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Administrative Policies

© Dr. Daniel Paul O'Donnell, 1998-2001

The policies outlined in this document are to be followed in all classes taught by Dr. O'Donnell. Failure to follow them can result in your grade being reduced by a letter grade or more.

Table of Contents

(Click on item to go to relevant section)

  1. Introduction
  2. Essay and Assignment Policies
    1. Pre-Submission Checklist
    2. Documentation
      1. What do I cite?
      2. How do I cite?
    3. Style Sheet
      1. Layout
      2. Quotations
    4. Due Dates, Extensions and Late Penalties
      1. Extensions
  3. Tips on Argument and Structure
    1. First Steps in Literary Analysis
    2. Additional General Tips
  4. Information about my Grading
    1. Grading Criteria or How do you tell an A+ from a B-?
    2. What do I do if you make a mistake or if I don't agree with the grade you assign me?
    3. Letter Grades and Percentage Equivalents
      1. What does my grade mean?
      2. How do you calculate my grade?
      3. How do you convert letter grades to a percentage?

Introduction

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These pages describe the policies I will be following in accepting and grading most pieces of formal written work in my courses. They contain information on style, documentation, layout, and my standard policies on late essays and extensions. Most of these policies are concerned with essays, although some are of application to all types of work.

Marks will be deducted from your work if you fail to follow these guidelines, unless there is something about your work that suggests an exception may apply. You should always see me before you hand in work that deliberately deviates from these standards.

I am requiring you to follow these rules in order to save me time and to help you get more from your work in my course. Your tuition is paying for my comments on your ideas and arguments. If all students follow the same rules, I will have to spend less time on relatively trivial administrative matters and will have much more time available for commenting on your real work.

If you are in any doubt about anything discussed in these pages, please get in touch with me.

Essay and Assignment Policies

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Pre-Submission Checklist (Back to Table of Contents)

This checklist is available as a separate document (http://home.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/policies/checklist.htm). You may be required to print this form and submit a completed copy with your essay.

You can use the following list to check that your essay meets the minimum requirements for your course. I will deduct a minimum of 1/3 of a letter grade from essays that do not meet applicable standards set out here; in serious cases I reserve the right to assign a greater penalty. Most of the points mentioned here are discussed in greater detail below. If you do not understand what a particular standard means, you should consult the MLA Handbook, Chicago Manual of Style, relevant sections of this web-site, or come and see me.

Layout (Click here for more information on layout and style):

My essay

Quotations (Click here for more information on layout and style):

The quotations I use

Documentation (Click here for more information on what and how to document):

Proof-Reading

Due Dates, Extensions and Late Penalties (Back to Table of Contents)

Essays are due at the beginning of class on the day specified on your syllabus. Essays handed in any time after this (including during or right after class) are late. The late penalty is one third of a letter grade per day or part thereof, including weekends. This means an 'A+' paper that is one day late, will be given a final grade of 'A', and an 'A' paper that is three days late will be given a 'B', etc. The penalty works out to between 2.5-3% per day.

Papers should whenever possible be handed to me. If you shove a paper under my office door or put it in my mailbox, you run the risk of it being lost or overlooked. This is important because late penalties cover the entire period from the due date to the time I receive the paper in my hands or the date stamped on first page by the departmental administrator. If you push the paper under my door while I am in class on Friday afternoon and I don't find it until Monday morning, it is three days late.

Test and exams must be written on the scheduled day. I make exceptions only for medical crises in your immediate family (i.e. involving you, your immediate dependants or guardians, or some other very close relative or friend). Even then, I will accept such excuses only upon presentation of a doctor's note or a typed and signed letter explaining the circumstances of your absence. You should be especially careful about final exams. I will not accept dentist appointments, doctor appointments, job interviews, or weddings as valid excuses for missing a final exam. You should make sure you can make the final before you take the course.

Extensions (Back to Table of Contents)

Except under the most unusual of circumstances, extensions are granted only for medical, family, or personal emergencies. In all cases, I want the circumstances documented by a doctor's line or similar, or, in cases where this is impossible, a written and signed letter explaining why the extension was necessary.

I'd like you to contact me in advance whenever possible if you are going to need an extension. I will of course grant extensions if a medical or other emergency prevents you from doing so.

Especially in the case of family medical emergencies, you should not worry about contacting me until after things are settled enough for you to do so.

Documentation (Back to Table of Contents)

What do I cite? (Back to Table of Contents)

Documentation is often poorly understood by junior-level undergraduates. Many report that their high schools required them to document their sources only in the case of direct quotation or close paraphrase.

This is inadequate for University-level humanities research. At the University level, you must document the source of all specific intellectual debts in your work. As in high school, this means all direct quotations and all paraphrases--but also all information and ideas that you have taken from another source whether or not you quote or paraphrase it in your essay. A very few exceptions can be made for material that represents normally uncontested common knowledge (i.e. that World War II took place between 1939 and 1945; that French is a Romance Language). But this category is much smaller than most students realise: most historical, sociological, and scientific facts and opinions need a source citation.

Here are some examples of material that must be accompanied by a source citation:

Documenting all intellectual debts is important for two reasons. First of all, it protects you in the case of error. If you make undocumented claims about, for example, the nature of Plato's philosophy, you are claiming that you have researched this issue directly from the primary sources--and more importantly, that you are therefore also responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation 'your' research contains. You are also presumably willing to have your grade reduced as a result if any errors exist. By documenting your sources, you transfer this responsibility for accuracy to your source. If you have chosen your sources wisely and cited them accurately, then the responsibility for errors about the documented material lies with the source, not your paper.

Proper and complete documentation is also important for the intellectual discipline it involves. Humanities research often involves questioning the grounds upon which people believe things. By forcing yourself to document every idea that is not the direct result of your own research, you become more careful about the basis for your own thought. Facts that cannot be sourced or demonstrated from your own research may turn out to be simple prejudice. You have a duty to find out why you think you know what you know.

How do I cite? (Back to Table of Contents)

A second misconception about documentation is that there is only one kind. This appears to be encouraged by some high schools and community colleges, where students are sometimes taught a single system (usually the APA) and led to believe that this is adequate for all University courses.

In fact, most university disciplines have their own documentation standards and styles. Physicists, Chemists, Linguistics, Psychologists, and Literary Scholars all cite sources using different methods. Sometimes the differences between these methods are relatively trivial and are maintained purely for reasons of tradition and professional jealousy. English professors think historians don't really know what they are doing; physicists are notorious for thinking nobody else can do anything right--least of all chemists. Other differences are more fundamental, however. Literary scholars, for example, always cite page numbers. This habit developed out of the nature of their research, which requires accurate transcription and an awareness of the specific context in which information is found. Experimental scientists, on the other hand, rarely cite information taken from secondary sources by page number. This is because their work often depends less on their sources' precise wording than the methodology used or conclusions reached. As a student at a liberal arts university, you have the perhaps unpleasant task of learning the appropriate method of documentation for each discipline you study. You need to document like an English professor in English 3601, and like a physicist in Physics 2000.

In English in North America, the standard for bibliographic style in undergraduate essays is the MLA Handbook, or the more professionally-oriented Chicago Manual of Style. You should look up one or the other of these books in the library or, in the case of the MLA Handbook, consult one of thousands of sites that reproduce it on the internet (search for "MLA"). Between them, these books tell you how to cite anything you are likely to use in an English essay: plays, novels, diaries, letters to the editor, the cover of a CD-ROM, videos, etc.

Style Sheet (Back to Table of Contents)

The following style sheet should be followed for all essays - unless there is something about your work that makes the suggestions here inapplicable. Examples of written work which might be unsuitable for these guidelines include creative projects (i.e. short stories, plays, poems); parodies (i.e. essays written to mimic some recognisable style); journals or diaries. I am open to suggestions. But if you are in doubt, follow this style sheet or ask me for advice. You should always discuss your project with me before beginning on a non-standard (creative, etc.) piece of work. I will not accept non-standard work that has not been cleared with me first.

A detailed discussion of style - especially citation style - can be found in the MLA Handbook or the Chicago Manual of Style. The MLA Handbook is the standard style manual in English literary studies; the Chicago Manual of Style is a standard guide to North American university press style. I expect students to consult one or the other. I will deduct marks (beginning with at least a 1/3 of a letter grade [±2.5%]) from essays that depart significantly from the recommendations given below or in these guides.

Layout (Back to Table of Contents)

Quotations (Back to Table of Contents)

Tips on Argument and Structure

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First Steps in Literary Analysis

By Janet Bertsch

A naïve reader reads for plot, in order to answer the question "What will happen next?" A sophisticated reader develops a deeper, more reflective understanding of the text as he or she reads. Sophisticated readers enjoy the plot of a work, but also pay attention to other aspects of the form and content of the text: important themes and ideas, characterisation, and the use of specific literary techniques. The list which follows presents formal guidelines for reflective reading. It is intended to help to deepen our basic understanding of any literary text. With time, students will develop their ability to analyse literary works without formal assistance, but will still ask and answer many of these fundamental questions as they read.

  1. Before you begin to read:
    1. Who is the author of the text? Do you know anything about him/her?
    2. What kind of edition of the work are your reading? Is it complete? Is it a translation or adaptation?
    3. When was it written?
    4. Why was it written?
    5. What are the formal characteristics of the text? Is it prose? Poetry? What kind? What metre and rhyme scheme?)
    6. Is it fiction or non-fiction (if this is indicated)?
    7. What does the title lead you to expect?
    8. Does the title contain any references to other works, or any figures of speech?
    9. When you start reading, particularly if the work includes an introduction or preface:
    10. Who is the narrator of the text? Is he or she reliable?
    11. If it is a novel, short-story, or poem, is the text written in first- (I, we) or third-person (he, she, they)?
    12. Does the text involve/address a fictional or ideal reader or audience? What assumptions or recommendations does it make about this audience?
    13. What do the first few pages of the text lead you to expect? Do your expectations match your expectations from reading the title?
    14. Does the author use any identifiable literary techniques, figures of speech, etc.?
    15. Does the narrator provide any additional information about the text, e.g. why it was written, what it is about, why a particular style was chosen to write it, whether it contains any important moral or philosophical ideas?
    16. Does the text claim to be true or false? Is it a product of experience or imagination? Do you believe this claim?
  2. While you are reading:
    1. Does the main text fulfil the expectations you developed from the title and from the first few lines or pages? If not, does it intentionally subvert these expectations?
    2. Who are the main characters, and what techniques are used to describe and characterize them? Are they sympathetic or unsympathetic figures? Does the narrator recommend or seem to imply a certain reaction to them on the part of the reader?
    3. What ideas and themes - moral, theoretical, or philosophical - appear in the text? Who articulates them? Is the reader intended to approve or disapprove of these ideas, or perhaps simply to come to a deeper understanding of them?
    4. What motifs, figures of speech, metaphors, etc. recur throughout the text? How are they developed? Why do you think they appear?
    5. What connections can you make between different parts of the text?
    6. Are there biographical elements of the author’s life which strongly influence the content of the text?
    7. Based on your general knowledge, what connections can you make between the text and external elements, e.g. the history of the time in which it was written, the intellectual climate of the time, other literary and theoretical works by the author or his/her close friends which may have exerted an influence?
    8. Based on your general knowledge, quickly compare and contrast the work with texts which may have influenced/been influenced by this one, and with other works which use similar devices or which possess similar concerns.
  3. When you finish reading:
    1. Did the ending fulfil your expectations? If not, why? If so, why not? Do you understand it?
    2. Did you enjoy the work or not? Why? Was the work well-written and stimulating? Was it sophisticated and complex, and did it make you think? If you did not enjoy the work, can you appreciate some of its good qualities? If not, why was it disappointing?
    3. Does your copy of the text contain any extra information which could enhance your appreciation of the work - a foreword or an afterword, for example?
    4. Where can you find more information about the work and its author? Do you feel more information would be helpful/useful?

Additional General Tips

Here are some additional general points to keep in mind as you write. If you need detailed help with your essay or your writing, please feel come and see me or consult with instructors in the Writing Lab (International Students Office).

Information about my Grading

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Grading Criteria or How do you tell an A+ from a B-? (Back to Table of Contents)

Most of this material has been developed through personal observation. I have recently benefited from the work of Robert Runté of the Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge.

Expectations for University level work can vary from discipline to discipline and instructor to instructor. At the same time, however, there are some cross discipline standards. You can take it as a given, for example, that poorly executed, sloppy, or extremely incorrect work will get you a poor grade in both sculpture and computer science. Likewise, it is hard to think of a discipline where highly original, well-thought-out, and carefully executed work would not usually be rewarded with a very high grade.

The following list explains the criteria I use in grading student work. Although its primary focus is the literary essay, I have seen similar criteria in other disciplines and at other Universities. Mutatis mutandis, you should find that it is applicable to your work in most courses

I use the following criteria in grading student work. Few papers will match all or exclusively the criteria listed under each grade (a highly original, well argued, well-written, well-documented paper might have an unacceptable number of typos, for example). The weighting of the criteria is also not absolutely rigid: I tend to reward originality or subject-mastery more heavily than I penalise its absence. In one area, however, I am rigid: serious or frequent errors of fact, inadequate or non-existent documentation, and misrepresentations of your own or others research will be severely punished. In addition to a lower over all grade on your paper, you can also expect to be assigned additional penalties starting at least 1/3 of a letter grade and ranging up to an F in course.

A (Excellent)
B (Good)
C (Satisfactory)
D (Poor)
F (Failing)

What do I do if you make a mistake or if I don't agree with the grade you assign me? (Back to Table of Contents)

It may happen that I make a mistake in grading your work, that you feel that I have graded your work unfairly, or that you believe I have incorrectly or inconsistently applied my administrative policies to your work. If you find yourself in this situation, I recommend that you arrange to meet me to discuss the problem. I will gladly correct any mistakes I have made,; in the case of a disagreement as the the application of a specific policy or the merit of a specific piece of work, I am usually willing to reconsider my decision—and always willing to explain my position. If you are still dissatisfied, the University has a procedure by which you can appeal any grade you believe was assigned unfairly. You can find out more in the Calendar or by contacting the Student Union.

Although I am under most circumstances willing to correct or reconsider grades I have assigned, I do have some requirements that must be met before I will do so:

  1. I will not reconsider grades or correct minor mistakes after final grades for a course have been submitted ("minor" in this case means errors worth less than 2-3% of the final grade in the course; anything less will have no appreciable effect on your letter grade). This rule only applies after the grades have been submitted; I will fix all mistakes before the end of term.

Letter Grades and Percentage Equivalents (Back to Table of Contents)

What does my grade mean? (Back to Table of Contents)

I will be using the following letter grade/percentage equivalencies:
 

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Failing

Letter

A+

A

A-

B+

B

B-

C+

C

C-

D+

D

D-

F

Percent

100-94

93-90

89-86

85-82

81-78

77-74

73-70

69-66

65-62

61-58

57-54

53-50

50-0

In marking work I try to keep the University's official description of these grades in mind (a description can be found in the University Calendar, Part IV.3.a). If you get an A it means your work is excellent; a B means your work is good; a C means it is satisfactory; a D that it is poor; and an F that it is failing to meet University-level standards.

How do you calculate my grade? (Back to Table of Contents)

The University employs a letter system of grading. These are converted to a numerical value (a "Grade Point") for assessing your overall academic performance (a "Grade Point Average" or "GPA"). The University does not record grades as a percentage.

In my courses I use two systems of grading depending on the nature of the work being assessed. Argumentative works and artistic performances are graded using a letter system. Tests of specific skills or knowledge (such as identification questions or tests of linguistic tests) are graded out of 100.

I calculate your final grade in three steps.

  1. I convert all letter grades to a percentage
  2. I calculate your final grade as a percentage using the weighting announced at the beginning of each class
  3. I convert your final percentage to a letter grade using the "Letter Grades and Percentage Equivalents" table supplied above

How do you convert letter grades to a percentage? (Back to Table of Contents)

I convert letter grades to a percentage by taking the median value in each grade range and rounding up to the nearest whole number. Thus an A essay is worth 92% (the median [91.5%] rounded up to the nearest whole number). An A- paper is worth 88%, and so on. If you receive an F, a percentage (45%, 43%, 21%, etc.) should appear alongside your letter grade. This is used 'as is' in calculating your final grade).

© Daniel Paul O'Donnell, 1999, 2000.