What are students’ most annoying essay habits?

 

Charles Steele, Economics: “They say that something is based “off of” when they mean it’s based “on.” I want people to understand that if you’re on a dance floor and somebody says get “off my foot” it does not mean the same thing as “get on my foot.” “Off of” and “on” are two different things.

 

Tom Burke, Philosophy and Religion: “Misspelling Conceive.”

 

Dwight Lindley, English: “The high school five paragraph essay can get annoying in college because it doesn’t really work for a lot of real mature subject matters which require multiple different shapes and structures. I have to break students from the five paragraph essay with three points in the thesis every year at the freshman level.”

 

Christopher Heckel, Biology: “I can’t say if these are habits or just part of the student writing learning curve, but I do get annoyed by improper citation style, lack of brevity, and unnecessary modifiers.”

 

Lee Cole, Philosophy: “A wilful disregarding of my meticulously prepared paper prompt.”

 

Joseph Garnjobst, Classics: “I suppose if they have a compare and contrast, the conclusion is always “thus we can see that while thing A and thing B are very similar, they’re also quite different.” Which is perhaps the most inane, insufferable conclusion that one could come to.”