-10-31T08:46:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robby \* > Let’s see: this student is holding more computing power in the palm of his hand than was available for the entire Manhattan Project, and he thinks it won’t do scientific notation?! Sitting there, it was practically humming with power, all for nothing. Gotta love that. My high school physics teacher inherited a bunch of slide rules (in mint condition!) from the previous teacher. His rule was that if you forgot your calculator on a test, you could use one of the slide rules. This is the guy who infected me with a love of physics. Pragmatism and a greater enjoyment moved me into computers, but physics is still my true love. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/52 "2001-10-31T14:38:30Z")
Posted by Robby: Another student anecdote: A couple of years ago, I was teaching general chemistry. A month into the class, a student came up to me during a quiz complaining that his calculator “couldn’t handle that ‘avocado’ number.” (He was of course referring to Avogadro’s number: 6.022 x 1023.) * * * That’s a good one and also disproves the old saying that there are no dumb questions. I’ve one similar: I was giving a Q&A session on reading and review day for a Calculus class (the day before finals start) and a guy raised his hand and asked: “I’ve been wondering all semester why you don’t just cancel that ‘2’ out of the equations earlier than you do and where did it come from anyway?” Huh??? What 2? He come up to the board and pointed at the partial derivative symbol… You just KNEW he didn’t learn a damn thing all semester… Blink ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/53 "2001-10-31T15:01:47Z")
Comment on a student evaluation form: **I didn’t attend any of Professor X’s lectures this semester, but I was told he did a good job, so I’m giving him a high rating.** ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/54 "2001-10-31T15:46:48Z")
What a wonderful, beautiful thread…I particular like the “gibbering ape-creatures” part. My own gripe: USE MORE PAPER! Why do students insist on cramming their 15-question calculus assignment onto one side of single sheet of paper? Are they making their own paper from moss and spit? Does the university bookstore keep flesh-eating trolls in the stationary section? Does the effort of working on the calculus assignment somehow cause them a burning pain in the urethra, forcing them to finish as soon as possible? Or do they think I’ll give them full marks for an answer that I can’t fucking read because I don’t keep a microscope in my office? Gah… ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/55 "2001-10-31T16:06:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by racinchikki \* > \*\ ***Fretful Porcupine** , every English class I’ve ever taken has drilled into my head that you NEVER USE FIRST PERSON in an essay. It can be hard for people to wrap their minds around the fact that same is not a rule that is punishable by death if you have to break it. \*\* Yeah, I know. I wish high school teachers wouldn’t do that. First of all, I’m hard pressed to think of _any_ sort of professional writing where the first person is completely unacceptable (lab reports, maybe?) Worse yet, this “rule” contributes to the biggest problem with freshman writing in general – for some reason, the students think it sounds more formal if there are no _people_ in their sentences: “It is thought that …” (_Who_ thinks so?) “The article argues that …” (No. The _author_ does.) “In order to succeed in business, a good attitude is necessary.” (This disembodied attitude is going to put on a suit and succeed in business all by itself?) I have officially declared war on all these constructions, as well as any sentence beginning “In today’s society,” “Since the dawn of time,” or “[Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) defines X as …” ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/56 "2001-10-31T17:00:50Z")
**Fretful** , I hope that you tell your students that you don’t want those kinds of sentences before the papers are due. If you do not tell them, how do you expect them to change? Another thing: Even lab reports sometimes have questions asking what one (me, the student) did and found. So of course they are asking for answers like: “I mixed x compound with y compound and obtained so-and-so mixture. I saw this-and-that.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/57 "2001-10-31T17:03:23Z")
I hope I can play with the big kids too. I was a TA in linguistics when I was at university years ago, and more recently, I taught technical writing skills at night at a local college. From time to time, I was also an adult literacy volunteer. Most of my students were great, and I enjoyed teaching them. But there were a few of the opposite kind who stood out: [ul] [li]The university student who couldn’t seem to understand that an “essay question” meant that she was supposed to write an essay as her answer. A single sentence that referred obliquely to the question would not be adequate, which was explained to her after the first test. And if it didn’t work on the first test, it certainly wouldn’t work on the second one, nor on the final exam, but that didn’t stop her trying. The reason she stands out though, is because she not only kept trying this approach, but she appealed it all the way up to the dean! (And of course, the appeal was denied all the way.)[/li] [li]Another university student who complained that the marks I was giving him would prevent him getting into medical school. My professor, and indeed even the departmental chair, got into the fray on this one, but the kid called in his father–who happened to be a big wheel in the medical school. End result: the kid got into medical school. I remember the kid’s name; I ever have to be a patient of his, I’ll ask for a referral to another physician. After all, if Daddy had to pull strings to help him pass undergraduate courses and get him into medical school, what guarantee do I have that Daddy didn’t pull more strings to guarantee that he graduated as a fully-qualified physician if he didn’t deserve to?[/li] [li]The literacy student who always showed up in a trench coat, hat, and sunglasses, even at night. It’s okay if you don’t want your friends to see you coming to learn to read and write, but try to do it without disguising yourself as a character in an old spy movie. You couldn’t stand out more if you tried! And if you expect to learn anything, you’re going to have to pay attention instead of nervously glancing at the door every few minutes, and whispering furtively into a cellphone about where to meet your ride: “I’m at the mall.” [Actually, we weren’t, but there was one nearby and this student couldn’t be seen near the building where adult literacy is taught.] “Can you pick me up at the Sears door at about nine?” Do your homework too; I’m sure that sometime during the week, you can find both a safe place and the time to read the half-page, double-spaced, very simple handout that we will discuss in the next class.[/li] [li]The technical writing student who claimed she had to use a cellphone during the final exam to check on her children. Seemed to be a reasonable request at first; this was a night class and most of my students were working adults. Some had to make childcare arrangements, and occasionally, they were last-minute owing to one parent not being able to cover for the other or the babysitter cancelling. But when I caught her saying such things into the phone as “Okay, how would I create a step-by-step procedure out of this paragraph?” I knew that her children were the least of her concerns that night.[/li] [li]And all my technical writing students who chose not to give me any credit for intelligence. Folks, there was a reason the first thing we did was a little in-class essay on such scintillating topics as “What I Did On My Vacation,” or “My Favourite Hobbies.” There is also a reason why you did not get them back: because when you hand in something that reads like, “When working with wood, the adage ‘Cut twice, measure once’ holds as true today as it did in Grandfather’s time,” I can check back and see that your first piece of work was something along the lines of, “I realy like woodworking alot its’ something both fun and usefull.” Questions will be asked, and you’d better have a good reason for such an improvement. Plagiarism, incidentally, is not a good reason.[/li][/ul] > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine_ > I’m hard pressed to think of any sort of professional writing where the first person is completely unacceptable (lab reports, maybe?) Actually, the first person singular should never be used in technical writing, although the first person plural, while extremely rare twenty years ago, has been gaining acceptance. Second person has been fine for a while, but I can remember when it wasn’t welcome either. And a good thing too, IMHO–technical documents and manuals can be horribly dreary and uninviting, but being able to write things like, “We recommend that you have the following tools handy during this procedure,” makes them a little more readable than “It is recommended that the following tools be readily available during this procedure.” (FTR, in case anybody is wondering why we did not demand that certain tools be used in the above examples, the reason is that the examples came from a repair manual for field repair personnel who did not necessarily work for the manufacturer. We didn’t know exactly which tools each person had, and we knew that they were often good at making one tool fit another’s job. But we wanted them to know what we felt were the correct tools for the procedure. Hence, we _recommended_ instead of _demanded_.) ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/58 "2001-10-31T17:28:17Z")
I’m almost going to be late to class because I’ve been reading this thread. Does that count for anything? ---
**Author:** ![LindyHopper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@LindyHopper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LindyHopper)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/59 "2001-10-31T17:36:22Z")
**Spoons** : “Cut twice, measure once”? If _I’d_ gotten that from a student, I’d not only question their academic honesty, but their woodworking skill as well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383/60 "2001-10-31T18:00:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Math Geek \* > \*\*What a wonderful, beautiful thread…I particular like the “gibbering ape-creatures” part. > > My own gripe: USE MORE PAPER! Why do students insist on cramming their 15-question calculus assignment onto one side of single sheet of paper? Are they making their own paper from moss and spit? Does the university bookstore keep flesh-eating trolls in the stationary section? Does the effort of working on the calculus assignment somehow cause them a burning pain in the urethra, forcing them to finish as soon as possible? Or do they think I’ll give them full marks for an answer that I can’t fucking read because I don’t keep a microscope in my office? > > Gah… \*\* I second this one. However, I’d like to say that there is definitely a happy medium, and I don’t want to see a 7-page writeup of why most of the cases of theorem x don’t apply. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professors-post-your-student-gripes-here/90383.md?page=4)