The Writing Contract

tumblr_ltqkrb0wud1qb2b92o1_500[A post for students in my ASHA321 course in Fall 2012. I’m indebted to Ryan Cordell for this idea.]

Students in ASHA321 are in a wide range of other courses, from psychology to chemistry to sociology, each imposing their own deadlines and assignments. With this calendar in mind, consider your schedule for the next couple of months and propose your own deadlines for the work you’ll submit for this course.

Each student will submit a one-page Writing Contract that specifies firm deadlines, and late penalties, for

  1. your Unessay;
  2. your Research Paper proposal; and
  3. your Research Paper final draft.

Here are the rules:

  • Your contract is due in class (11:00 a.m.) on Friday, October 12th.
  • The Unessay and Research Paper must be due at least two calendar weeks apart. (The order is up to you.)
  • The proposal must be due at least two weeks before the Research Paper. (So in theory, it could be due the same day as your Unessay. In practice, that might be a bad idea.)
  • No deadline can be later than Wednesday, December 12th — because I must submit my final grades for the course by Monday the 17th.
  • All deadlines are for 5:00 p.m. of that day.
  • You can have one free extension, without penalty, on any one of these three submissions.
  • The deadlines you propose are as binding as those I would set myself. You will propose your own penalties for late submissions, but they must be a minimum of 1% per business day (when the university is open), and a minimum of 10% after one week.
  • Your Research Paper proposal must be posted to the course blog.
  • Electronic submissions of the Unessay and Research Paper are fine. We will set up a shared folder on Dropbox for that purpose. Before 4:30 p.m. you can also take paper submissions to the English Department, SS1152, where they will be date-stamped.
  • Include two signature lines at the bottom of your contract. Once both you and I sign your contract, it is binding.

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