Evaluation
There will be no exam in this course. Instead, your mark will be determined by a combination of writing assignments, in-class presentations, and participation.
Marking Scheme
| Component | Weight | Notes |
| Assignments | 30% | Your best 6 assignments, worth 5% each |
| Presentations | 25% | Group and individual presentations 12% each, News presentation 1% |
| Term Paper | 35% | Proposal = 3% Mid-term report = 7% Final Paper = 25% |
| Participation | 10% | This mark will be based on a combination of your in-class and online participation |
Presentations are normally marked on 3 categories:
- Research: Breadth and depth of sources used, quality of summary, analysis and/or citation as appropriate, use of research to support key points
- Preparation: Quality and structure of explanation/argumentation, appropriateness of level to audience, efficacy of communication of ideas
- Presentation: Evidence of effort and rehearsal put into presentation of material
Late Assignments
Assignments will be submitted through Quercus. No late assignments will be accepted without a documented valid excuse (e.g., Doctor's note).Attendance
This is an inherently participatory class. Students are expected to attend all lectures. If you have to miss a lecture for legitimate reasons, you MUST contact the course instructor at the earliest possible opportunity (preferably before the start of the lecture).
Feedback
You will be expected to provide feedback on all presentations. Sample feedback forms can be found here. This feedback will count for part of your participation mark. Thoughtful and helpful comments are expected.
Online Participation
A portion of your participation mark will come from online discussions on the course's Piazza forums. These online discussions are a chance for the topics we cover to extend beyond the few hours per week that we're together, and form a more pervasive discussion throughout the term.
Your Piazza posts will not be marked in the same way as an assignment would (i.e., we don't care about your linguistics and formality here), but you will be marked on your ability to participate actively and positively in the conversations held throughout the term, so it behooves you to ensure that your posts can be understood by everyone in the class, and also to treat the forum like you would treat a corporate e-mail discussion, maintaining a civil and positive relationship with everyone involved.
Ethical Behaviour/Plagiarism
We will debate many ethical issues in this course, but the University of Toronto Code of behaviour on academic matters and Code of student conduct will not be among them; rather, these will be taken as given, and students will respect them and follow their precepts.
Therefore:
- Undue collaboration in your papers and assignments is not permitted. You may use ideas and positions that are raised and discussed in class (with proper attribution, where appropriate). And you may discuss your work with other students outside class, indeed you should do so, but this is to stimulate your own thinking, not to substitute for it. What you hand in must be, in essence, your own work.
- Plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated. Note in particular that using material from Web sites or other articles without full attribution is a form of plagiarism.
Formatting and submission of written assignments
The assignments in the course will require short essays. You will find detailed instructions in the assignments page. Assignment lengths will often be specified as a certain number of words. This refers to the body of your text, and does not include the main heading, references, bibliography, or appendices.
All written assignments are also to be submitted electronically via Turnitin. The electronic copies may be used for checking for plagiarism in this and future terms. If you object to the use of turnitin, you must inform the course instructor well in advance of the first assignment being submitted
Clarity, neatness, and linguistic well-formedness all count towards the grade of the assignment. But the majority of marks are for well-supported arguments and comments based on good research.
Privacy Notice
In this course, you will be assigned a partner for your lecture presentation, and will be required to communicate with them outside of class time. The same grade will be given to each of you for the research and preparation component of the presentation. Your feedback to other students on their presentations will not be anonymous.
All student presentations will be recorded and made available to members of the class via WebOption. This is done in order to allow you to revisit presentations (particularly your own) in order to hone your presentation skills.
Normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to Turnitin.com for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University’s use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site.
Last Modified: 2020 Sep 05
Copyright © 2017 Brian Harrington, Graeme Hirst, University of Toronto.