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[femmawatts]

So over in the Paper mills thread I have been in a bit of disagreement with Fiona over the productivity of turning away student papers with errors. I worry that turning student papers away may shame students, shut down possible dialogues about student work, and hurt particular populations of student (specifically those with learning disabilities and second language learners). But maybe there is something I'm missing.  Maybe students might benefit from this sort of tough love.

Fiona argues that turning student papers away when they don't meet a specific criteria helps students by giving them a taste of the "real world".  She argues that scholarship committees are unlikely to consider students who misspell words or make formatting errors.  I would not disagree that this is the case. I wonder, however, if classrooms ought to be thought of as analogous to scholarship committees.  To me classrooms are unique spaces which afford students the opportunity to grow into the "real world".  This of course is not to say that there is a clear distinction between classroom and everywhere else, but to say that classrooms are most beneficial when weakness are not treated as deficiencies, but rather as specific teaching and learning opportunities.  Scholarship committees on the other hand seem more dedicated to an investment in students who show themselves to be the most ready for opportunities beyond the classroom.

At any rate, the question is this:  If you do turn student papers away because they fail to meet a specified criteria (e.g. error-free, correct formatting, concise thesis) why do you do this, and how do you think this benefits students?  If you don't turn student work away, do you use strategies that help students who make a lot of errors, or fail to follow directions in another manner?

[systeme_d_]

Yes, I do.

I refuse to accept papers that do not use proper Chicago style footnotes and bibliography, meet the specified length, and use the specified formatting.*  Students are encouraged to send their first attempts to me before the due date, and I will show them how to fix their mistakes, if they have any.

But on the due date, when papers are submitted, I return them to students whose papers do not meet the basic criteria.  They are told what to fix and how to fix it, and late penalties begin to apply.   If they turn in the paper with all problems fixed by midnight that night, I only take off several points.  If they turn it in later than that, it's half a letter grade per day.

I do get lots of rough drafts and emailed questions before the due date.  I have no problem with that, and I am happy to provide guidance.  My students know that this is a big deal for me, so they dedicate themselves to getting this right.

*By formatting, I mean 12 point Times New Roman font with 1" margins, and the first paragraph starting no further than 3" from the top of the page.

[barcrossliar]

I don't know the context of your discussion with The Fiona, but there are circumstances when I just return the paper.  I don't do this often, but if the paper falls well below expectations for the course, it would be a waste of my time to read it and a missed opportunity for valuable learning by the student. 

For example, if a student in a jr/sr-level course turns in something riddled with grammatical, spelling, and structural errors, we are both better off if s/he gets a "take this to the writing center/ESL office" and turns it in a day or two later for actual meaningful comments instead of getting an F. 

If they were being lazy and sloppy, there's no reason for me to waste time and energy wading through dreck and pointing out errors they're perfectly capable of finding on their own.

If they have learning differences or language issues, they need to identify resources and strategies that go beyond "turn it in and hope s/he pities me."

The comments when it's returned should be phrased carefully so that it's presented as an opportunity to improve, rather than a chance to shame the student.

The bar is much lower for a freshman level class, of course.

[palla]

I refuse any papers that are handwritten (yes, I have had students try).  I also refuse papers that are not stapled, but I don't completely reject them.  I just send the students to the lab to staple the paper.  The only other time I can think that I refuse papers is if it is more than five days past the original due date.

[marigolds]

I refuse papers without proper citation/works cited list. (I teach comp.)

[hegemony]

If they're really terrible, I accept them and give them an F, which a clear explanation as to why. 

[tee_bee]

When I was teaching undergrads more often (I teach mostly grad students now), I had a policy that I would read a paper until I encountered the sixth obvious grammatical, spelling, or mechanical error, at which point I would return the paper unmarked. The student would have five days to return the paper, presumably edited to be in English. If they had six or more errors, it was marked F. In one notable semester, I returned two-thirds of the first papers, and it took very little time to encounter six errors. By the end of the term, I was returning less than one-quarter after the first instance. YMMV.

Fiona argues that turning student papers away when they don't meet a specific criteria [sic] helps students by giving them a taste of the "real world". 

I agree with The Fiona. And the error noted here would count as one of the six. The word is criterion. This is, indeed, how I mark papers. I also respect the medium/media and datum/data distinctions, although this is a losing battle, so I don't count these as errors. I simply suggest that students may want to consider whether they really mean data or media as singular nouns.

How does this benefit students? There have been many articles, in professional and popular publications, in which employers have expressed their frustration with the poor communications skills our students demonstrate when they join the "real world." Why should we let students' poor writing persist in our courses, only to see them embarrass themselves (and their institutions, perhaps) when they have to perform for an employer that doesn't have time to offer remediation, nor should be expected to do something.

I am not all that old (50, so you decide), but I am sufficiently of the old school to believe that a college graduate should be able to construct a proper English sentence, both in written and oral communication. How they converse with peers, family, their home town folks, and so on, is not my concern. And, indeed, we know that people change the register of their speech depending on the situation. There's a nice summary of this idea in Wikipedia. The appropriate register for a college classroom is standard English, unless there's some reason (say, in a creative writing course) to write in a different register.

Sadly, we shouldn't have to do any of this in college. I have heard legends of times when high school students were taught to write in English, by high school teachers who could write in it. I've seen little evidence that either of these conditions apply now.

[mended_drum]

In my experience, especially with non-majors, turning them away and making them rewrite with a late penalty is, in the long run, better than accepting them and assigning them the grade they earn.  Things like citation, formatting, and specific kinds of errors are more about proofreading than lack of understanding, and the only way for me to successfully encourage students to adhere to formatting guidelines...the only way that has ever worked...is to simply refuse to read the papers otherwise.

Of course, when a student clearly doesn't understand, I work with that student privately and waive the penalty.  The first time.

[dr_know]

I have returned handwritten papers, single-spaced papers, and papers that are half the required length.  If they got them back to me within a certain time period, they received partial credit.  Otherwise, they received zeros.

[larryc]

I declare that the First Rule of Teaching is thus, and must be obeyed:

Don't be a dick.

The application of said rule in this case is that of course you accept whatever papers are turned in. Don't be a dick. That is not to say that they will earn a passing grade, it merely means that you will grade them and provide some feedback, however curt.

However, I think there is some confusion generated here by the phrase "turn away." Do you mean you throw it in the trash and don't say anything to the student? That is being a dick. Do you mean you hand it back to the student and say "Dude, this is handwritten. In crayon! That is not how we roll in college. Type it up, follow the directions to the letter, and God help your soul if there are any misspellings or dumb typos. Think you can do that?" That is tough love and good teaching.

Which are we talking about here?

If they're really terrible, I accept them and give them an F, which a clear explanation as to why. 

[mended_drum]

However, I think there is some confusion generated here by the phrase "turn away." Do you mean you throw it in the trash and don't say anything to the student? That is being a dick. Do you mean you hand it back to the student and say "Dude, this is handwritten. In crayon! That is not how we roll in college. Type it up, follow the directions to the letter, and God help your soul if there are any misspellings or dumb typos. Think you can do that?" That is tough love and good teaching.

Which are we talking about here?

My students turn in papers electronically.  Those few students who turn in papers that don't meet the four or five required criteria receive an e-mail message that reads:  "Student A, Paper 1 is not formatted correctly because it is single-spaced.  Please reformat the paper and upload it again.  If you have trouble formatting, there is a handout on formatting in MS Word on the CMS.  Thank you, Dr. mended_drum"

In addition, over half of my department has a similar set of minimum rules which, if violated, result in an ungraded paper, so only first semester freshman find this response unexpected.

I'll also say that I'm much more comfortable with this since switching to electronic grading.  Students get the feedback more quickly, so they only lose a minimal number points and there is no direct confrontation in the form of physically handing back an ungraded paper.

Now, there are a few other cases when I'll hand back an ungraded paper.  If a major has completed a paper but made such a fundamental error that the paper would have to receive a failing grade, I will, once in a while, refuse to grade it instead and offer the student the opportunity to write another paper.  An example is when a student wrote me a paper on the influence of medieval knighthood on the Lysistrata.  The student is generally extremely grateful for the opportunity and does not complain about a late penalty.  This sort of thing might happen once every two or three semesters.

[dochalladay]

To me there's a difference between turning away a paper because it has not followed very specific rules (formatting style, minimum/maximum length*, inclusion of a bibliography) and turning it back for errors. When I give you an assignment sheet that clearly spells out what your paper should look like, you don't have any excuses. If you want to give me a sloppy paper full of errors, fine, I'll grade it and let you hang yourself. But if you give me a paper that doesn't meet the guidelines for the assignment, I have no objections to giving it back and applying late penalties for not following instructions.

*Yes, I do occasionally have to enforce maximum length guidelines, especially in my lower-level classes. I told students last semester that their 1-2 page paper needed to be 2 pages maximum, and that I would tear off anything after the second page and not read it. (This was after getting a fleet of short assignments coming in at three times the intended length and with no greater depth of thought. We were working on how to make one point and develop it instead of four points poorly--I call it the Top Chef Why Did You Make a Trio of Beef When You Could Have Made One Dish Really Well approach.) Even after being repeatedly warned, a handful of students still gave me three pages and were stunned to see the last page not there when I returned them.

[robear]

I teach freshman comp., so one of the skills I want to teach is the importance of substantive revision.  Students in my classes may rewrite and resubmit their papers up to three times.  There is no guarantee that their grade will improve, but I do guarantee that the highest grade earned will be the one recorded.  This way, when they turn in carp, I need only mark it with a zero, provide support in the form of pointing them to the information they need to improve, and invite them to try again.  The students who take advantage if the opportunity tend to improve.  The slackers suffer the natural consequences of their slacker ways.

In upper level courses, I have been known to email students to let them know that they must have inadvertently given me a rough draft.  They have until midnight on the due date to get the "final" draft to me.

[palla]

Interesting discussion.  I primarily teach freshman comp, and many of our students require remedial English.  I can't turn the papers away for six grammar/spelling errors.  Not only would I turn away every paper in my remedial course, I also would frustrate the students and indirectly encourage them to quit. 

In grad school, I earned a B on a paper because of one spelling error.  I was furious - not at the professor, but at myself for not catching it.

Basically, the level of the student will play a role in how and when to turn away student papers.

[shastymcnasty]

I require papers in every course I teach, and I never assign a paper without also offering plenty of instruction about how to write it--sample papers, rubrics, grammar and formatting reviews, the lot.  I happily read drafts and make suggestions for revision.  I extend office hours the days before papers are due.  I try not to assign additional reading while students are writing their papers. 

I'll be damned if I am going to return a student's paper and allow her to revise it after the deadline.  Grade the paper and let the student suffer the consequences.

What possible incentive does a student have to do things right the first time if she knows that she can turn in crap and get a "do over"?  Even if it costs a few points.  Turning in a bad/sloppy paper and receiving an "F" teaches students that there are consequences for their actions.  Allowing them to revise it with a small penalty teaches exactly the opposite.