The Dog Ate My Disk Analysis

In the essay “The Dog Ate My Disk, an Other Tales of Woe” Professor Carolyn Foster Segal explains that even after lengthy syllabus warnings and a humorous cartoon of a cat explaining to its teacher that a dog ate its homework, students still came up with multiple excuses for being tardy, absent or turning in assigned work late. She categorized the excuses into these five categories, the family, the best friend, the evils in dorm life, the evils in technology, and the totally bizarre. For family, Segal points out that “The death of the grandfather/grandmother is, of course, the grandmother of all excuses” (565). Students will use that excuse all the time because the teacher will probably show pity for them in their sorrow. Demonstrating …show more content…
“My roommate, who is a horrible person, likes to party, and I, who am a good person, cannot concentrate on my work when he or she is partying” (566). The author states that it would be easy to go study somewhere else like the library or somewhere that is quiet. Other excuses students might give for evil dorm life is “the two people next door was running around and crying loudly last night because (a) one of them had a boyfriend/girlfriend problems; (b) one of them was throwing up blood; or (c) someone, somewhere, died” (566). Also “The Evils of Technology” is a big scapegoat because many students can say that something went wrong with the computer, printer or the Wi-Fi as Segal stated: “The computer wouldn’t let me save my work” or “The printer wouldn’t print” (566). Segal’s last category that she demonstrates is the totally bizarre where students give the strangest and most outrageous excuses such as, “She walked outside to see her neighbor cutting some wood. She called out to him, and he waved back to her with the saw. Wouldn’t you know it, the safety catch wasn’t on or was broken, and the blade flew right out of the saw and across his lawn and over her fence and across her yard and severed a tendon in her right hand” …show more content…
I knew that students gave excuses to get more time and so did I in high school, but I didn’t imagine that some students would take it to some extremes, also my previous knowledge agrees with what Segal presented throughout her entire essay on excuses. Segal increased my understanding of how the students give different excuses, and some of the excuses they give are wild and outrageous. Professor Segal never in the essay asked or pleaded for the readers to change their ways, she explained in the essay that she knew the students were lying about some of those stories. I believe that this piece is very accurate because Segal has taught at Cedar Crest College for 16 years and wrote this essay based on the excuses she has heard from the many different students over the years. I wouldn’t recommend this to my parents or grandparents, but I would recommend it to my friends, old teachers, and also to my college