Love it!

Loved this! I also wondered why no one ever commented on the length of the essays Hermione wrote. I’m actually going to school for writing and film production, and we’ve been taught that over-writing is usually a sign that you had no plan. Also regurgitating the text book is usually a sign you didn’t really learn anything. Granted if we go a page over, that’s not a big deal, but I once had a friend who wrote a 13 page paper when a 5 page paper was what was needed. Our professor literally cut out the paragraphs that were relevant and taped them together to show her what he expected in the future.

I enjoyed this story because I always wondered why Hermione was not penalized for overwriting the written assignments. I mean it's one thing to have a paragraph more but she spoke of writing several feet more than what was asked (that's equal to several pages extra). As someone who has taught High School English I know that having students write around my instructions were important. It did count towards their grade. If I gave an assignment for a 2 page paper and received a 5 page I would penalize for it; now if it was 2 an 1/2 no that would be fine.

I've also had teachers from elementary school up to college penalize for not following instructions. I had one teacher, in elementary school, that we could not write past the blue line so we had a margin. Anything past that blue line was not counted; trust me that could hurt a paper. In high school I had a teacher that we had to write in ink and there could not be any crossed out words. Believe me after re-writing a paper two times you leaned to be very careful in your writing of that assignment.

I also always wondered with Hermione if she was penalized or not for how she would repeat the book material word for word. We know Snape said something to her in the third book about quoting the text when she answered a question. Did she write her papers like that or did she actually put the sections in her own words? Did she quote from the book and then site it or did she plagiarize? It is just something I always wondered about along with why she was allowed to disregard the instructions.

Of course, they don't even know what "fictional literature" is, as such isn't taught in any class at Hogwarts, and purebloods have no idea that something exists if it's not in the magical world. But with one sentence Hermione could be taught better:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

Meh...a memory comes to my mind of when I was doing my BA in English and I did the 5 page assignment required but forgot that they asked for double spaced - wrote it single space. LOL Got a big fat 5 on it ( which translates to an A or 100% etc in other systems). The Prof also said that it's not a problem if we go over the limit, it's refreshing to see someone putting in the extra effort.

P.S. I adore HG :)

Another who realizes Joanne isn't God. Thank Martin!

And where does this go...nowhere...

As a retired ELA teacher, I fully understand the issue of students who insist on putting anything and everything about a subject into their essays, whether it is related to the specific topic or not. Having one student like that is a pain. Having several in a class or year group makes grading a nightmare, because the only way to really make sure a student truly understands is to go through the entire essay sentence by sentence and point out the items that do not even address the topic. It is quite time-consuming, and a kid like Hermione would probably need more than one essay to get the point across. (She is very stubborn. Notice she considers the staff "misunderstanding." That suggests she just doesn't get it.) Multiply this by several kids, and you can see the extra time they can take.

Yeah, it's been the better part of a decade since college and longer since high school, but no teacher appreciates someone turning in double or triple length essays. Be like if you had to give a 15 minute speech but made it take 45. Which actually did happen with an English presentation. Teach wanted to present 2-3 a day but first girl took up the entire period. Say what you need in the amount of space given.

I remember reading from j k in one of the books how Hermione fretted if her over long essay would be sufficient. Actually if ur really that genius as Hermione is claimed to be by herself and her supporters she would not do over length but actually try and condense imp but relevant info into a essay rather than cramming stuff which is irrelevant and sometimes just view points of diff authors in same topic

Love this very realistic portrayal of Hermione, something I don't think I've really seen outside Barefoot XO Time and Again & Daily-Chan A Bond Of Family Series recently.

Hermione is someone I could easily see padding her work with what in the end would be useless information, either because she wants to prove that she's better than everyone else regardless of reality or because she doesn't really understand the assignment and hopes that the answer is in the reams of text book information she regurgitated back to the teacher.

I can also see her arrogantly ignoring everything and everyone that doesn't agree with her world view as well as use others to ensure she's recognized as she believed she deserves, she is Dumbledore of the next generation, trying to mold the world into her image regardless of anyone or anything else.

I didn't even read this but judging by your reviews you don't understand British secondary schooling bc it's literally completely different to America and we don't even really have word counts unless it's coursework so a teacher would be thrilled if every student put as much work in as Hermione does although that would be a lot of marking. Also people comparing it to degrees - secondary school is very different to that level they're not really comparable.

Interesting concept and well written, I think what some reviewers are referring to is probably an English/ British school thing? I've just finished secondary school in the UK (11-18 yrs, same as Hogwarts) and apart from externally marked pieces of coursework, the vast majority of the time teachers gave a guideline on the minimum words expected, and for coursework there tended to be leeway (for example, a piece of coursework with a 3000 word limit could really be anything from 2500-3500). For normal classwork, they discouraged 'waffling' and putting in too much unneeded information, but if you'd gone into more detail and gone over the 'word limit' you weren't penalised, they recognised the extra effort you'd put in. Hope that kind of explains some of what people are talking about, we don't tend to go for midterms, papers and assingments in the UK at secondary level, they're quite an American concept I think, it's more homework and end-of-years with two major sets of exams (OWLS/GCSEs and NEWTS/A Levels) like in Hogwarts :)

Thank you for this. I don't know what some of these reviewers are talking about. While some assignments are assigned a minimum, some have maximums and you are penalized if you go above the maximum.
"Going above and beyond" reviewer Elased is not the same as writing more than required. In my college experience, writing more means you don't know what you are talking about. It translates in professors' eyes that you just want to make sure you have the answer there without knowing exactly what the answer is. If you do know what you're talking about, it means you don't know how to consolidate information. I would surely have failed some of my classes if I wrote like Hermione.

I like the story, and am not sure why some of the reviewers say the word/page limit is a minimum, I’ve just completed a bachelor of science and if we broke the word/page limit but more than 10% we were heavily penalised with some lecturers just not reading past that point.