Giving writing feedback on students' math papers

[luzula]

I'm sorry for making two frustrated posts in one day, but:

What a student writes (this is an authentic example):
"It should be mentioned that in all calculations the assumption is that we start the pandemic with just one infected person."

What a mathematician would write:
"Set I(0) = 1."

I mean, the first sentence is not grammatically wrong, but it is very stylistically wrong. : )

Comments

[regshoe]

There's certainly something about homework and lack of concision. Maybe it's a habit formed from doing essays with a minimum word count? (Also—I didn't think 'concision' was a real word, but apparently it is!)

[luzula]

Yeah. I mean, verbosity is not wrong in all circumstances, but in a math paper, it definitely is...

[tei]

I guess the real asshole-english-teacher response would be, "Should it be mentioned? Very well, do you plan on mentioning it?"

[luzula]

Hee. I just strike out all their unnecessary words with red ink...

[jesse_the_k]

Yikes! That's A++ for a D-.