Following are my grading policies:

Exams and Quizzes: The course requires 2 quizzes, a midterm exam and a final based on readings, topic summaries and documents. Quizzes 1 and 2 will consist of about 20-25 multiple choice, true-false and short answer questions and are worth 60 and 90 points respectively. You may take quizzes at home or at any computer with online access. No password is required, but you may take it only once and must complete it in one session within one hour. Grades on quizzes are calculated by Blackboard for objective (multiple choice, matching, true-false, etc.) questions. You get those results as soon as you submit your exam.

The Midterm and Final Exams will consist of multiple choice, matching, and true-false questions and short answer/essay questions. Each is worth 150 points. Total for quizzes and exams: 450 points, or 45% of the course. Essay questions are graded after you submit your exam. Since students take tests at various times, your test may not be graded right away. If you need your test graded, email me. Short answer/essay questions are worth 10-30 points, and I grade them generously, meaning that if you seem to know what's going on, you get 9-10/19-20/29-30 points. If you have some idea you get a point or two less. Vague answers get a point or two less than that. If you take a shot and get it totally wrong, you get half credit. If you leave it blank, you get 0. So take a shot, or just say “I don't know.”

Exams and quizzes are all conducted on line through Blackboard and should be taken in sequence. Students will report to a testing center on any NVCC campus to take midterm and final exams. Arrangements can be made for testing elsewhere by getting a Proctor Request Form from the ELI Web Site. You will need an exam pass for each exam: Exam Passes are available in Blackboard under Exams

Exam and quiz links will be placed in Exams in Blackboard when they are available.

Practice quizzes will be posted well before each quiz and exam. They do not count toward your grade. You may take them as often as you like or print them for study purposes. Questions will be similar to those on the regular exam and will cover the same general material. I do not grade practice quizzes. Practice quiz questions may or may not appear on the real exam, and there will be other questions on the same material that are not on the practice quiz. Forum questions will suggest the kind of essay you may encounter on exams. There are no essay questions on Quiz 1 & 2, only on the Midterm and Final.

See Requirements page for General Information on writing assignments. Details: Writing Projects 121 | Writing Projects 122

Forums: Reasonable participation gets you you up to 50 points extra credit. Reasonable means that you contribute something worthwhile to each forum you enter, through you do not have to address every question.You should write thoughtful opinions or comments, including responses to others. Students generally make many posts and I cannot respond to every one. I promise you that I do read every entry, however, and over the course of the semester it is not hard to see who is taking it seriously. A word of caution—you won't get extra credit if most of your responses are merely “I agree,” or “good comment.” I accept the fact that you may have read the other person's entry, but it's good to say why you agree. See Instructions.

The best way to get a good grade in this course is to complete all the work on time. I have rarely if ever failed a student who has done all the work, and I give D's only for conspicuously weak performance.