The Top Ten Papers ...

[Quote of the day: "She's our TA, you can't hit her in the head." Better than the alternative, I suppose.]

The Pilgrim graded in the vicinity of 70 papers over the course of the past week. In the aftermath of this formative experience, I give you:

The Top Ten Students Whose Papers I would rather not Grade Again:

10. The Cunning Linguist: This specimen may or may not be an ESL student; more than half the time, she's really a native speaker with too little time on her hands to proof-read, run spell-check, ferret out sentence fragments and other assorted details that nevertheless exert an unfortunate impact upon the reader's ability to comprehend her argument. A particularly noisome sub-species of this group is ...

9. The Ontologist: He is anything but identity-challenged -- he knows who he is: An artist, a theologian, a historian, an "ideas guy" ... in short, someone sufficiently important to never have to bother with the menial tools of the trade (e.g. the dictionary, the fact check, etc.) Rather than appreciating the friendly assistance you, the menial grader, provide by improving upon his diction, representation of reality, etc., the Ontologist will take offense: After all, you're taking notice of the "accidents" rather than the "essence" of his genius.

8. The Exhibitionist: He knows big words and he won't let you forget it; his writing style is to composition what the rococo was to art history. Once you've sorted your way through pages dripping with overwrought prose, you may well find some hidden treasures of insight and comprehension. What this student hasn't yet learned, however, is that linguistic prowess is rather like prowess in other regards: At the right time and place, your endowment will be a credit to you and a joy to others; if you, however, insist on whipping it out at random, you will likely succeed only in terrifying and annoying people.

7. The Magpie: His paper is moving along at a leisurely clip and you figure that barring any major disasters, he's headed straight for a very respectable B/B+. Suddenly, though, you are startled from your readerly complacency by a gem of an expression, a jewel of a sentence, a sparklingly brilliant insight. You rub your eyes and marvel -- could you have overlooked a brilliant mind stuck in the stupor of the assignment? After a couple of such encounters, however, you become suspicious and employ the services of Google -- and voila! You are indeed dealing with a magpie. Like his avian namesake, the magpie-student peruses the trinkets and baubles of those who have gone before him, preferably those posted online, and garnishes his own nest with them. Retrieving his treasures and confronting him with his misdeeds can be an onerous and unpleasant task -- prepare yourself for weeks of the magpie's angry protestations over having his falsely-feathered work stripped.

6. The Lost Boy/Girl: Frequently bright and occasionally brilliant, this student is the Peter Pan of academia. His As are as serendipitous as his Fs, but the one thing that graders can invariably count on is his tardiness: His papers are invariably late, his assignments a week or more behind the rest of the class. While his excuses may at times seem implausible, he's always sincere and usually cheerful; it's hard to stay annoyed at him, even when the drummer to which he's walking is so out of step with his colleagues that he keeps you grading at odd hours.

5. The Circumlocutor: Her paper is well-written, thoughtful and impeccably resourced -- it may even have a thesis statement! There's only a minor problem: The paper consistently and at times inventively fails to address the question asked/topic posed. Unlike some of the other offenders, this paper isn't so much a pain to read as it's impossible to grade: You, the grader, marvel at the ways the author at times implies that she's already addressed the topic/answered the question when, in fact, even the closest reading of her preceding work shows nothing to that effect.

4. Buzzword Bingo: He forges into his argument with great confidence and an impressive vocabulary. Unlike the Exhibitionist, however, his style may require little or no pruning -- instead, the problem has to do with his authoritative use of remarkably ambiguous and/or technical terms without condescending to explain his understanding of the concepts to the reader. You may thus find that he uses terms like "post-structuralism," "freedom" and "salvation" liberally throughout his discussion but continue to wonder whether he himself, or anyone consulting his work, could possibly infer their intended meaning. Ironically, however, this specimen will invariably demand that you, the grader, explain your terms -- especially if they involve words like "B" and "Minus."
3. The Contender: He's going to do Ph.D. work -- he knows so because his college mentor/student advisor/mom told him so. In fact, frequently this will turn out to be precisely the direction into which the Contender is headed, but in the meantime, he's as protective of his 4.00 GPA as a lioness of her cubs. Should you, the grader, threaten to come between him and his perfect score, whether in the form of an A- on a paper, a B+ on an exam or encouragement for improvement, you will feel his wrath, generations of students will know you from here on forth as "the (expletive optional) hard grader," and the unfortunate faculty member stuck with you will have to do hand-to-hand combat to defend your grade.

2. The Flame-Thrower: This student has an axe to grind the size of Minnesota. She knows that the downfall of the Church/civilization/Microsoft can blamed on St. Augustine/Ayn Rand/the kid from the 7/11, and you -- who, by association, dared to assign a paper on this subject, will feel her wrath. Her paper drips with sarcasm; she scathes with the best of 'em -- her condescension knows no bounds. Unfortunately the strength of her opinions frequently isn't matched by the perspicacity of her insight or the lucidity or her argument -- with encouragement, she may be redirected to a career in newspaper punditry or family law.

1. The Eager Beaver: Unlike other students, the Eager Beaver cares about his paper -- and while this may be true overall, it's particularly pertinent once the paper leaves his hands and enters yours. From that moment on, your interaction with this student will resemble that of parent and kwetschy 7-year-old on a road-grip: "Are we theeere yet?!" becomes "Are the papers ready yet?!" In an impressive display of faith in your grading abilities and skills at stretching the space-time fabric, this student expects you to have his work done the day after assignments have been turned in or at least -- at the latest! -- at the next classmeeting. Never mind the fact that the papers in question average 15 pages and the class is 80 students strong -- the Eager Beaver will appear at your office door with hopeful smiles and anxious looks within hours of your receiving his paper. Interestingly, he's one who's taken the "last being first" teachings particularly seriously: He'll be all the more expectant if he, himself, has turned in his work late!