Ask professor to review draft or assignment (PROF explains)

Are you working on a paper or assignment and want some feedback from your professor about how you are doing so far?

Perhaps your professor is a very tough grader and you are afraid you are doing it all wrong. You don’t want to fail the assignment after all.

Sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what your professor is wanting and it would be nice if you could kindly ask your professor to give you some feedback on your assignment before you submit it.

But not too fast. It isn’t that straightforward. There are some strategies to get good grades.

I was a professor for a long time and I will tell you exactly how I would respond to students who asked me this very question, and then I will tell you how you should ask your professor to look over an assignment.

There is a way to do this to give you the best chance of getting some great feedback that will hopefully improve your assignment so you get a better grade.

READ NEXT : How to ask a professor to clarify an assignment

Can you request a review of your rough draft?

It is not customary for professors to review a rough draft of students’ assignments because they don’t have time to do this for every student so they avoid giving preferential treatment to one student and not others.

Obviously, if a professor reviewed your assignment BEFORE you turned it in, and made corrections or suggestions, you would have one of the best papers.

It can be unfair to allow some students to get a review of their paper before they submit it. Professors might be accused of having favorites in class.

As a former professor, I rarely looked over students’ assignments before they officially turned them into me, but I was asked by dozens of students to do this over the years.

Not very many students reached out to me to do this, but it did happen, and I will tell you how I handled it later.

While it isn’t a terrible idea to talk to your professor about your assignment and get some clarification or help, there is a right way to do it.

You don’t want to go into your professor’s office and ask them to look over your draft without some additional conversation.

Keep reading to learn how to do this and get the assistance you need.

Is it possible to ask your professor to check an assignment?

Yes, it is possible to ask your professor to check an assignment however their feedback is going to be limited because they do not want to give you too much information since the assignment isn’t submitted yet. If they provide too much help, your assignment will eventually be the perfect submission.

Professors assign these assignments so that students can independently work on them. If you go talk to your professor and have them look over it, it’s like they are pre-grading it, which defeats the entire purpose of the assignment.

There is a much better way to talk to your professor about looking over your assignment.

I will give you a template on how to talk to your professor about this later.

How to ask professor to review your assignment BEFORE you turn it in

If you want to ask your professor to review your assignment before you turn it in, you should not vaguely ask them for a review. Instead, you should ask them if you are on the RIGHT TRACK and await their feedback.

When I was a professor, if a student came to my office and asked me to look over their paper, it appeared like they wanted me to review it and give them feedback on how to improve to get a better grade.

If I did review their draft, I felt like I would make their assignment TOO PERFECT by offering my suggestions OR I felt like they expected a higher grade just because I gave my stamp of approval.

Look, I understand that you want a good grade, but your professor is the one who is grading the assignment after all.

And if you ask them to look over it, they are going to feel obligated to give you a better grade.

Let’s say you do work with your professor on an assignment and get a lot of assistance.

And then you turn in your paper but it isn’t that good.

Your professor COULD feel pressured to give you a better grade because they worked so much with you on the draft.

They might think that you believed you were doing it right all along and they have no choice but to deduct a few points here and there. If you do bad, they could blame themselves for not helping enough.

For this reason, I do not think you should go and ask them for this type of direct help.

Instead, you have to ask them if you are on the right track. This way they can give you some valuable feedback without grading your assignment early.

They will be directing you on how to focus your efforts instead of editing your assignment. It is a much better request.

Template asking professor to review draft

As a former professor, here is my template asking your professor to review your draft or assignment before you submit it.

Professor

I am working on our assignment and I hit a few roadblocks. I may be overthinking the instructions and I was hoping that you could glance over the assignment and see if I am on the right track. I am not asking for any corrections but would prefer some general feedback to make sure I am doing everything as expected. I want some additional feedback before I moved on with the assignment to ensure that I am focusing my efforts on the correct material. If you have another vision for this assignment, let me know please.

Thanks.

This email isn’t about asking your professor for a review with corrections. Instead, you are specifically asking your professor to make sure you are doing the assignment correctly.

There is nothing wrong with asking this.

Your professor is likely to help because they don’t think you expect detailed feedback that could give you an advantage.

It would be even better if you could provide some specific questions about your draft that you want your professor to review and approve.

Otherwise, this is a great place to start the conversation.

Will professors help you with homework?

Professors will help students with their homework but they won’t provide too much detailed feedback because the purpose of homework is to have students independently complete the work.

As a former professor, here is how I would help students with their homework.

• Give an overview - I would glance over their work so far and give them a thumbs up or thumbs down to let them know if they are on the right track.

• Provide clarification - I would make sure students understood my instructions and I explained how they should complete the assignment according to the rubric.

• Offer some academic assistance - Instead of me offering direct assistance to avoid a conflict of interest, I would refer them to the university’s academic assistance programs.

Every professor is different though and some professors might be more strict and refuse to offer any additional help while others may be open to working on the assignment with you.

You won’t know until you talk to them. Use my template above to learn how to start this conversation.

Why won’t professors help students with homework?

Professors do not want to provide significant help to students working on homework because it may give you an advantage compared to the rest of the class if they review it and provide their help.

Some professors want students to use their critical thinking skills to complete the homework on their own.

It can defeat the purpose of the assignment if the professor assists students on homework before it is turned in. But there is nothing wrong with making sure you are on the right track and completing the assignment correctly.

Also, professors don’t have a lot of extra time and if lots of students start asking for help, they will not have enough hours in the day to do this.

I would suggest that students develop a study group with their classmates instead.

FEATURED POSTS YOU’LL LOVE