To have expected a bit more acknowledgment of the help I gave?

It won’t have been marked yet.
I imagine once she sees her grade, she will thank you for helping her achieve it.

Good gracious! I am still incredibly grateful to the person who read my dissertation and that was more than 20;years ago. I can only surmise that these people have no concept of the value of what you gave them.

I wouldn't be angling for further thanks with these types. If they thank you more effusively, they will expect further help. Left as it is, if they contact you again, you can justifiably just leave it on read.

Agree with this!

I did a massive favour for niece & nephew, not a word of thanks! A huge bouquet arrived and I thought “this is the thank you”, turned out to be from a group of friends I’d done a much lesser favour for.

as the saying goes:-

No good deed goes unpunished.

Very rude, perhaps your friend more than the daughter - can picture this as something my own dad would do, using his contacts without seeing if its something I wanted. So I'd be curious if it was the daughters idea, should still send a proper thank you regardless though!

Definitely rude . I wouldn't be able to leave it at that. I'd have to message again to say, just wondering how useful you found my comments?.Hope they helped.

At that point they'd surely have to send a proper acknowledgement with thanks..

She is rude and very ungrateful, as is her mother. You took the time to proof read and make suggestions about the content and spelling and grammar which will have improved her chances of getting a good mark.

Do you or your DH see them regularly?

I did a similar favour for a friend’s son. Reviewed his applications for a job in my industry and did a mock interview for him. He eventually got the job. He told me immediately.
I got effusive thanks from him and his parents and he came over to bring me flowers. Mum insisted on buying me a drink when I next saw her. Would have been pissed off with a ‘thanks’ and no follow up.

I have done this before for friend’s children and it is a thankless task. I think there’s very little appreciation of the time and skill required to read and give useful feedback. One friend’s daughter sent me the three drafts and was most put out when I refused to review it the third time. Another time, after I moved institutions, a former student got in touch and asked me to review the 5,000 word lit. review for her MSc. No thank you!

Yes, your friend and her DD were very rude. It doesn’t take 5 minutes to write, ‘Thank you so much for your comments. They were very useful and I’ve incorporated most of your feedback. It has made my dissertation much tighter and more focused’.

I know someone whose entire degree was pretty much done by her aunty and sister. She’s thick as mince and didn’t write any of her own assignments. Another friend read and corrected/added to all her daughter’s assignments. I think it’s surprisingly common.

You were used and they were insincere to you. Don’t help any further. Quite frankly they should have bought you a gift. ‘Thanks’ 🙄😬

The response was not proportionate to the effort on your part or the fact that they don't really know you. So yes, rude.
But at least it was timely, an immediate thank you followed up with a proper response would have been acceptable to me.

Could you contact her asking her about the dissertation? Tell her that you spent over an hour going through the paper and that you haven't heard anything except 'Thanks'.

At least then she is aware how much time and effort you put into marking it. Might guilt her into actually acknowledging the favour you did.

The 'Thanks' response was thoughtless and rude but it may just be that they don't appreciate quite how much work is involved.

@Delftthunderclap Send her an invoice. And make it expensive.

I get asked to do stuff like this for people all the time in my profession and for this exact reason my answer to anything that I know will take me more than a five minute signpost is “sorry, no” unless it’s for someone I’m very close to. I personally would not usually spend 1.5h doing something for someone I don’t know. People often simply do not understand (willingly or unwillingly) how long it takes to read and give feedback. Did you find it interesting or rewarding, academically? What did you gain from doing it?

Most students do not have the privilege of having an expert look at their work and offer detailed feedback like you did, for free. That would seem obvious, but people can be unbelievably entitled. If an acknowledgment doesn’t materialise from other of them after the deadline, I would say that is appallingly rude (and immature). I would follow up to ask whether your input was helpful in any way, out of interest.

No manners or education at all to even put you in that position!
Entitled and no class !

Free loading, give an inch take a mile type of folk. Ten a penny these days

Some people are just rude and have no idea. I was asked to help a family friend’s wife (who I had never met) with advice about my city as the family were moving here. I took quite a bit of time sending her info related to areas, schools etc. I answered her follow up questions and then. Nothing. Not even a thank you by email and I never heard from them again. They did move to my city and they live not far away but I never heard from them again. 🤷‍♀️

I see the “thanks” email
as a way of confirming to you that your email had been received.

But not to follow up with a more effusive email plus a nice gift is incredibly rude. That should have happened within a couple of weeks

With some people (not very kind or intelligent people), when you do something for free, they assume it’s worth nothing, and they treat it that way. Next time, don’t do it unless it is honest to God a child that you know writing their dissertation, in which case 1.5 hours may be a favour you’re willing to do. But for some girl you don’t even know to look at? Charge whatever they can afford and is reasonable. Give them mates’ rates if you feel so inclined.

There are going to be plenty of people in this life that you want to do favours for and genuinely help; save your free time for those people, and not someone you barely know who feels it’s okay to ask you for a “favour” like this and not even thank you.

I would definitely be sending a follow up message to ask if the dissertation was submitted and whether she found my comments helpful, but I’m a bit pass agg like that.

They were rude to not thank you properly! Id be inclined to send a gushing follow up message asking how did it go, when do you get the results, best of luck etc and kill them with kindess/make them squirm hahah

Yes incredibly rude. At least you know for next time.

It seems to be the way of things these days. I've been taken aback at the amount of help that relatives have given to their grandchildren: "Oh, just helped him with structure and spelling...gave him a few ideas too..."

Thinking about it, when I was at uni in the late '70s and early '80s, many middle-class students seemed to pay for someone to proofread and type up their dissertations for them.

Hopefully there is a card and flowers and wine still to be delivered. It was very kind of you to help.