Attendance and punctuality in class will affect your participation grade.

Class roll will be checked at the beginning of each class.

If you will be, or have been, absent or late for whatever reason, you must inform me as soon as possible and do make-up work (when appropriate).

You will be permitted 3 absences, for whatever reasons. Each absence beyond the third will cost 10% of your participation grade. Perfect attendance will earn an extra 10% of your participation grade. Tip: try not to be absent at all, not only to earn the extra points for perfect attendance, but in case you really need to be absent during the semester.

You will be permitted to be late 5 times, for whatever reasons. Each time you're late beyond the fifth time will cost 3% of your participation grade.

See the Undergraduate Catalog for the college's expectations and guidelines.

NB: The mission of Westminster College is to help men and women develop competencies, commitments, and characteristics which have distinguished human beings at their best. The abuse of alcohol and other drugs serves only to undermine the attainment of these goals. The faculty therefore expects all students, as they do of themselves, to take seriously the implications of such risk-taking behaviors in their pursuit of a Westminster education.

Participation and attention during class, whether it is to the instructor or to other students, will affect your final grade.

You are expected to be prepared for every class by

Obviously you won't be able to contribute during every class. But your overall willingness and effort to participate throughout the semester will be noted for final evaluation. If you have any concerns about this (e.g., you're a shy person), please feel free to come talk to me about them. I will always listen.

Your participation in class discussions will be important. The discussion should include constructive criticism (of one another's points of view) in which all students are expected to take active part. Your critical responses to other students will be considered in assessing your participation in the course.

Occasional, ordinarily short assignments (e.g., summary of a reading assignment) may be used in assessing your participation.

Assignments are due before or at the beginning of class on the day they are due (unless otherwise indicated). If an assignment does not have a fixed due-date for the entire class (e.g., you get to choose the due-date), please send me an e-mail to let me know that your assignment is on the R-drive.

Assignments turned in late will be penalized an incremental grade per day (any exceptions will be at the discretion of the instructor). E.g., a written assignment graded B/C+ will be adjusted to B-/C if a day late or to C+/C- for being 2 days late. See below for an explanation of written assignment grade.

Assignments must be typed and double-spaced and conform to the following specifications—computer formatting manipulations will be noted and will affect the evaluation:

Edit your paper carefully (spelling, grammar, syntax, flow of argument, etc.). Use the Chicago Manual of Style as a general guide for writing. NB: A paper that contains too many mistakes in spelling, punctuation, formatting etc. will not receive a style grade above a D unless it is submitted again with corrections. If your writing skills need to be improved, I strongly encourage you to go to the Learning Center for assistance—or ask a friend who is a good writer to help you edit your paper. Cultivate the art of clear articulation. It’s guaranteed to bring future benefits, no matter what you do in life.

Click here to learn about Google Scholar (much better for research than Google; click on "About Google Scholar").

Click here for tips on earning higher grades.

Also click here (then click "Writing tips" or scroll to the bottom).

Click here for tips on writing good papers.

Plagiarism Warning

In all cases, make sure that you give due credit to ideas, observations, conclusions, etc. that are not your own by using quotation marks, footnotes, etc. (see the Chicago Manual of Style for details).

Make sure you document each thought, each bit of information, or each sentence. You cannot “footnote” an entire paragraph.

If plagiarism (i.e., the presentation of another person's idea as your own) is found in your written work, the assignment will receive a zero. You may fail the course if plagiarism persists. To avoid problems, always give credit where credit is due.

You must read the most recent edition of Westminster's Academic Integrity policy in the Undergraduate Catalog. The policy can also be found in the Student Handbook and the Inquiry textbook.

Click here or here to read about Katie Couric's contretemps involving plagiarism.

See entertaining videos on plagiarism: video, interactive video (ignore the parts on MLA).

>>>NB: I will be using Turnitin.com to encourage your cultivation of academic integrity and to evaluate your work. If your class is enrolled in Turnitin.com please use it to check for potential problems in your assignment that you should address before submitting it.<<<

Submission instructions:

Whenever possible, submit an electronic file of your assignment either on the R-drive or as an e-mail attachment if the R-drive is inaccessible.

Please name the file using your last name & a brief description of the assignment (e.g., "Dorman paper #1").

If you submit an assignment on the R-drive, you must do so with the mouse using "Windows Explorer," not using the "Save As" command in your word processor.

In "Windows Explorer" click View>Details to make sure that the size of your submitted file is not "0 KB" or "1 KB" (which means that your file needs to be submitted correctly).

If the due date is not the same for all students in the class, please send a brief e-mail to let me know that your assignment is on the R-drive.
 

Deciphering graded papers:

>>>NB: Not all highlighted corrections, suggestions, or comments have an impact on the evaluation (grade). I will also stop highlighting or commenting on a particular item if it is repeated several times. If you have any questions about any highlighted feedback, please come see me.<<<

If your paper is shorter than the specified number of pages, I will deduct from your paper grade, unless the content is exceptional.

If your paper is too long, I will stop reading after the specified number of pages, unless the content is exceptional.

Your paper will receive 2 grades, the first for content, the second for style; these will be averaged to arrive at the assignment grade. E.g., C/B means C for content and B for style as defined below.

You may be given the chance to revise your paper. Should you choose to do so, your revision will be evaluated and the final grade will be the average of the two.

The criteria for grading presentations are as follows:

See my presentation evaluation page for details and the form (you and) I will use for evaluation. Unless otherwise stated, "communication skills" will be the least significant for my evaluation.

Click here (and search on your own) for tips on PowerPoint presentations.

All quizzes and exams will be fair; you will know what you will be tested on.

A pop quiz will cover the readings assigned for the day the quiz is given.

If there is a particular question on a quiz or exam which no one in the class answers correctly, everyone will receive full credit for it.

My grading principles include the recognition of improvement and therefore ordinarily weighing the performance of the second half of the semester significantly more than that of the first half.

Also, if you perform significantly worse on one graded exercise (assignment, test, etc.) than on others, I will ordinarily disregard the lowest grade or score for the final evaluation of your class performance.

If you think the grade you receive on any of your work is not fair, I will be more than willing to evaluate it again and go over the work with you.

Before you make your appeal, however, consider the general descriptions given in the Undergraduate Catalog:

>>>NB: As far as I am aware, the general college grading results seem not to reflect the above definitions (e.g., B tends to represent satisfactory work rather than C). Grading according to the above standards may also carry unfair consequences for many students (e.g., financial aid disqualification, transcript misinterpretation). Therefore, although I will grade using the official catalog descriptions—which means you should interpret my evaluations according to the above understandings of the letter grades—I will calibrate the final course grade for the transcript to reflect the grading practices at Westminster. So, you will receive two final grades: (1) one will indicate what I think your work merited at the end of the semester (i.e., calculation of all the grades and scores you earned) and (2) the other will be calibrated for the transcript. The former is only for you to know; the latter will be reported to the registrar for your transcript. In most cases, this means that your grade on the transcript will be higher than the grade you earned according to the catalog definitions. This dual-grade policy is the only solution I have for the moment for being honest with you about the quality of your work as well as being fair to you with respect to the rest of the college. If you have any questions or concerns about this, or if you have a better solution to suggest, please let me know.<<<

The conversion for scores and grades is as follows: