Grading & Policies

General Advice

Do your reading always and you'll stand a better chance at a good mark. Slack off and I've little time for any complaints about lower-than-expected grades.  Not everyone gets an A. You can, but you can also earn Bs, Cs, Ds, even Fs.

Attendance

Come to class every time, and save your skips for real illnesses. You get 1 skip without consequences . After that skip, your final grade for the course goes down a +/- for EACH skip. 

If you have a DAN that permits additional skips, please forward it to me.

You will be counted absent if your camera is not turned on during Zoom sessions.

Participation

This will be a major part of your grade. 

Grades

There are no in-class or final exams.  All work is also on a 0-100 scale. 

• Reading Journal and class participation: 50% (you will get four assessments I average)

• Short Analysis Essay:  25%

• Podcast: 25%

Calculation of Final Grade:

• 93+ points = A 

• 90-92 points = A- 

• 87-89 points = B+ 

• 83-86 points = B 

• 80-82 points = B-

• 77-79 points = C+

• 73-76 points = C

• 70-72 points = C-

• 67-69 points = D+ 

• 65-66 points = D 

• 60-64 points = D- 

• 59 or lower: F

Extra Credit? No, I don't round up. But I will drop your lowest weekly response grade (say a  zero on a day you skipped) unless it is a zero for plagiarism.

Plagiarism & AI Policy

Richmond faculty, by and large, are not adopting AI. Most students are using it, no matter what we say. I say that as an person who researches AI.

If you have AI generate a response and I can "smell it," you'll have to redo it. On the other hand, you WILL use AI richly in this class to help you structure, assess, and revise work. Why? It's simple: if you cannot add value to AI-generated content after you graduate, many of you will not be employed. I consider myself a "wary adopter" and I'll teach you some AI-skills that will help you later, including good prompt-engineering strategies.

I do not object to your employing Grammarly for checking style and grammar. The software can help you to vary wording--UR students have amazingly poor vocabularies from lack of serious reading and other bad habits; repeating words or using thesauri in a simplistic way does hurt their grades.

If you feel that you may have inadvertently plagiarized our texts, run samples by me. We employ NO outside sources in our writing, just our assigned reading. If you found a compelling reason to use an outside source, you must ask in advance.

Late work

-10 points on the grade if a draft or other preliminary work is missing on the due-date. You can turn final revisions in late, but that means -5 points / day late (-10 points for a weekend).

Behavior in Class & Electronics

Since we meet via Zoom, if you need a short break, turn off the camera. But kept that break to 5 minutes, max. So much of your grade is participation. Don't squander that.