Marked unfairly. Should i trust my tutor?

natalieann1993

We were set formative assignments (grade doesn't count to end of year grade) for our first term of Uni, just before our real end of term papers for practice. Although I didn't shine brightly, I also didn't fail in the feedback from most my modules and met with the tutors and agreed on areas I could improve.

My last formative piece came back today which i failed (38%), I was shocked at this, although i agreed with small errors, my tutor expressed in my feedback how my theory did not make sense through my text. I decided to allow some class mates to review it without revealing the overall theory towards my text, which they grasped straight away when reading without me giving off any clues.
I set out my theory towards my text like the tutors informed us to in essays.
Introduce the theory, explain the structure and meaning of the theory, reference the theory by using quotes from books studied as evidence, and then relate the theory to my text.
My class mates managed to grasp the idea of my theory and how i related it to the text, yet my tutor's feedback said my theory was completely unreadable, with no relation to the text. After sitting down with him, he re-read my essay, and without me giving any ideas towards the clues towards my theory. He managed to understand it the 2nd time around.

However because it was a formative and my personal tutor had also read it and agreed with his mark, he decided to not give me a new grade.
(if it was even worth a new grade)

I'm feeling pretty low right now, if students of my class can understand my essay and the theory, why did i lose marks when the 2nd time round the tutor then understood it?
I'm debating whether it's an issue of my ability or a misreading of my essay.

Can anyone please help me? I'm so low about this i just feel like i should withdrew and get a bloody job. :frown:

Reply 1

Hal.E.Lujah

That sucks! I'm sorry to hear you got such a bad mark.

I gather this is your first year? Does it count towards your final grade? If not, remember that you could be the person who gets all 40%s this year, and leaves with a 1st.

Try to learn from this rather than be crushed. The first term of uni is definitely a humility lesson :wink:

Reply 2

Zubes

Hey, I just graduated and was pretty strong as essays. Maybe your losing some easy marks in referencing style, structure of your essay etc., and maybe some bits need to be more clarified and thought patterns explained, ill take a look for you just PM me. Nobody really helped me in my first year so it was a huge learning curve, i got a 40 in one of my essays in my first term, figured it out by the second term and got a 2:1 in my first year quite easy afterwards, silly mistakes and have a huge impact on your grades. Also, try and get friends to critique your work, and there should be some services on campus to help (although i didnt use it) some of my friends did. Read the nuts and bolts of writing, I didn't but some of my friends did, I did go through the powerpoint of my lecturer though, and learnt small differences create an entirely new format toward an essay. Peace be with you and may Allah bless you.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3

Joinedup

Tbh it's possible to have lots of good ideas in a poor essay or in an essay that doesn't answer the question which was asked.

As others have said, it's too early to panic but if you're going to do well you'll have to produce work that pleases your tutors, so you should concentrate on adapting in the light of their feedback.
It's rather unlikely they're running a vendetta against you.