Slogging Through Papers

Correcting papers is such a drag when you're on vacation. My break is evaporating before my eyes, and I have so much still to correct. Arrrrrrgh!!!

On a possibly humorous note, I just corrected a student's "research" essay in which he had no citations in the text, and claimed that bird flu causes the head to swell until the "mind is pressured into submission." The two websites he listed on his bibliography page had absolutely nothing to do with the topic, though to his credit they were not broken links. I was a little afraid I might find something obscene when I looked them up. Thankfully, they were nothing like that. One of them was an ad for a home in Great Britain somewhere. I suppose he found this little trick amusing.

Possible thought process of his as he did this assignment:
1. "Heh, heh, stupid Mr. ______. He will never know that I didn't use any sources in my research, but made up things off the top of my head in my writing, and used false sources."
2. "I don' think Mr. ______ really grades these papers, but just assigns numbers based on student's average grades. So I'll say that the bird flu causes the mind to be pressured, and see if he catches that. And if he looks at my sources, he'll get a good laugh."

Whatever his thoughts, I hope he finds the score of zero attached to this essay as entertaining as the fun he must have had writing it. Sadly, knowing him, he might...