I graded forty two essays this weekend and by essay thirty I could not tell anymore which ones were real.
Not because the writing was bad. Because it was all suspiciously fine. Same five sentence paragraphs, same little transition words, same hollow confidence in the thesis statement. I flagged six of them and two students cried in my office on Monday insisting they wrote every word themselves, and honestly I believe one of them.
My department chair told us to just use our judgment, which is a nice way of saying there is no actual plan here.
I used to love reading what my students came up with. Now I open every file bracing for it.
Anonymous Egret,