Dead grandmothers
I’d lost track of this paper, but Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber just linked to it, so here it is: The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall Of American Society.
Students: Do not use “grandma/grandpa died” as your made-up excuse. Not only is it unseemly, but it is the paradigmatic false excuse, and we all know it.