When the essay grader saved my grade....

[Todd]

I had a brutal week. Two midterms, a group project, and a 7-page lit analysis due on Friday. By Thursday night, I was running on caffeine and fumes. I finished my paper on Gothic imagery in Wuthering Heights at 3 AM. In my sleep-deprived state, I was actually kinda proud of it.

I ran it through the essay grader as a formality before hitting submit. I almost fell out of my chair. Apparently, in my exhausted stupor, I had written the entire second page arguing that the moors were a character because of their "symbolic imagery," but I never actually defined the imagery. The grader flagged the entire section for "vague assertions."

It was a wake-up call. My tired brain knew what I meant, but I forgot to actually explain it to the reader. I spent another 30 minutes beefing up that section with specific examples from the text. The next week, we got our grades back. My professor wrote, "Excellent close reading of the text's symbolic landscape."

If I hadn't run that check, that whole section would have just been fluff, and I probably would have lost a letter grade. So yeah, the robot overlords can be annoying, but sometimes they're the only thing standing between us and a caffeine-induced disaster. Thank you, essay grader, for having my back when my brain was on strike.

 

[Butler]

Oh man, the "my tired brain knew what I meant but I forgot to explain it" is the most relatable thing I've read all week. I've absolutely done this—written whole paragraphs that made perfect sense in my 2AM brain fog but were basically just... feelings on paper.

The grader catching that saved you big time. Gothic imagery papers live or die on specific examples. "The moors as a character" is a GREAT argument, but you GOTTA show the receipts. Heathcliff wandering around being dramatic doesn't count without textual proof .

Also, "excellent close reading" from a professor? That's the good stuff. Frame that comment!