With this...

Dear Professor John,

I am Alphonsus, a first year international student, currently doing Medieval And Early Modern Music. I am writing in response to the gradedessay which I got back from Shelley last Tuesday.

I would like to ask if there is a marking rubrics/ guidelines which themarkers follow and grade our essays accordingly? I have generally observedthat Shelley has been stricter with her marks to the non-Aussie studentsthan Aussie students which raises my concern alittle. Could she havemisunderstand our essay or maybe she has a strong expectation of what anessay should be?

Another question would be whether we will be marked down a grade if weunintentionally or intentionally miss out the following: a cover page or abibiliography page (but with footnotes) and whether musical examples areessential and must be present in a music essay?

I certainly understand the subjectivity of essay marks and definitely trust the professionalism of the tutors and yourself. I have also attachedmy graded essay to this email for your advice. I would appreciate if youcould relook into some of our essays and provide us the marking rubrics/guidelines for the essay (if there is any), so that we will know what toexpect for each individual band of marks for our future essays.

Can I also arrange a consultation time with you to discuss on how to improve my essay in the future?

On a closing note, it would be depressing for us to get a low mark with all our weeks of research, filtering of information, planning of essays and typing our essays out. Some of us definitely put in a lot of effort and time into our essays.

Thank you.

Kind Regards,
Alphonsus Tan

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I have written out what I truly feel about the music essay and what some of us, the international students felt.

A quote from Augustus:


"Writing an assignment can be a bitch when you have too much info in your head and and a low word limit "

and I have added to the quote

"it's more bitchy if you put in alot of effort in your essay and not awarded the marks for your effort".

I just hope that those who put in lots of effort in this essay will get back their marks they truly deserve. I write in hope of being able to do some justice to my marks or if this fails, get a justified answer for this low marks and that others who put in more effort but lower marks than me will get the marks for their effort.

"Heavenly Father, only you are the fairest judge of all. You know everything, You see everything. I trust that you will reward accordingly those who put in their effort in their work. Amen."