In our department, there are absolutely no essays, but there is the occasional formal lab report, but, luckily, I have never been required to grade them. I've had to grade quizzes, exams, and informal lab reports. Thank goodness. I would hate to see what some of these students would come up with.
In my experience, exam scripts are even worse than essays in terms of spelling, grammar, poor presentation and - because it's the only time we actually get to see it - truly
appalling handwriting. Shudder!!
Oh, not all students are bad, and some have quite good grounds for being poor at spelling and grammar (for example, a mature student - 40+ - in my department who was brought up in care and barely had any formal schooling before he was pretty much thrown into the army at 16, and never got any formal education beyond training courses after that. His writing skills were fairly poor, but he
worked at it and now he knows most of the rules and his vocabulary is at times better than mine). But it's the really bad ones, especially the ones who have been told
over and over that the possessive its has no apostrophe and that 'as well' is two words, and who cannot even transcribe accurately, who drive me insane year after year.
Wendy
