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A friend is taking online classes and like all classes these days they seem to love to force you into group projects. Since it's online, the projects are always papers. I've been helping her off and on, proofread, make suggestions etc.
Her current class is related to business ethics and the assignment was 4 people write on varying parts of ethics in a company they're familiar with. 4 people, introduction and conclusion, word limit 1400 to 2100 words.
the paper is due monday so she asked for rough drafts by wednesday, which dragged into Thursday. One guy responded at 3:30 in the morning say hey this is online classes, I log in when I can you'll have to be patient with my schedule. His paper was not at all what the teachers asked for so she asked him to rewrite it to fit the format the other 3 had used. He did, and now it wasn't in Word, so she had to call him and ask him to please put it into word she couldn't open it now. So he did that.
So today I started reading the paper and the first thing I do is a word count using Word, 2600 words, and there's no conclusion yet. So I get curious and start word counting each person and sure enough the same guy wrote 960 words!
My friend is the "leader" of the team on this assignment, if you were her what would you do?
1) Just edit the idiot's paper, cut off 500 words and write the conclusion?
2) Email the idiot and say cut yours in half.
3) Email the whole group and say the paper is too long, here are your individual word counts do you want me to submit as is and risk being marked down for length, or do you want to edit your own papers?
To me 3 is the best option but it's Friday and who knows about weekend work so if she does that she may be hung out to dry Monday.
I'm very glad it is her class and not mine, I'm annoyed enough as it is just trying to help her out because this one guy has been such an idiot. It's quite clear in the syllabus that the teacher has the right do grade separately within a team if there are problems with indivual contributors. If it were me I'd just submit 2 papers and tell the teacher, this is what was given to me, it exceeds the word limit because so and so wrote 500 more words than asked for. So I also include an edited version. If you are going to downgrade for length please use the edited paper and please then consider WHY I had to submit 2 papers?
If it were me, I'd give the guy one day to edit and then do it myself and completely throw him under the bus to the teacher.
Comments?
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She should take over, edit the paper as she sees fit and kill the guy in the group evals. Done it a million times in undergrad. Donald was my partner for everything in grad school, so I never had to do it then. Hopefully he never did it to me.
She should take over, edit the paper as she sees fit and kill the guy in the group evals. Done it a million times in undergrad. Donald was my partner for everything in grad school, so I never had to do it then. Hopefully he never did it to me.
Yeah that sounds like a nice option too.
I have no qualms about throwing the guy under the bus. She wants to just submit as is she thinks the teacher won't care about length. I say but what if he does, then all 4 of you get downgraded because this one guy simply ignored every direction given to him?
Anybody who sees me on ASFN must be shocked to hear me complaining about someone else being wordy!
I have no qualms about throwing the guy under the bus. She wants to just submit as is she thinks the teacher won't care about length. I say but what if he does, then all 4 of you get downgraded because this one guy simply ignored every direction given to him?
On of our grad profs (the dean of the college) was a monster, uber stickler for this stuff. He mentioned about 100x that a 12 pt font may not measure 12 characters to the inch and encouraged us to ensure they did or be marked off.
I hate group projects. I always end up taking them over and just getting it done. I did that in school and I do it at work all of the time. I hate when the boss says to get together with so and so and get a report to him. I just always do it myself. I of course take all of the credit myself as well.
__________________ "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy".
I hate group projects. I always end up taking them over and just getting it done. I did that in school and I do it at work all of the time. I hate when the boss says to get together with so and so and get a report to him. I just always do it myself. I of course take all of the credit myself as well.
Me too. My friend and I were even semi arguing about it because we were both so annoyed with what this one guy did but had different opinions on how best to resolve it.
I'd email the group and get their opinions. I know I'd be pissed if I got marked down for length when my portion was where it should have been, and I was never told there was a problem in the first place.
She should take over, edit the paper as she sees fit and kill the guy in the group evals. Done it a million times in undergrad. Donald was my partner for everything in grad school, so I never had to do it then. Hopefully he never did it to me.
Yeah, I would just finish the paper and not mess around trying to get losers to get their crap together. Then I'd just say "so and so didn't carry their weight so we had to fix his stuff. Bad teammate, etc."
But I'm not going to waste my time trying to manage the unmanageable when it hurts my grade. Then next time I had to work with him I'd say "here's the deal, it needs to happen like this. I will not pick up your slack this time."
Group projects suck donkey.
__________________
Quote:
Mr. Garrison: Kenny, would you please climb that ladder and take down the star above the stage?
Last edited by Donald; June 15th, 2007 at 02:52 PM.
I'd email the group and get their opinions. I know I'd be pissed if I got marked down for length when my portion was where it should have been, and I was never told there was a problem in the first place.
I guess I must have won our "argument" because she emailed the professor to ask him just how picky he is, and then sent an email to the group advising them of the issue and saying depending on how he answers I will edit or not, so if you are concerned, you might want to edit yours down to about 450 words.
Since the other 3 papers are all already "about 450 words" that was of course directed at the guy with 960.
My main issue is she was saying it's only 5 points I don't want to stress on it and I was saying but 5 points might be much more important to the other 2 people who DID follow directions and have no idea this is even an issue?
That's why I always hated group papers you always get someone like this in the group.
On of our grad profs (the dean of the college) was a monster, uber stickler for this stuff. He mentioned about 100x that a 12 pt font may not measure 12 characters to the inch and encouraged us to ensure they did or be marked off.
LOL!!!
Chad put that guy on blast that one class...it was hilarious.
He wanted us to measure the damn margin with a ruler before turning it in and he said something like "if someone pulled out a ruler on a report I turned in I would quit on the spot."
That guy was a huge ass...Dean 1 inch.
__________________
Quote:
Mr. Garrison: Kenny, would you please climb that ladder and take down the star above the stage?
Chad put that guy on blast that one class...it was hilarious.
He wanted us to measure the damn margin with a ruler before turning it in and he said something like "if someone pulled out a ruler on a report I turned in I would quit on the spot."
That guy was a huge ass...Dean 1 inch.
Ha ha. At least you didnt have to retake his course because you didnt do the John Deere report.
THAT was the course you had to re-do? I forgot that.
At least you didn't answer "ya got me" on an accounting quiz.
At least you didnt BOMB 1/3 of our ebay presentation and tell the audience that the chart was explaining the exact OPPOSITE of what it was really saying.
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