5.3 Submissions and Late Work

This course expects you to use the internet regularly -- mostly blogs.setonhill.edu and turnitin.com.  Just as students in generations past learned to carry spare quills, a pen knife, an extra inkhorn, and spare lamp wicks, there are certain common-sense strategies that will make your use of the internet less risky. Print out a copy of the course syllabus, and print out online readings in advance, so that you can work on the readings if the internet happens to be down.

Most work will be submitted online.

Most online due dates will be set for 15 minutes before class begins (in order to discourage students from missing the first few minutes of class because they were uploading the homework).  In general, late submissions go to the bottom of my grading stack. If you are a few minutes late submitting your online work, I probably won't even notice (as long as you're ready when it's time to start class).

Unless I agree to another arrangement in advance, assignments listed as Exercises or components of the research papers lose one letter grade per day they are late. (Any day when SHU classes are in session, including Saturday, counts as one day.)

Some assignments that are designed to give you specific preparation for a particular class (e.g. worksheets or reading responses) will be collected only at the beginning of the class when they are due.

If given a good reason, I am generally willing to be flexible. Nevertheless, some work (such as group projects and peer workshops) can't be made up.

If you are late submitting any part of a multi-step assignment, you might not get feedback from me before the next part of the assignment is due.  (I can try to plan ahead for this sort of thing if you let me know in advance.)

Worksheets/Workbooks

Items designated as "workbooks" or "worksheets" are brief assignments designed to help you focus on some area of knowledge, or give you practice on some skill that is about to feed into an upcoming assignment. I might ask you to correct a grammatical error in a sample sentence, or demonstrate the ability to write a thesis statement.

Possible workbook grades are A, B, REDO, and zero.

If the workbook has a J-Web component, I will reset it so you can do it over. To REDO an essay or worksheet assignment, re-submit all your previous attempts (with my comments, if any) when you submit your latest attempt.

• The highest grade you can earn for a REDO is B.
• You may REDO multiple times if necessary.
• The opportunity to REDO ends a week after the original due date, at which point the REDO becomes a zero.

I won't generally correct your mistakes in a workbook; rather, I will give general feedback to the whole class. I would be happy to meet with you during my office hours, if you would like some one-on-one help.

Turnitin.com: Exercises

Via Turnitin.com, submit the assignments designed as Exercises. (I will send out an e-mail with instructions for setting up your Turnitin.com account.)

Getting Credit for Late Work

J-Web assignments close automatically when the deadline passes. I won't be so rigid about the exercises and project components that you upload to Turnitin.com, or the online discussion that you carry on through your blogs.  But if your assignment has not appeared in its proper place by the time I finish marking all the work that was submitted on time, I may record a zero for a late assignment.

In order to remove that zero, you will need to tell me exactly assignment you have recently submitted. (Just send me an e-mail with the name of the assignment.)