I received an interesting letter in the mail today. Inside the large envelope from the religion department at a certain University was a paper I'd written 4 months ago, and, apparently, my professor had just now finished grading it. He attached a note apologizing/rationalizing that 'we respond better to criticism about our writing when we've had some detachment from it.'

Perhaps this is true, but I found it particularly curious that he'd been able to assign me a grade for the course without actually grading my paper (worth 60% of my grade, if I remember correctly). In a sense, it was nice to see he'd made the effort; in another sense, my fairness-sense is tingling (like a spidey-sense, get it).

I toyed with the idea of grading his responses and sending the whole package right back to his office, but I was out-voted by my nicey-sense. Here's what I would have written.

Dr. X,

Thank you for returning my paper. I read your lengthy notes, and I was pleased that you actually read what I wrote and thought about what I said. Unfortunately, I found many of your comments to be out of place. Some were overly wooden, almost seeming as if you'd cut and pasted comments from another paper onto mine. Do you use the same comments for multiple papers? Most institutions consider this plagiarism. Also, I found myself wondering whether you fully understood the assignment you assigned. You assigned an academic paper, but, at times, you graded my paper as if it was supposed to be an entertaining feature in Reader's Digest. Let me remind you that a thesis statement is not designed with titillation in mind. That said, I'd like to see you improve your consistency in grading. Also, I found a number of typos and grammatical errors; ironically, while lecturing me against using split infinitives (even though most present-day grammarians accept their occasional use), you wrote an incomprehensible dangling participle. (If that error was your attempt at humor, it was in bad taste; leave the jokes to "Laughter is the Best Medicine"). Furthermore, you wrote with a general lack of references; if I wanted opinions, I'd pick up the op-ed page of the New York Times. Be sure to remember that your thoughts aren't facts! Cite your references! On the positive side, your comments were neat; thank you for taking the time to type them out; also, they were acceptably organized (though there were a few loose ends), and they were obviously very well-meaning. Overall, I have decided to give the most weight to your good attitude and well-meaning nature. The grade I would like to assign you is a solid B.

Unfortunately, we can't always do what we like. You see, while I would love to assign a B, I cannot: it is against my policy to accept late work. Might I remind you, Dr. X., this assignment was due in NOVEMBER! I'm sure you have very valid excuses for your tardiness, but don't we all? Excuses are like butt-holes, Dr. X.: everybody has one, and most of them stink. It pains me to say this, but your actual grade is an F.

Sincerely,

Max

P.S. Tell your two colleagues (you know, the ones who didn't bother to return my final papers at all) that they have received an F as well.

In case you were wondering, I'm not bitter. I got an A in each of my classes. There's just something I don't like about double standards, so sue me.