My Microbiology teach can rot in the snow

[Wildfilly94]

And thats putting it lightly.
Let me just copy and paste my status from facebook in here:

Someone please tell me how I'm supposed to write an essay about something I know nothing about, with proper in-text citations for EVERYTHING I didn't know myself, while keeping at least 3/4 of the essay in my own knowledge and 1/4 or less cited. Seriously? Oh yeah, and keeping it 3 pages, since apparently 10 pages gets me docked points for being too long. Oh yeah, and it has to be thorough, and cover like, 10 different points within that 3 page margin. -.- I would pay someone to do this for me. Seriously I already did it once and got accused of plagiarism and basically being a horrible writer, no where near college level.

Yeah. I wrote a paper, 10 pages, and worked my A** off on it for hours, I even had to split the work in 3 days because I worked so freaking hard. I studied my sources carefully and wrote everything as well as I could. I was proud of my essay, and my mom even read it and thought it was great. I'm so upset I can't even look at the essay without crying. And I lost the flash drive that had all the info on it. So now I have to start from scratch again and its due monday. I got off work today but tomorrow I work all day.
I seriously want to just pay someone to do it for me.

I hate this. She humiliated me so bad I don't want to write anything ever again.

[sera]

Oh, my gosh, Wild. :/  i'm so sorry!!! That bites so hard!!! T__T <333333333  How the snot are your other classmates doing it?!  D8  *snugs*  Best of luck. T__T; <3

[Wildfilly94]

That's exactly what I wonder. I don't know everyone's grades on the paper but I know everyone had to of passed it atleast. I had a 78% before this essay. Now I have a 63%.
I'd argue my grade with the head of boards but I know they would ask me why everyone else did fine and I didn't. Im screwed. I think in order to graduate the program I'm in, I'll have to have a c in that class, not a d. And the teacher I have is the only one that offers the class.

[skysnolimit]

*hugs* I'm sorry.  I remember one time my freshman year, one of my teachers gave me a D- on a paper I was proud of.  Then, because she thought it was over the word count (which it wasn't; she'd accidentally counted the footnotes v_v) she docked it down to an F+.  I didn't have positive feelings for her.

One time, my thesis adviser called me on the phone (while I was working on my thesis) to say: "You're just not a very good writer, are you?"

I think I cried that night--and I certainly stopped working on my thesis at that moment and went home.  Then, despite meeting with a writing advisor who helped me with my thesis every week and then organizing and writing something that we both liked, my thesis advisor still made me completely rewrite it in the last week of the term and then gave me my final grade with the disclaimer that he was a softie.  I got so sick (literally) from working so hard on that paper and in the end left feeling that it was useless anyway.  Furthermore, he never could express exactly what was wrong with it.

Writing confidence comes back... now that I'm teaching, it is easy for me to see exactly how much students' styles differ from each other.  To tell the truth, they are all beautiful and all correct.  I have also met wonderful coteachers now who encourage students to use their own style and write theses according to what they want, regardless whether the advisor completely agrees with it or not.  Get through this class as best as you can and move on to greener grounds.  Humbly ask some other student in the class to help walk you through a process that will produce what the teacher wants.  Perhaps approach a TA or the teacher and state how much you want to improve, but how you don't know where to start and ask them to help you outline a path for continuing.  This should be done by email if you can't contact them otherwise.  I encourage you not to cheat, but rather to write a logical and well-supported request for an extension if necessary.  And last, but most importantly, *HUG FOR YOU*

[Wildfilly94]

I would be totally open to writing lab people help or other students... or anything at this point... But classes are over. There is no assistance available for me and no one to talk to.

[BabyKittenCandy]

I feel your pain.. the only thing i can suggest is to ensure you cite every reference you use and always try and put things into your own wording. Not always easy i know!! I was lucky with one of my teachers but the other always marked me down cos my way was to read what others had written and then make my own assumptions etc based on what i had written, never actually including other peoples work directly.

[Wildfilly94]

I do put things in my own words, but she said because I didn't know the info to begin with it has to be cited. Like knowing the disease was discovered by Alexander yersin? Plagiarism. Knowing the disease was gran negative? Plagiarism. No matter how I word it. Therefore, my whole entire essay should be cited. I learned all the things I know from my notes in class.
It's just impossible.

[SkySong]

That's.... Ridiculous. Does she want you to paraphrase everything, then?

And going by that logic..... You didn't know anything at one point - does that mean you have to site where you learned the alphabet, too? The way my English teacher has it - if you knew the info BEFORE you started your paper, then you don't have to cite it. So if it's something you learned previously in class, you shouldn't have to cite.

[Bunraku]

Your teacher obviously doesn't comprehend the real meaning of the word "plagiarism" if she's using it in such a broad sense, its rather laughable really what she's choosing to refer to as plagiarism. Not knowing something to begin with and then learning it through another source is not 'plagiarism', if it was, then everything anyone ever learned would be plagiarism (including the sources you are reading, because I doubt THEY knew the knowledge they have before they wrote books about it or studied it using another source) She has literally created an impossible loop through which there is not means to claim anything as your own because she is choosing to define the use of garnered knowledge as plagiarism, which it is NOT. Copying word for word would be, but that is not what you are doing.

Incredible. Simply incredible. You have my sympathy, Wild, and I honestly wish I knew how to help, but she's pretty much crushing you with her own stubborn ignorance.

[skysnolimit]

Okay, so... ten different points to cover, right?  Are any of them opinion-based?  If not, even so, you could do this as follows:

some short info about a point (cited)
your own observations about how that microbiological response is helpful in humans.

Do that ten times, haha.  Then... the topic sentence of your paper just sums it up, like,

"Microbiological such-and-such is very important to humans because it prevents catching more colds in the winter, speeds healing of injuries, and something else."
Paragraph 1: "Microbiological such-and-such cells do this and that. (cite)  This is necessary in assisting humans with inflammation; without that, we would have no way to destroy foreign objects.  For instance, if you get cut with a dirty knife and the bacteria come in and start eating you alive, without blah-blah-blah causing inflammation then blah-blah-blah would happen and that would be awful.  Thus, inflammation is necessary for healing injuries."
Paragraph 2: same sort of thing
blah-blah
Conclusion


Dunno what your actual topic is; but I hope you can see what I'm saying here!

[springacres]

This definitely needs to go to the head of boards if she's using THAT bleeping broad a definition of plagiarism.  Sounds like she's being a piss poor excuse for a teacher.

[Wildfilly94]

Thank you guys, I was begining to wonder if I was just plain stupid.. :/
I re-wrote the essay today and included a note for her on a seperate page, hopefully this will help and I can get atleast some points for the essay I did twice and spend hours on both times.

"NOTE:
I could not have the writing lab review my paper this time because they closed down for the end of the semester before I finished. I did, however, look up the proper OWL ways of quoting, and found that paraphrased sentences need to be cited, but not quoted. I quoted these sentences anyway, in the event that you wanted it cited a different way, as I remember you saying something about that.
I do hope you read my entire essay and find it much better than the first one. I made sure to go through every detail and hope that it meets your expectations. I also made an effort to shorten my paper dramatically by focusing on the main points of the essay rather than every little detail I could think of.
I respect your criticism on my first essay, whether I agreed with you or not, it helped me improve for when I have papers like this in future classes. I appreciate very much you allotting me time to redo my essay for you in attempt to redeem missed points, and for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my paper."

Id show you all my paper, but its 4 pages in word so probably not.. XD

[Silvanon]

Here's crossing my fingers for you!

[springacres]

Crossing my fingers for you as well!  Your teacher's plagiarism standards sound even harsher than my dad's, and he can be a stickler for proper citation to put it mildly.  (He's taught History of Science at the UW-Madison for the past 20+ years and is one of the leading scholars in his field, if I do say so myself)

[Wildfilly94]

Thanks guys, I really hope I get some grade better than an F on it.

But to kick me while Im down, I got fired yesterday. Right before christmas, right before insurance bills are due, right after I spent alot of my savings for christmas gifts to people and my new laptop, and right after I get my car that needs gas and a few fixes. Hah. Life really hates me and wants to add insult to injury.

On the plus side? (how very small): I feel like I did well on two of my three finals today, and have one more wednesday before the semester ends and I can relax. And with being jobless comes more time for coloring and getting stuff done that I owe.

[springacres]

*Snugglecuddlehughughug*

[Silvanon]

*more snugglecuddlehughughug*

[Wildfilly94]

Aww so much snugglecuddlehughugs!! *snugglehugs*