"Gems"

I collected these gems last week while grading my students' final papers for my class. In no particular order, here are the Best Of's...

Best Transition:
"This brings up another point but from the view of Durkheim, not Simmel."

Best Typo (that only sociologists are likely to understand):
"Durkheim talks about anomie or the condition of relative normalness in a whole society or in one of its component groups."

Best Unfortunate Use (or Lack of Use) of the Possessive Tense:
"The two important features of urban life that affected those living in the cities thoughts and behavior, has to do with the intensity of nervous stimuli or sensation from the city."

Best Over "Simplification:"
"With the emergence of Second Life, people are able to show a more possible self, what people want to become or are often afraid of becoming, where they can simply create an avatar by what they want to become or what they are simply afraid of becoming in reality. Avatars are lifelike icons that displays what a person's identity is by simply choosing a template and dressing it up. These avatars can change simply like our personal identity, which can be created then recreated as time passes."

Best Topic Sentence to a Formal Essay:
"While getting myself familiarized with the game Second Life and also brushing up on the articles from Kenneth Gergen, I was trying to take in every aspect I could in order to find comparisons between the two."

There are others, too numerous to list. And of course, there were stellar essays as well. Oh well, now it's time to grade the final exams.