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.