5.3 Submissions and Late Work

Online Submissions

This course expects you to use several online resources -- MyCompLab, the course website, and Turnitin.com. We will spend class time getting you comfortable with these environments. MyCompLab requires the purchase of a key, bundled with your LA100 textbook, available from the campus bookstore.

Please pay close attention to the assignment instructions. These submission guidelines may seem random, or even pointless, especially because every professor has a slightly different preference for how to submit work.

The course meets in a computer classroom. I expect that you will have access to electronic copies of your work at all times -- on a thumb drive, in your e-mail archives, or on the student network space. (You should be able to download copies of work that you've uploaded to Turnitin.com.)

In the 6 years that I have asked students to use Turnitin.com, I have never once seen a file get seriously corrupted in the uploading process.  Sometimes the spacing gets shifted around a little, but the document has always been legible.  E-mailing or printing a file is not a substitute for submitting an assignment to Turnitin.com, but if you have any concerns that your file did not upload properly, feel free to doublecheck by downloading a copy of the file you just uploaded.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your work has uploaded properly.

Late Papers

Any assignments turned in late (draft, informal writing, or revision) without prior permission from the instructor will have the final grade reduced by one third of a letter grade per day that the assignment is late, with weekends counting as two days.

Any time you have difficulty getting an assignment in in the proper format, you may "stop the late clock" by e-mailing me the assignment. The e-mail submission is not a substitute for submitting the work in the requested format.  I won't actually start grading it until the assignment is submitted in the manner I requested.

Getting Credit for Late Work

If you are asking that I waive a late penalty, e-mail me a copy of a completed Absence Form (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/teaching/Absence.doc), with a subject line that follows this pattern: "Smith LA100 Exercise 1-2 Absence Form". 

Deadlines for the submission of turnitin.com assignments are typically 15 minutes before class starts. (This is to discourage you from being late for class because you were working on your homework, and it also permits me to scan the assignments briefly before class begins.) If your assignment is late by a few minutes, but you are still on time to class, your paper won't count as late.

Please note that late submissions always go to the bottom of my to-do list. If you are concerned about not getting a paper back soon enough to help you complete the next step in a multi-stage assignment, please make an appointment and I will go over it with you orally.

Peer review assignments must be on time in order to earn any points. (That's because I want to encourage you to give your feedback to your peers while they are still working on their revisions.)

Make-up/Extra Credit Assignments

I do not have a policy of inventing extra-credit assignments to enable you to pull your grade up in the last few weeks of the term. (However, in the event of an extended illness or similar documented emergency, I am willing to be flexible.)