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From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Teaching (and Grading on) Style
Message-ID: <1117@burl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 12:23:44 EST
Article-I.D.: burl.1117
Posted: Sun Mar  9 12:23:44 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Mar-86 00:25:08 EST
References: <11577@watnot.UUCP> <148@umcp-cs.UUCP> <4385@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 39
Summary: 

In article <4385@ut-sally.UUCP> brian@ut-sally.UUCP (Brian H. Powell) writes:
>In article <148@umcp-cs.UUCP>, mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>>  When I graded programs in the elementary courses, I gave out
>> only 50% of the points on functionality.  Everything else was on style.
>[... discussion on style.]
>> 
>> In my opinion, you can't hammer enough on style.
>
>     If you don't mind flunking a lot of people, or curving a lot.
>
>     I agree with Charley that IN ELEMENTARY (e.g., freshman/sophomore)
>COURSES, style is more important than functionality.
>     I used to grade really tough on style.  It helped get better style out
>of the students, but at the expense of grades (therefore at the expense of
>a student's enthusiasm and motivation.)  You can bring their style up to a
>certain almost-acceptable level, but after that, they feel like you're nit-
>picking.  (i.e., they felt they just couldn't please me, no matter what they
>did.)

Agreed, my profs used a lot more red ink on the papers than in the grade book
for bad style (or would give you another chance to clean it up if it looked
like you were really trying).  But some of the people in my class were so,
well, STUPID!

Prof: "All Pascal programs turned in to me MUST be run through
	<DEC pascal beautifier program> before you turn them in or I
	will not grade them."

There were some students who turned in their 5th or 6th assignment AGAIN
without running them through the beautifier.  I think at that point he
should have failed them on the assignments -- I sure wouldn't want to
think that I was passing students like that through my class to go out
and work in the job market!  What if some of them started coding military
applications *shudder*?
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
			...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj