Friday, Dec. 6, 1985
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansar
9
'Tis the season for excuses
By Susie Bishop Of the Kansan staff
"I can't take my test tonight because I'm president of my bowling league and tonight is the awards banquet."
"I couldn't study because my roommate pointed a gun at me and made me leave the anment."
Excuses invade the lives of professors every day. Some excuses have a more truthful ring than others.
"I got stopped by the police and I didn't have my license so they had to run a complicated license check on me."
"I saw a car wreck and I stopped to help."
'My grandmother died.' "The dog ate my paper."
"My car is spitting antifreeze and there's a strange noise coming from underneath the radiator."
"My roommate got sick and I had to take her to the hospital."
"I'm sorry I slept through your class but I stayed up all night studying for your class." Cheryl Franklin, Auburn freshman, said she tried this
Students fool themselves
excuse on some of her professors.
"I can get by with it only with a few professors," Franklin said. "The speech."
Not only the words, but a good presentation makes the excuse believable, she said.
"Smile, show your dimples and look innocent," Franklin said. "Wounded-puppy looks work real well, too."
Teachers do hear her excuses, she said, but the person that hears most of them is herself.
"Why study now? I'll just forget it before the test. I'll cam later." These frequent excuses break easily, Franklin said.
"They make me feel better, then they make me wonder if I'm lying to myself," she said.
A bad habit forms when someone makes too many excuses for themselves, Franklin said.
"I could make it through the day without making excuses to others, but not to myself," she said.
Mark Holt, Gypsum sophomore.
said that the biggest excuse he made to himself was, "I'll do it later because I work better under extreme pressure."
Holt said that excuses helped him rationalize being lazy. Other people don't hear many excuses from him, he said, because he'd rather let his actions stand on their own.
"You don't want to make excuses to others because they'll think something is wrong with you," Holt said.
But professors hear everything from the simple excuse, "My alarm didn't go off," to the unusual, "I hit my roommate's cat and I had to take it to the vet, but it died on the way so I came back home . . . and that's why I'm late."
Most excuses have something to do with illness, deaths in the family, or破裂 down, said Ray Hiner, professor of history.
People need to make excuses to face a potentially stressful situation.
said Charles Snyder, professor of psychology and author of "Excuses: Masquerades in Search of Grace."
Excuses provide people with an umbrella to shield themselves from threatening situations, he said.
But as a professor he said he had heard some wild stories around finals time.
"I'd hate to be a grandmother at test time," Snyder said. "Finals are coming up and I would like to advise all grandmothers of their failing health."
Most excuses are based in reality, he said. People have a harder time believing a far-fetched excuse.
"The key to making excuses is sublitle and moderation," Snyder said. "Far-out and off-the-wall excuses lose their effectiveness."
People make as many excuses as they make mistakes, he said. But excuse-making becomes a hindrance when the excuses lose subtlety and they're used too many times.
"A reason is an excuse that is seen as valid," Snyder said.
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