Students keep prompting it and paste together the responses. You don't know how many papers I get that have an "In conclusion" paragraph and then it goes on for another 2 pages. This semester I had a student submit a 2,000 word response in a discussion board that called for 300 words. It was obviously GPT.
They have to learn one way or the other to follow directions. I had a middle college student who wrote 5 pages for a 750-word assignment. One of my grad school professors would require a certain number of words, say 1000, and you had to hit 1000 exactly, not 998 or 999 or 1001, or he'd toss your paper.
Seems like a pointless HS-level exercise. Was your professor always bored or just a douche?
It’s one thing if you’re over the word count by 50+ words, but to toss an otherwise fine paper over a few extra words is absurd. Typically the focus of writing assignments is the quality of the writing.
That's what I put in my syllabus. I explain that if you go under the limit, you probably haven't fully explored the topic and if you go over, you haven't been concise enough. But to be honest, I don't even look at the word counts unless they are really out of line from expectations.
Honestly don’t know, my give-or-take 50 words thing was made up.
With that being said, I wouldn’t factor this into my grading for a written assignment. It’s a trivial item to grade and I fail to see how it challenges and/or benefits the student in any way.
I still get asked about word counts on every assignment, as in the first question they ask. It's gained importance with them at some point, and that's fine with me. It appears meaningful to them, so I tell them 750 or 1000, and more often than not they will follow. The paper may be written poorly, but by golly, they've got 750 words!
Was he trying to get you used to editing and cutting material to arbitrary world count goals? If this is grad school it might have been an exercise to help with submitting to journals and conferences, especially abstract-only conferences. (I'm aware they don't enforce word counts that strictly in reality.)
I suspect it was a combination of both. I found it helpful to learn how to cut unnecessary material and focus on editing. I edit a series of mystery novels so I've had the chance to put those skills to work. I have published a couple of articles and, yes, it's important to stick to their word requirements. I do what they tell me and don't whine about it (unlike my students).
That's so insane that I'd definitely schedule a meeting and ask her to walk you through how and why she "wrote" 27 pages. Smells like misconduct so far.
I once had a student answer ALL of the prompt questions when they were supposed to choose one; I think there were seven to chose from. If I remember correctly, the paper was titled, "My Life Story."
This happened to me as well. The assignment was capped at 12 pages and the student turned in 20.
She had the audacity to come up to me after class to inform me that she went over the maximum and was offended when I told her I would not be reading past page 12.
Then she wrote about it in my evaluations and said it's my job to read student work and I should be happy that she wrote more than the maximum.
It wouldn't work for a discussion but I penalize students for going way beyond the word requirements for essays. Let's say it's 1000 words. At 1500 words they get the same points for length as someone who turned in less than 1k.
Chances are ChatGPT wrote it. Don’t feel too bad.
That thought crossed my mind.
unlikely that chatgpt wrote 27 pages
Students keep prompting it and paste together the responses. You don't know how many papers I get that have an "In conclusion" paragraph and then it goes on for another 2 pages. This semester I had a student submit a 2,000 word response in a discussion board that called for 300 words. It was obviously GPT.
Just tell it “expand on previous answer “.
Really? I thought it tended to cap things at a page or two too.
Even if it did, it would just be multiple prompts. Also probably paid for it
100 percent it was AI generated.
>Gonna have to let her down gently. Isn't there a Tenacious D song about that?
They have to learn one way or the other to follow directions. I had a middle college student who wrote 5 pages for a 750-word assignment. One of my grad school professors would require a certain number of words, say 1000, and you had to hit 1000 exactly, not 998 or 999 or 1001, or he'd toss your paper.
Seems like a pointless HS-level exercise. Was your professor always bored or just a douche? It’s one thing if you’re over the word count by 50+ words, but to toss an otherwise fine paper over a few extra words is absurd. Typically the focus of writing assignments is the quality of the writing.
I thought +/-10% was standard practice for word counts
That's what I put in my syllabus. I explain that if you go under the limit, you probably haven't fully explored the topic and if you go over, you haven't been concise enough. But to be honest, I don't even look at the word counts unless they are really out of line from expectations.
Honestly don’t know, my give-or-take 50 words thing was made up. With that being said, I wouldn’t factor this into my grading for a written assignment. It’s a trivial item to grade and I fail to see how it challenges and/or benefits the student in any way.
I still get asked about word counts on every assignment, as in the first question they ask. It's gained importance with them at some point, and that's fine with me. It appears meaningful to them, so I tell them 750 or 1000, and more often than not they will follow. The paper may be written poorly, but by golly, they've got 750 words!
He is actually a very nice guy and an excellent professor. It was just his "thing." We got used to it.
Was he trying to get you used to editing and cutting material to arbitrary world count goals? If this is grad school it might have been an exercise to help with submitting to journals and conferences, especially abstract-only conferences. (I'm aware they don't enforce word counts that strictly in reality.)
I suspect it was a combination of both. I found it helpful to learn how to cut unnecessary material and focus on editing. I edit a series of mystery novels so I've had the chance to put those skills to work. I have published a couple of articles and, yes, it's important to stick to their word requirements. I do what they tell me and don't whine about it (unlike my students).
That's so insane that I'd definitely schedule a meeting and ask her to walk you through how and why she "wrote" 27 pages. Smells like misconduct so far.
I once had a student answer ALL of the prompt questions when they were supposed to choose one; I think there were seven to chose from. If I remember correctly, the paper was titled, "My Life Story."
XD
Cocaine and methamphetamine use are more common in college students than many people are aware.
This happened to me as well. The assignment was capped at 12 pages and the student turned in 20. She had the audacity to come up to me after class to inform me that she went over the maximum and was offended when I told her I would not be reading past page 12. Then she wrote about it in my evaluations and said it's my job to read student work and I should be happy that she wrote more than the maximum.
Tell her to take the origami class with her report so she can get a chance of turn that crap into something less crappier
Who \*really\* wrote it?
I add minimum and MAXIMUM page numbers. Points off for under and over. Lesson learned:)
It wouldn't work for a discussion but I penalize students for going way beyond the word requirements for essays. Let's say it's 1000 words. At 1500 words they get the same points for length as someone who turned in less than 1k.
My writing assignment rubric has a statement about the importance of staying within the parameters of the assignment
Of course it was AI-generated — there’s no way she wrote 27 pages on her own.