CSCE 481: Seminar

Spring 2017


Assignments

Short Writing Assignments

Students will complete four short written assignments that are 1-2 pages long. Written reports will be graded on a scale of 0 to 10, where 7 is a passing score. There will be 1 resume assignment and 3 "culture" assignments, which are based on research-oriented computer science/engineering presentations or a set of pre-determined research-oriented publications.

Long Writing Assignments

Students will complete three longer, written assignments that are 2-4 pages long. These assignments will cover different writing styles and different topics.

Writing Revisions

An important goal of this class is to help you improve your writing. The writing assignments in this class can be (and at least once must be) revised according to feedback provided on the written assignment. Here are some important aspects to note about revising your written assignments:
  • It takes time to grade and comment on written assignments (especially for 135 students). You should not assume that you can get a quick turnaround of a document you submit. Two weeks or more from the time of submission tot he time for feedback is common, especially if you submit right near a deadline.
  • If you are interested in faster feedback, submit your work well ahead of deadlines. Even then, submitting early is no guarantee of a fast turnaround time.
  • When submitting your revision, you should attempt to address all previous comments. For example, if you lost points for both spelling and grammar, you should fix both problems in a revision and not just fix the spelling so that you get a passing score. Revisions that did not address the prior comments may be returned without a grade!
  • Comments on a prior submission are intended to help you improve your writing, not to guarantee a passing score. Just because you address all the comments does not mean that your revised paper will be acceptable.
  • Only one revision attempt will be allowed for any Assignment.
  • No revisions will be accepted after 11:59pm on May 2

Late Policy

The late policy is that each assignment turned in after its due date will be assessed a penalty of (m/57.6)% of the maximum total points for the assignment where m is the number of minutes late for the assignment. So an assignment turned in 4 days late, receives no credit. An assignment 24 hours late receives a penalty of 25% of the maximum possible score on that assignment.