Announcement Posted July 24th
This is the last week of the semester. Once you have finished Assignment Twelve, I can get you started on the Final Exam. The final will be like our regular essays, so you won't need to come onto campus for it. However, it is crucial that students follow the course policies. If you have been sending work but aren't receiving replies you need to take the necessary steps to contact me outline in the course policies. Don't imagine that I am too busy to reply to the essays that are sent. You should be receiving scores within 48 hours, and typically within 24. Students who don't follow along with the policies run the risk of not having enough points at the end of the semester to pass the class.
As I have mentioned, quite a few students are missing at least one essay and often have also missed a few discussion board postings. You can pass the class with an essay and a few missing postings, but you don't want to miss more than that. Missing two essays will leave you very close on points (see syllabus grade scale) and will make it difficult to pass the class. .
Below the course policies are a few recommendations, as well as information on how to calculate your grade progress. We don't have an online grade book, as I will send your scores to your personal, private email account, so make sure to monitor your grade progress and always let me know if you have questions.
Course Policies
If you are struggling with the readings or writings, please take time to ask questions and give an update if you are not able to send in an assignment during the week. If you don't receive a reply from me on an assignment or question within 48 hours, please send a follow-up message. If you don't receive a reply to your follow-up e-mail, then definitely use my voice mail. This can be found on our syllabus. If you have not received a score, than assume that you have no credit for the assignment and make sure to take the initiative to find out why.
Plagiarism is a common problem in academics and seems especially so in on-line classes. Some students copy directly from Internet sites, other texts or even other students' papers and fail to include quotation marks and citation. I run into numerous incidents of this each semester and am becoming increasingly less tolerant of this problem. I will approach incidents of plagiarism on a case by case basis. However, at the minimum, expect a failing grade in the paper if plagiarism is found. Also expect that I will file an incident report with Citrus College's Dean of Students. At the maximum, you will also receive an F in the course. Any questions? If so, please send them via email so we can make sure this doesn't happen to you.
Remember:
- don't use outside sources for our papers. If you feel confused, use the discussion board or contact me directly.
- while it is okay to talk out ideas with friends and family, don't have them write any of the papers for you.
- only changing a few words from someone else's writing means you still have to include quotation marks and citation. I can help students with examples of that if you feel you need it.
Calculating your grade for the class:
The essay scores are based on 10 points and are roughly equal to the following grades:
10-9 = A, 8 = B, 7 = C, 6 = D
Keep track of your point totals and match them with the syllabus grade scale.
Discussion board postings are based on credit points. Note that "Major Postings" are worth double credit. I might be a bit off on this, but I believe we will have 20 possible credits for postings. The number of points you receive will be based on the percentage of credits earned. For example, if you earn 18 out of 20 credits (90%), you would then get 90% of participation points (27).