TA Complaints About Student Writing 4

“My students turn in unpolished work.”

A few student writers don’t care about their finished product. Others are so rushed that they don’t have time to proofread and edit. One way to make sure your students polish their writing before they hit “print” is to break the assignment into steps. If they approach their work in stages, they won’t be dealing with the assignment’s various demands all at one time (the night before). Students may have a chance to discuss their questions in class, such as when to put titles in quotation marks and when to underline them. At the very least, they’ll have energy to do some fine tuning at the end.