First and foremost, he edits my papers and makes them better. I have this problem with my academic papers, see, in that I know all the information required to form a good argument and when I describe my arguments to people it's obvious I know what I'm talking about. However, when it comes to expressing them in written form I fail a little bit. So Stanley, being the wonderful, patient, supportive human being he is, will sit down with me and tediously edit my papers, asking "Okay, what do you mean by this?" and "Why are you changing persons here?" or "You see how this weakens your argument?" and making notes for me to go back and fix.
So it's wonderful because he's not just telling me what I'm doing wrong, he's helping me fix it and be more aware of it for later. And due largely to his wonderful (and last minute) editing abilities, I managed to get an A on my first big international relations paper. It made me rather happy, especially as the Junior and Senior dudes behind me who got their papers back at the same time started complaining about how hard this teacher grades papers.
So yes, that is reason one. The second reason is related in that when I sent him an essay to edit while he was still in Spain (Viva Espana!) he realized I didn't have Microsoft 7 and was, in fact, working on the very outdated Microsoft Works which made references such as footnotes and other formatting really difficult.
So what does he do? He find Microsoft Office for me to download to my computer. So now I am able to write papers without having to do things manually and can actually add endnotes and footnotes to my papers without having to haul myself (and all my reference books for that matter) up to campus so I can finish my papers. Which proved particularly helpful this last week with my Women's History paper where I ended up adding a page and a half of endnotes to a 7 page paper (it was supposed to be a 4-5 page paper...oops...).
Which reminds me. I should probably start in on my next paper so I can get it over and done with so I can enjoy myself and not think about all the homework I need to get done when I get to see him next.
Have a great day!
Toodles!
-Jillian
p.s. ONLY 2.5 WEEKS UNTIL THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!
