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Contesting an essay result

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  • 01-01-2014 8:37pm
    #1
    Cyber Ghost
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 382 ✭✭


    I'm currently studying a distance course in a University.
    I don't want to say which one as I want this to remain anonymous as possible.

    Ok some background, (while not trying to blow my own trumpet I'm just stating the facts) I have a 1H degree (joint honours) which includes philosophy, and I got a 1H in nearly every philosophy essay I wrote, and the ones I didn't I got like 67.

    I'm currently in my third year of a distance course and I'm doing very well.
    However one module of the course requires essays. I just received a result of an essay of 30%. I researched hard for the assignment and felt I composed a very good essay. I disagreed almost entirely with the essay question, and I backed up my opinion with plenty of references (we were told that points "must" be backed up with references)
    The marker (a postgrad student himself) seems to be a big proponent of what I diagreed with and simply rejected every point I made and even claimed I didn't even answer the essay question.
    I'm fairly disgusted with his comments but I really don't know how to approach this. The guy will be marking many more assignments so contesting this poses many difficulties.
    I'm thinking, first of all the department can't undermine their own tutors, as everybody will want their essay re-corrected.
    Secondly, as he's going to be marking more papers of mine I'm in a very difficult position. Let's face it, in the humanities if you're marking an essay and you want to give it a bad mark you're going to be able to find reasons to do so. It's not mathematics. If I contest this to the department he's probably not going to have a very good opinion of me.
    Lastly, this essay mark affects my overall mark for the course so it sucks that I'm in this predicament.

    I'm just wondering could you guys possibly give me any advice on this situation.

    Cheers.


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    #2
    Tom Dunne
    Registered Users Posts: 23,212 ✭✭✭✭Tom Dunne


    Cyber Ghost wrote: »
    I'm currently studying a distance course in a University.
    I don't want to say which one as I want this to remain anonymous as possible.

    Ok some background, (while not trying to blow my own trumpet I'm just stating the facts) I have a 1H degree (joint honours) which includes philosophy, and I got a 1H in nearly every philosophy essay I wrote, and the ones I didn't I got like 67.

    I'm currently in my third year of a distance course and I'm doing very well.
    However one module of the course requires essays. I just received a result of an essay of 30%. I researched hard for the assignment and felt I composed a very good essay. I disagreed almost entirely with the essay question, and I backed up my opinion with plenty of references (we were told that points "must" be backed up with references)
    The marker (a postgrad student himself) seems to be a big proponent of what I diagreed with and simply rejected every point I made and even claimed I didn't even answer the essay question.
    I'm fairly disgusted with his comments but I really don't know how to approach this. The guy will be marking many more assignments so contesting this poses many difficulties.
    I'm thinking, first of all the department can't undermine their own tutors, as everybody will want their essay re-corrected.
    Secondly, as he's going to be marking more papers of mine I'm in a very difficult position. Let's face it, in the humanities if you're marking an essay and you want to give it a bad mark you're going to be able to find reasons to do so. It's not mathematics. If I contest this to the department he's probably not going to have a very good opinion of me.
    Lastly, this essay mark affects my overall mark for the course so it sucks that I'm in this predicament.

    I'm just wondering could you guys possibly give me any advice on this situation.

    Cheers.

    The university will have an appeals process. If you appeal, another staff member will be asked to mark it and give you a second opinion on your assignment.

    Also, every assessment will have a marking scheme, listing out what exactly the assessors are looking for. You should be able to see this (depending on the university) and see where your answer differed from what they were looking for.

    Finally, what percentage was this essay worth? If you got marked down in this, you should still be able to get a decent mark with the remaining assessments.


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