‘Reading this is like going through a maze’: Rating scathing Lancaster lecturer’s comments

Have you ever had some questionable feedback on your coursework? Getting feedback on your work is a nerve-racking experience, especially if you’ve spend weeks working on it. When you get the dreaded email saying you have got your marks back, it can be absolutely soul-destroying to find out your lecturer left you a petty little comment.

Lecturers have their weird ways of giving their critique on your essay. Whether they are trying to be funny or not, sometimes the feedback on your essay can be rude, offensive or just plain brutal. We asked you to send in all of the worst comments you have had on your essays and we’re here to rate the comments lecturers and seminar tutors have left on your essay based on brutality, funniness and meanness.

‘???’

Of course, it’s the dreaded question mark. Who knows what the lecturer’s trying to say here? Some actual words of feedback might be useful. How are we supposed to know what’s wrong? The question mark is a lecturer’s classic, and a bit lazy if you ask me. However, the person who sent this in did admit they didn’t even know what they were writing about, so we can’t really blame the lecturer here.

Rating: 6/10

‘Incompetent but correct’

This comment makes absolutely no sense, so we can see why this student sent this one in. Sometimes a lecturer’s feedback can be quite confusing and this comment contradicts itself. It can be so frustrating to get confusing feedback, just tell us what we need to improve!

Rating: 6/10

‘Reading your essay is like going through a maze’

This one is quite poetic actually, but nevertheless a bit mean. This could be taken in a good way or a bad way. Maybe they were trying to compliment your essay? You never know (we might be being a little optimistic here).  In fairness, the lecturer has worded it in a nice way without being too brutal.

Rating: 7/10

‘Essay was a really interesting read, unfortunately, it’s not relevant to the topic though’

At least something was positive, and they liked your essay. It’s always easy to go off on a tangent when writing an essay you are passionate about. The lecturer was fairly nice and got straight to the point, but you can’t help but get a vibe of disappointment when reading this comment.

Rating: 6/10

‘Overall, it was a good bash at the question’

Considering the person that sent this in said they cried, this one is definitely a bit harsh. However, the lecturer did say you had a go at the question, so its not the end of the world. We all have that one module that we hate and don’t do as well in. This can be especially harsh if you genuinely tried and spent weeks on your essay and come back to a brutal comment like this.

Rating: 9/10

‘Stop writing like you’re having a chat’

This comment gets straight to the point. The lecturer is being very blunt here. We know how easy it can be to accidentally slip into an informal tone when you’re essay writing, you just want to get your ideas down on paper. But come on, it’s your lecturer reading this, make it appropriate.

Rating 6/10

‘Go seek help because you clearly can’t reference properly’

We weren’t exactly surprised to hear this person got an F. We understand that referencing is confusing at first but there are literal websites to do it for you. Although we’ll give it to this student, the lecturer was very rude, but it seems that little effort was put into this essay.

Rating: 9/10

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