[I_teach_writing]

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What high of variance is there with writing? Meaning what do you think is the largest possible range of grades one could be assigned for the same paper, simply because it is graded by different teachers?

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There have been a number of studies done on this. For example, a group of instructors were all given the same papers and told to rank them. The results are usually laughable….meaning there is little consensus about which papers are the best.

That means the answer to your next questions is:

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Do teachers ever let their personal opinion of the student affect their grading?

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*Absolutely.* Instructors are human too. And it is possible an instructor will read your paper more “sympathetically” if you have come to all the classes and pretended to be interested, and if you have done all the work. But that doesn’t mean I assign grades based on how much I like students. I have given some terrible & obnoxious students As because they were great writers. And I have given some brown-nosers Cs because they thought good classroom behavior was going to make up for the lack of time they put into their papers.

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When is the passive voice OK?

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When is it ok to double-barrel if you have air and are OOP? The same idea in poker applies to English: it is situationally dependent. That being said: the passive voice in an English class is almost never good—it’s kind of like bluffing a calling station. The passive voice is more frequent in science writing. When in doubt, ask your professor—they’ll love it, trust me.

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Can you tell I've had a bad experience with a particular english teacher?

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We all have. I hated school when I was younger. My tenth grade French teacher told me I would never amount to anything.