advice anyone?

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Bond

Does anyone have any advice about how to approaching a Teaching Assistant (graduate student who grades your work, although the class is taught by a professor) concerning the grading of my in-class essays? I've considered his grading, so far, to be extremely unfair and unfounded. I obviously want to approach him in a reasonable way, but also get the point across that his grading is certainly not proper.

Any ideas?

Don't approach the assistant, approach the professor. The assistant will just blow you off because they generally don't have enough experience to understand the value of humility.

In any case, approach the conversation like this:

"I'd like to discuss the garades I've received. I think there are some inconsistencies and here is why..."

Be prepared with specific examples and evidence or you will be ignored.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Don't approach the assistant, approach the professor. The assistant will just blow you off because they generally don't have enough experience to understand the value of humility.

In any case, approach the conversation like this:

"I'd like to discuss the garades I've received. I think there are some inconsistencies and here is why..."

Be prepared with specific examples and evidence or you will be ignored.

But the TA does all of the grading for the course, the professor merely lectures. I think the professor would only be able to overturn the TA's grading, and I just can't see him doing that. I have somewhat of a relationship with the TA, he knows who I am, and knows that I'm a good student, it's just that his grading is flat out baseless.

Do you see my dilemma? I can't just go in there and say "you're an idiot," but how else do I explain his ridiculousness without coming off as an asshole?

Edit: I also still have to take the final for the course, which will be graded by the TA.

[Professor S]

Try appraoching it as honest questions about his reasoning for your grades. Anyone who grades someone else's papers should at least be open to the discussion.

And for the record, having a TA grade a professor's ESSAY TESTS based on his lectures is laughable at best. If it were a multiple choice or even short answer test, I could see it, but an essay test?

So a TA is grading your essay's, which are arguments based on your professor's lectures? How the fuck does that work without bias overwhelming any kind of honest quantatative evaluation?

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Try appraoching it as honest questions about his reasoning for your grades. Anyone who grades someone else's papers should at least be open to the discussion.

Right, that's the approach I tried after my first midterm (because I also received an unfounded grade on that test). So I thought that approach would work for the second midterm, but considering I scored worse on this test it obviously didn't.

And for the record, having a TA grade a professor's ESSAY TESTS based on his lectures is laughable at best. If it were a multiple choice or even short answer test, I could see it, but an essay test?

So a TA is grading your essay's, which are arguments based on your professor's lectures? How the fuck does that work without bias overwhelming any kind of honest quantatative evaluation?

Exactly. The professor lectures and writes the prompts for the essay midterms. He presents 3 essays and we have to write on one. So basically, the TA is judging the merit of the professor's prompts and our answers to the prompts. It's really ridiculous.