There Are A Waste Of Time Rebecca Shuman Analysis

Improved Essays
Could you imagine a professor telling you that you'd never have to write an essay again? Some students would love the idea but there's a catch. Essays would be replaced with oral exams. In the article The end of the college essay by Rebecca Shuman, She argues that essays are a waste of time. She believes that most students cheat them, plagiarize, manipulate computer fonts to meet page requirements, and in most cases the students can't handle the instructor's feedback. While she argues about the carelessness of students she also expresses her hatred for grading so many papers. She thinks everybody, the instructors and the students, would be better off if essays were replaced with oral exams but there's some flaws with the idea that may have been overlooked.
To prevent students from cheating essays and plagiarizing, Rebecca had the idea to replace them with oral exams. Her main argument was that a student cannot cheat during an oral exam and if the student failed to go over the material they would be humiliated when they had to stand in front of the teacher and admit that they didn't do the work. The other advantage to not having essays is that the instructor wouldn't have to grade so many papers. The problem with this thought process is that not all students do well with oral exams. I personally have a hard time talking in front of a crowd and I lose my train of thought
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It could help put an end to cheating, plagiarizing, laziness, excessive homework, and could even help the students retain a little more knowledge. But oral exams could waste class time, cause social anxiety and test anxiety, and could cause a very sad drop in many students writing skills. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? I think it's possible that Rebecca is just a really bitter person and she overreacted about her thoughts on essays. But it's also very possible that she made some good points and it's time for a

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