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peer reviews are the most depressing part of college (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by to c/chat@hexbear.net
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I am in a senior level undergrad seminar course focusing on the environmental history of imperialism in Africa. We are reviewing each other's introductions. They can't write folks. They just can't write. These people are graduating with me. Sometimes they are even getting the same degree as me and I feel like I am reading a highschooler's essay they wrote in an hour! I genuinely do not believe they even proof read this once. I can forgive the sentences that say nothing and the paragraph that don't say much more than the sentences. But I cannot forgive the abominable grammar and spelling.

God it just fills me with dread. Maybe I just got the worst peer reviews. Maybe the other people in this course have better writing but there are only 14 people and I reviewed 3 of them.

I'm trying so hard to be productively critical but if I were to honestly offer every critique I had they would need a new essay. I would look like such an immense asshole if I put every correction I think NEEDS to be made. Not even including the changes that should be made. I have to keep reminding myself that I can't save them. Nothing I do here is going to teach them effective writing. I am consoling myself with the idea that they wrote this in an hour or two before the deadline with 0 research having been done.

I just, idk comrades. It's bleak. I think I'm gonna grab a beer for this next one.

Edit: the beer is helping

edit edit: decades of passive voice usage has had severe consequences. I am begging my fellows students to use an active voice, absolutely begging.

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[–] 3 points 1 week ago*

Suggesting they brush that aside as "that's on them, not you" is overly dismissive of their concern because this thread would just be venting rather than sincerely asking for advice if that solution were as easy for them as it is for you.

Yeah I probably overstated my perspective. Like I did not mean to completely dismiss the need to not be excessively critical, but my thinking is that... they're in an academic context where they're being explicitly asked to be critical. There's always a balance to be struck, but in this context I thought it would be appropriate to err on the side of more critical.

But also I... don't think the solution is easy for me? Like I am constantly finding myself navigating the fine line between criticalness and contentiousness. And I'm really really bad at reading social cues so I occasionally end up on the wrong side of the line.

And really, I did not mean the part you quoted as general life advice. I really meant it for this specific situation, where they're being explicitly asked to leave critical feedback in an academic context.

I'd be uncomfortable spending time around someone I think I may have upset regardless of whether they'd be justified in that, so that's a situation I would be trying to avoid too.

Me too tbh. Like there was someone I really pissed off a few weeks back because I was being critical in the wrong context and they thought I was trying to be disrespectful. I apologized profusely and we hashed it out, but I still feel fucking terrible over it 😖. Thank you for the critique.

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