The Cocco Theory
There is an alarming trend in the grading practices here. I have observed it with some curiosity for some time, but I learned more about it from my friend, Mr Cocco, who had modestly named it the "Cocco theory." The theory states that in all Hum classes and many Sosc classes, the amount of time and care spent writing a paper is inversely correlated with the grade it receives.
There are obvious limitations to this claim. Clearly, you will certainly do very badly if you write a five page paper an hour or two before it's due. Clearly, you will definitely do okay if you spend 20 hours writing a paper (the 5-7 page variety, that is). Barring extremes, this claim is supported almost universally by empirical evidence. I just received a graded paper this afternoon, in fact, which continues to uphold the theory.
While there are varying interpretations for why this phenomenon should be true, two possibilities stand out. Firstly, and most dramatically: grades in the humanities and social sciences are fairly meaningless. Professors can tell what is awful and maybe what is genius, but the quality of papers in between is not well-ordered, so to speak. That's a bit cynical, but plausible to an extent. Assuming quality is well-ordered and professors recognize it, the other hypothesis is that small amounts of pressure induce superior creativity and argumentation. Whatever it is, it's fairly annoying.
Regardless, one thing is certain. Unless you are absolutely and utterly brilliant, if you study little in the sciences, you will do terribly. So at least some disciplines are rational.
I've observed some pretty non-well ordered grading. One thing I observe in profundity is the gradual desensitization of paper grades to quality over the course of a term, as the instructor develops an impression of the student.
My father once had a teacher who gave him an 84 on everything, across the board. He was a typecast 84, and nothing he could do could shake it. His brother copied one of his papers two years later (unethical but instructive) and got a 94; he was a 94.
I've observed that once I put heavy effort into 2 or 3 major papers, that instructor will frequently become insensitive to my mistakes. I particularly recall a term paper for a literature class last year that I did in 5 hours the night before, beginning at 2 AM, and recieved a 90 on. Why I did something that dumb is another story. The same grade went to a close friend who had spent weeks reading volumes and crafting a precision-cut analysis of a complex topic. I felt terrible, my paper stood out like a rotten orange among my friends', but I had a pretty good grade.
The inverted effort-grade curve is an interesting concept. Maybe it's simply random, noise in the inevitable variability in the non-ordered quaity relation. How large a sample can you cite?
Maybe we should do an experiment wherein some independent reviewers (I volunteer myself and Colin) read and rank several Hum papers and then we compare the rankings to your grades and the effort exerted.
Ari.
I might actually be up for that, at least after Spring Break and the midterms I have after it.
In my grades in my writing class, I guess I've gotten minimal papers back, but they don't follow the Cocco curve: I spent more effort on one, and got a better grade. And in my high-school writing experience, I found a more direct relationship (although my grades were usually very high anyways).
But if it were the case, I think grade stereotyping is definitely an issue, but obviously not the whole issue. One possibility is that by working too hard on a paper, one dilutes one's "voice" and personal connection (although that's probably just BS). But more generally, maybe when we think we're improving it, we really aren't. I don't know. But I still am not sure of the theory's validity; I might try and find some empirical evidence here. Of course, if we had different results at different schools, I wonder if that might suggest something.
Oh, and when I saw this, it reminded me of certain discussions we've had. You might find it entertaining:
http://xkcd.com/c230.html
I think I have a vague notion of both Hamiltonian graphs and routing algorithms, but I don't get how the one implies optimality in the other. Maybe "optimal" is defined differently than the intuitive notion.