Thursday when I went to shadow, I experienced something that I thought was truly a rare case for collegiate students--this guy had written in its entirety a paper that wasn't due until two weeks later. I wish I had that kind of time and motivation. But that, of course, is not the point of this blog post. The draft he had was pretty solid; there were some areas where further explication would be helpful, but overall he had a very good paper. So what, right? Well my writing consultant used a red pen and wrote all over his draft. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't all the writing she was doing; although I don't believe all of it was necessary, because she couldn't resist making proofreading marks as she went along. What arrested my attention was the pen. Seeing all of that writing on the pages in that menacing color made me feel like he had so much more to accomplish in the paper, when in fact he didn't. I couldn't imagine what psychological impact seeing all that red had on him--maybe it was none at all, but I personally couldn't keep my attention away from it. After learning all about the negative effects of red pen usage, I was honestly shocked that my consultant would have readily chosen it for the consultation.
But why do all these little things matter anyway?
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