Irritating overachiever causing friction! LONG, LONG STORY

You're probably expecting I'll start babbling about how a classmate of mine is frustrating the hell out of me. Well, I won't. Because that irritating overachiever I mentioned in the subject is ME.

Before I tell you about my situation, some background info:
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I'm the kind of girl who starts out slow and hopes to make up for it later. In high school, I didn't do shit and my grades were low. In the country where I live, the educational system consists of levels. Graduating high level in high school lands you in Uni, graduating low level has you working your way up or landing a low paying job. I ended up in a low level. I was 16 when I graduated, and pretty dissappointed in the choice of education left for me. So I started following a medium level course at college and finished that in 4 years. But I wanted to go to Uni eventually, so I enrolled in a high level course. It didn't suit me at all, so I stopped and switched to another course. I'm turning 22 and I've got a 4 year course ahead of me before I'll go to Uni for one year and finish my master.

I'll be 25. To give you some perspective: I could've been in Uni when I was 18 if I had done my best.
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So here I am at college, desperate to prove I deserve to be here. Most of the kids here graduated runner-up high level (barely falls short of Uni) so they should be pretty smart.

Anyway, this course has me doing a lot of group projects. Reports (for lack of better word) on economics, religion, you name it. The school expects us to turn in well researched, well written material. (example: for one chapter of 3 pages on the subject "the flat tax" I've used 10 sources, among them 4 books to support my theories.)
I love doing research and writing reports because I'm an avid reader, hobby writer and I'm proud of my language so I know the grammar rules well.

I'm doing this project with another classmate and I'm supposed to turn it in today. We've have been working on our pieces seperately and communicate through e-mail and during breaks at school. I asked for her piece (supposedly corrected after a teacher looked at it) so I could put it in the final version.

She mailed it to me before signing off and going to bed.
It was full of grammatical errors, errors in spelling and the prose was as if she was talking to 3 year old kiddies. She only used 1 source for the entire piece and I found out she pretty much copied all her text from that one source and edited the prose in to something I weep at.

I rewrote the entire thing during the night. This morning she wanted to see the final version and I told her I edited her piece. She was angry because I hadn't asked for her consent, but I felt it was just so bad our grades (or more importantly: my grade) would suffer for it.
Now I feel like a know-it-all over-achiever for doing it.

This isn't the first time this happened. Last week, I completed a report on religion with 2 other classmates. One supplied a really great piece, the other supplied something I'd throw in the garbage can without a second look. The problem was that I needed this piece in the follow up chapter that I was writing. Ofcourse, before hand I'd done my own research so I wouldn't be dependant on him for my deadline. I got back to him with the piece I was supposed to make and my own version of what he was supposed to do.

Him: "Yeah, but mine counts, right? We're using mine."
Me: "That's fine, but you do realize you've only used 2 internet sources and you were supposed to use atleast 5 sources, among them 3 books?"
Him: "Um, well, no. But it's the content that counts right?"
Then I had to mention that he had misinterpreted the assignment because he'd based his piece on information from a website about the Catholic Church. The community we were researching are Protestant.
Now he's angry with me because his piece has been banned from the report and says I'm a know it all, prissy twit.

I've been doing this course for 2 months and 2 people aren't really happy with me. I have the feeling the rest of the class also thinks I'm an overachiever because I always do my homework and always participate actively during class. To be honest, I don't give a shit if I end up a Maverick (like my username.) It happened before and I guess I'm not a real 'people person.' I'd just hate it if they're right when they say I'm trying too hard.

So, am I? I need a fresh look on this, because I need to complete more group assignments. And I don't want to be the one pointing out mistakes and doing most of the work. I'm not perfect, I don't know everything and I don't want the class to be under the impression that I think I do. But I guess my view on what makes something "good" is very different from theirs. Is it because I'm older? (The ones that supplied the 'bad' pieces are only 18 years old?)

On the one hand I think they should be thanking me for my efforts, on the other hand I know that they should be judged by their own. Looking from their perspective, I can understand that it's frustrating to have a snotty classmate rewrite your piece (which you think is good) because she thinks it's not acceptable. I would hate me too.



Okay, I'll quit babbling now. All mistakes in this ramble are mine ;-) (Don't be too harsh because English isn't my first language.)