Marking essays and exams, I find that every so often I come across the strangest scripts (in a humanities subject where students are used to writing long discursive prose). They are clearly written by a student who knows a lot about the topic, and who definitely has good analytical skills, but they are a really weird combination of rambling/bombastic/unsustainable or irrelevant generalisations that veer way off the question into rhetorical assertions, that then segue incoherently into other similarly sweeping generalisations. They're quite heart-breaking to read as they can only get a very low mark: you can't follow the argument or the train of thought for more than a few sentences before the text launches off in another direction, and they rarely answer the question.
Has anyone ever come across something similar while marking? This is pure speculation on my part, but I have begun to wonder whether these are essays written under the influence of some kind of study drug / attention deficit disorder medication. I know from mass media reports that students take these to (apparently) give themselves an advantage, but I was too much of a goody-two-shoes and barely had money for bus fare let alone drugs when a student myself to have ever taken anything similar, so I've no idea really what they do. From what I hear, they make you feel a lot sharper, but that would seem to be about perception rather than a sharp jump in analytical or writing ability, wouldn't it? Reading the scripts I am reminded of listening to someone who is talking after having taken some kind of mind-altering substance, and who is clearly convinced of their own lucidity and the profundity of their own insights. But if you're listening to them and you're not on the same substance, it's clear that they are not saying anything particularly profound.
Anyway, just curious whether anyone has met a similar thing while marking, or has perhaps even taken some of these drugs & then come back in the cold light of day to read over work they've written under the influence of them, and recognises any of the features in my description? I'd really like to warn my dissertation students away from whatever it is that's causing otherwise competent people to write such incoherent prose.