Get out your red pens. Here are the opening sentences for the last three papers I've graded for a course entitled Religions of the ancient Near East:
1. "Within every great epic story, exists a legendary hero and his/her journey to explore, seek adventure, and achieve greatness by means of overcoming struggles."
2. "In every culture, every religion, there are central characters that embodies the beliefs of it's people and reinforces the rituals and culture set forth."
3. "Zawi Hawass seems as obnoxious and petulant as the man who hawks OxiClean on late night commercials."
Number 3 wins.
No way your student knows what petulant means.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I don't even know the OxiClean commercial but I like that sentence.
ReplyDelete#3 most definitely!! Unless of course s/he's parroting the professor's words ;-)
ReplyDeleteIn which case, A+ for the professor!
This is hilarious - I just read the comment out loud to someone who laughed as much as I did. I love clever papers!
ReplyDeleteFor numbers 1 & 2, I normally cross out those sentences and write either "fluff" or "filler" next to them. Sentence number 3 is tough - you have to appreciate the lyricism of the student but in a formal paper? I'd probably write something like "hahaha, avoid colloquialisms".
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