7 ms·

Short Studies On Excuses

156 points by rms 17y ago

SlyShy 17y ago
In reality, most teachers accept late work from students they like. Still, I suppose the example was specifically for economics professors. ;)
- vtail 17y ago
  Because grading a work by student you like gives you positive utility :).
  - rauljara 17y ago
    You are probably also more inclined to believe excuses from people you like, which also plays a fairly sized role in the article.
  - zck 17y ago
    Yes; generally, quality of work and how much a professor likes a student are positively correlated. So, if a professor likes grading good papers, ey will accept papers from late students ey likes.
    - dfreidin 17y ago
      Excellent use of Spivak pronouns
- d0m 17y ago
  So true. I remember that girl who had a nice smile and were pretty cute. Every teacher loved her and she always could give her homeworks late. More than that, she were always copying homework from her older-sister which had saved all papers. When it didn't work out, she started to cry a little bit and it always finally worked.
  - chc 17y ago
    To be honest, crying would very likely work for an ugly dude too. With a few exceptions, nobody wants to have to sit and watch anybody cry.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  This seems to vary a lot by college. Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks, under the belief that it's better to grade a couple of papers late than to risk messing up a student's future. So Ivy League schools tend to be pretty tolerant of late work. I've heard of professors accepting work as much as a year late. The lower you go on the academic totem pole, the less tolerance there is. Extensions are hard to get at state schools-- even the really good ones-- and practically nonexistent at community colleges. It may be unfair, but it makes sense. Teacher:student ratios are lower at elite colleges, and late work is rarer, so it's not really a burden. Also, professors at elite colleges are generally happier and have cushier lives, whereas teachers at CCs are usually underpaid and overworked already, so late work is an intolerable addition. Finally, many of the students in middling schools shouldn't be in college at all, while the assumption at an elite college is that the person who's late is a good student with a good reason. That assumption's not always true, of course, but elite colleges would rather make one type of error.
  - klochner 17y ago
    The Ivy League/State distinction is a little more subtle than professors' regard for students' futures. At private schools, tuition is much higher, parents are wealthier, and alumni contributions are important. So the utility function of the professor is actually linked to the grade of the student (also why you see more grade inflation at the more expensive schools, se, e.g., - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation#Princeton_University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation#Princeton_Unive...). In state schools, class sizes run much larger; granting an exception with a 200 person class is not likely to remain a secret for long. This means the penalty to professors for not following tit-for-tat is much greater. Also, professors at state schools just don't have the time available to even consider the excuses - it's easier to consider 4 unique cases (out of 20 students) at a private school vs. 40 unique cases (out of 200) at a public school.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks under the belief that if they don't, parents will complain to the dean who will order them to cut a break. They hold that belief because it is true.
- timwiseman 17y ago
  Pure anecdote, but there was one class where I turned almost every assignment late in for. That class required work to be done in the computer lab on campus and my work schedule limited when I could get there, so virtually every assignment was late. I worked it out with the professor and I got docked 10% on every assignment, but he also added a bonus question for everyone and that let me stay in the A range regardless. At least in my admittedly anecodtal experience, most professors are willing to work with you if you are making an effort in the class and have a genuine reason besides laziness.
swombat 17y ago
I don't think removing the "8" from the title in this case was warranted. This is not a list post, and the items are not quickly read, content-empty mini-articles, but short essays that all fit together. Calling it "Eight Short Studies on Excuses" is as reasonable as calling this Mozart set of studies (http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/265.htm http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/265.htm) "Twelve variations". On the topic - interesting and well written. What are the advantages of the normal mode of excuse-evaluation compared to this?
- alanh 17y ago
  I imagine I was more likely to read this thanks to the non-list-evocative title
- gojomo 17y ago
  ...but then every article with an excuse will want its leading number back!
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    Sorry, I down-voted this but meant to up-vote it. These arrows are a bit small..
pingou 17y ago
"Alternatively, you could try writing awful science fiction novels and hiring a ton of lawyers. I hear that also works these days." Off-topic but I disagree : Battlefield Earth was a good book. And terrible movie.
- gwern 17y ago
  No. It was just as terrible a book.
- Psyonic 17y ago
  I remember really liking the book as well, but I read it in 7th grade, and didn't know anything about ol' L. Ron at the time. Revisiting it might be interesting, but I'd rather keep the fond memories.
aero142 17y ago
I'll give you an upvote if you give me an upvote and reply to this post.
- viggity 17y ago
  I gave you an upvote, let the tit for tat commence! (for the record your post had 0 karma when I upvoted it)
  - aero142 17y ago
    Nicely played sir.
- shawndumas 17y ago
  but you're at 1 now... retreat, retreat!
  - aero142 17y ago
    Crap, now we need 3rd party review.
- rms 17y ago
  I upvoted all of the comments in this subthread. Does anyone else want to join me in the -4 karma party?
  - aero142 17y ago
    Yeah, this took me by surprise that my little meta game theory comment was rejected so much. I know it wasn't that clever, but still. With down-votes like that, you would think my username was jasoncalcacanis or that I had insulted pg's mother. I'm guessing that people here are looking out at the Redditors like the Romans looking out at the Visigoths. Meta comments are the gateway drug to memes, and nobody wants that! I now resign myself to an additional -4 comment. Karma comes, karma goes. I guess it all evens out in the end. Funny that.
recurser 17y ago
Reminds me of a great talk i attended by Karl Kruszelnicki analyzing the increasing number of 'my grandmother died' excuses he sees each year at exam time. He ended up with an exponential-looking graph for the last few years which showed that in 10 or 20 years the average student will have 3 dead grandmothers each.
lotharbot 17y ago
1) When evaluating excuses (or other "low-probability" events), it's important not merely to evaluate the likelihood of this exact pattern, but of all patterns that are of the same level of impressiveness or more impressive. For example, if you're evaluating whether to accept "my cousin died", you really have to evaluate the whole class of excuses "my relative who is at least as close as a cousin had a significant occurence". This is one of the best observations in this essay. 2) Taking a game-theoretic approach to excuses, rather than merely accepting "true" or "believeable" excuses, has the advantage of allowing you to reject excuses without calling into question anyone's character. Nobody wants to be the jerk who said "I don't believe your grandmother really died" to the kid whose grandma actually DID just die; it's much easier to be the guy with the "late work is not accepted even if your grandma dies" policy. 3) The excuse evaluator can add a cost to making excuses. A teacher might require an essay explaining the excuse in detail, thereby wiping out the added utility the student derives from procrastinating, but not wiping out the utility the student derives from attending his grandmother's funeral. This creates a threshold that prevents people with no real excuse from gaming the system.

156 points by rms 17y ago

In reality, most teachers accept late work from students they like. Still, I suppose the example was specifically for economics professors. ;)

vtail 17y ago
Because grading a work by student you like gives you positive utility :).
- rauljara 17y ago
  You are probably also more inclined to believe excuses from people you like, which also plays a fairly sized role in the article.
- zck 17y ago
  Yes; generally, quality of work and how much a professor likes a student are positively correlated. So, if a professor likes grading good papers, ey will accept papers from late students ey likes.
  - dfreidin 17y ago
    Excellent use of Spivak pronouns
d0m 17y ago
So true. I remember that girl who had a nice smile and were pretty cute. Every teacher loved her and she always could give her homeworks late. More than that, she were always copying homework from her older-sister which had saved all papers. When it didn't work out, she started to cry a little bit and it always finally worked.
- chc 17y ago
  To be honest, crying would very likely work for an ugly dude too. With a few exceptions, nobody wants to have to sit and watch anybody cry.
pw0ncakes 17y ago
This seems to vary a lot by college. Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks, under the belief that it's better to grade a couple of papers late than to risk messing up a student's future. So Ivy League schools tend to be pretty tolerant of late work. I've heard of professors accepting work as much as a year late. The lower you go on the academic totem pole, the less tolerance there is. Extensions are hard to get at state schools-- even the really good ones-- and practically nonexistent at community colleges. It may be unfair, but it makes sense. Teacher:student ratios are lower at elite colleges, and late work is rarer, so it's not really a burden. Also, professors at elite colleges are generally happier and have cushier lives, whereas teachers at CCs are usually underpaid and overworked already, so late work is an intolerable addition. Finally, many of the students in middling schools shouldn't be in college at all, while the assumption at an elite college is that the person who's late is a good student with a good reason. That assumption's not always true, of course, but elite colleges would rather make one type of error.
- klochner 17y ago
  The Ivy League/State distinction is a little more subtle than professors' regard for students' futures. At private schools, tuition is much higher, parents are wealthier, and alumni contributions are important. So the utility function of the professor is actually linked to the grade of the student (also why you see more grade inflation at the more expensive schools, se, e.g., - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation#Princeton_University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation#Princeton_Unive...). In state schools, class sizes run much larger; granting an exception with a 200 person class is not likely to remain a secret for long. This means the penalty to professors for not following tit-for-tat is much greater. Also, professors at state schools just don't have the time available to even consider the excuses - it's easier to consider 4 unique cases (out of 20 students) at a private school vs. 40 unique cases (out of 200) at a public school.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks under the belief that if they don't, parents will complain to the dean who will order them to cut a break. They hold that belief because it is true.
timwiseman 17y ago
Pure anecdote, but there was one class where I turned almost every assignment late in for. That class required work to be done in the computer lab on campus and my work schedule limited when I could get there, so virtually every assignment was late. I worked it out with the professor and I got docked 10% on every assignment, but he also added a bonus question for everyone and that let me stay in the A range regardless. At least in my admittedly anecodtal experience, most professors are willing to work with you if you are making an effort in the class and have a genuine reason besides laziness.

swombat 17y ago

I don't think removing the "8" from the title in this case was warranted. This is not a list post, and the items are not quickly read, content-empty mini-articles, but short essays that all fit together. Calling it "Eight Short Studies on Excuses" is as reasonable as calling this Mozart set of studies (http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/265.htm http://www.classiccat.net/mozart_wa/265.htm) "Twelve variations". On the topic - interesting and well written. What are the advantages of the normal mode of excuse-evaluation compared to this?

alanh 17y ago
I imagine I was more likely to read this thanks to the non-list-evocative title
gojomo 17y ago
...but then every article with an excuse will want its leading number back!
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Sorry, I down-voted this but meant to up-vote it. These arrows are a bit small..

pingou 17y ago

"Alternatively, you could try writing awful science fiction novels and hiring a ton of lawyers. I hear that also works these days." Off-topic but I disagree : Battlefield Earth was a good book. And terrible movie.

gwern 17y ago
No. It was just as terrible a book.
Psyonic 17y ago
I remember really liking the book as well, but I read it in 7th grade, and didn't know anything about ol' L. Ron at the time. Revisiting it might be interesting, but I'd rather keep the fond memories.

aero142 17y ago

I'll give you an upvote if you give me an upvote and reply to this post.

viggity 17y ago
I gave you an upvote, let the tit for tat commence! (for the record your post had 0 karma when I upvoted it)
- aero142 17y ago
  Nicely played sir.
shawndumas 17y ago
but you're at 1 now... retreat, retreat!
- aero142 17y ago
  Crap, now we need 3rd party review.
rms 17y ago
I upvoted all of the comments in this subthread. Does anyone else want to join me in the -4 karma party?
- aero142 17y ago
  Yeah, this took me by surprise that my little meta game theory comment was rejected so much. I know it wasn't that clever, but still. With down-votes like that, you would think my username was jasoncalcacanis or that I had insulted pg's mother. I'm guessing that people here are looking out at the Redditors like the Romans looking out at the Visigoths. Meta comments are the gateway drug to memes, and nobody wants that! I now resign myself to an additional -4 comment. Karma comes, karma goes. I guess it all evens out in the end. Funny that.

recurser 17y ago

Reminds me of a great talk i attended by Karl Kruszelnicki analyzing the increasing number of 'my grandmother died' excuses he sees each year at exam time. He ended up with an exponential-looking graph for the last few years which showed that in 10 or 20 years the average student will have 3 dead grandmothers each.

lotharbot 17y ago

1) When evaluating excuses (or other "low-probability" events), it's important not merely to evaluate the likelihood of this exact pattern, but of all patterns that are of the same level of impressiveness or more impressive. For example, if you're evaluating whether to accept "my cousin died", you really have to evaluate the whole class of excuses "my relative who is at least as close as a cousin had a significant occurence". This is one of the best observations in this essay. 2) Taking a game-theoretic approach to excuses, rather than merely accepting "true" or "believeable" excuses, has the advantage of allowing you to reject excuses without calling into question anyone's character. Nobody wants to be the jerk who said "I don't believe your grandmother really died" to the kid whose grandma actually DID just die; it's much easier to be the guy with the "late work is not accepted even if your grandma dies" policy. 3) The excuse evaluator can add a cost to making excuses. A teacher might require an essay explaining the excuse in detail, thereby wiping out the added utility the student derives from procrastinating, but not wiping out the utility the student derives from attending his grandmother's funeral. This creates a threshold that prevents people with no real excuse from gaming the system.