These were collected by a colleague of mine, David Davis. They do have a way of getting under a composition instructor’s skin – tho I said at least 1 of ’em as an undergrad.
10 things to avoid saying to your professor
- “You know what I mean.”
- “I really need an A” (B, C, whatever).
- “I have a friend who is an English major and he said…”
- “In high school I always got As” (Bs, whatever).
- “I really worked hard on this.” / “I put a lot of effort into this.”
- “Well, that’s just the way I write.”
- “I wasn’t in class; did I miss anything?”
- “I couldn’t get the assignment done because I had a big test in another class.”
- “Well, I don’t think comma splices (organization, topic sentences, following directions, whatever) should be worth that many points.”
- Passing the buck: “My boyfriend/girlfriend was supposed to put my paper in your mailbox” / “My cable provider has really unreliable internet service” / “The drop box is really hard to understand” / etc.
For the entire list together as David wrote it, with his trenchant and entertaining explanations.
My classes will have to explain why students say these things, and imagine how an instructor will react. Maybe we’ll do a role-play.
