This is a research and a substantial writing component (SWC) course. Students will conduct historical research and write reports on assigned weekly topics. You will be evaluated on these reports and on your classroom performance. To ease conflicting demands on your time, some low scores will be dropped. Each score retained will contribute to your course grade in proportion to its assigned number of words.

Plagiarism. Reporting the work of someone else as your own is plagiarism. It is a serious violation of professional ethics, and it will not be tolerated. The penalty for plagiarism is an "F" for the course. Plagiarism is easily avoided by documenting properly all of the sources of information for your reports. The section on Reports and your writer's handbook tell you how to do that documentation.

Item	Assign	Drop	Min Words /Item	Total Words	% Grade
Classroom	28	4	100	2400	26.23
Weekly Reports	10	2	500	4000	43.72
Topic Report Proposal	1		500	500	5.46
Topic Report Draft	1		750	750	8.20
Topic Report Final	1		1500	1500	16.39
				9150	100.00
Weekly and Topic Reports				6750

The maximum grading scale will be the usual 90-80-70-60. I may lower that grading scale, but I will not raise it.

Classroom.You will be evaluated on your performance in each class. The evaluation criteria for each class will be at my discretion, and they will vary from class to class. They may include such things as attendance, short quizzes, writing exercises, oral participation or other criteria relevant to the class. The weight of each class score in your course grade will be the same as a 100 word writing assignment.

Collaboration. You may collaborate on research; however, each student must submit an original, independent report.

Late Assignments. Late assignments will be accepted only at my discretion. The dropping of some scores from your final grade is intended to help you cope with competing demands on your time. If you encounter extreme difficulties, come talk to me. Your chances of getting an extension are much improved if you talk to me before an assignment is due.

Performance Evaluation. The scores given to your reports and classroom performance will be based on the subjective, professional judgement of the course instructors. I know of no objective way for this kind of course. We will, however, strive for consistency so that you are all being scored in the same way.