Policies

Attendance Policy

Attendance is required: The Cerritos College Attendance Policy states: “When the hours of absence exceed one more than twice the number of class hours per week, students will be considered excessively absent, and are subject to exclusion from the class.” In other words, if you miss 5 classes, you can be dropped. 

Policy on Late Work 

All weekly assignments and essays are (usually) due on Sunday night at 11:59 p.m. At midnight, work will automatically become late. Late work is penalized by 10% per day it's late. Work will not be penalized more than 50%. You can turn in late work all semester long, but it will only get 50%. For example, a 10-point assignment is due Sunday. On Sunday you can get 10 points. On Monday, it's worth 9 points. Tues, 8; Weds, 7; Thurs, 6; Friday to the end of the semester, it is only worth 5 points.

HOWEVER, if you let me know in advance that you won't be able to complete an assignment or essay on time, for any reason, just let me know, and I will always grant you an extension, no questions asked.

If you are having trouble with Canvas for any reason, always send me the assignment by email before the due date to avoid the late penalty.

I suggest writing weekly responses on a Word/google document, saving it, then copying it onto the Canvas page. If you write in Canvas text boxes and then the browser glitches, you can lose all that hard work.

Policy on Plagiarism and AI

The Cerritos Community College District defines plagiarism as “the act of taking the ideas, words, or specific substantive material of another and offering them as one’s own without giving credit to the source.” If a submission is discovered to have plagiarized passages in it, the student turning it in will receive a failing grade on that assignment. Repeat offenders will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Grievances for further administrative action, such as suspension or expulsion.

I include the use of AI programs (artificial Intelligence) as plagiarism (such as Chat-GPT, Grammarly, or other text generating programs). If you turn in work that was written by an AI program (in other words, text written by someone or something other than yourself), that is a violation of this plagiarism policy, and those assignments will receive a zero.

If you are ever having trouble with an assignment, you should reach out to me for help, whether that’s a no-questions-asked extension of the assignment due date or if you just want to chat about the material. I’m here to help you get through the course. Ask me for help before turning to AI.

If I suspect you are using AI, I reserve the right to require an oral examination component to any assignment. That means I can ask you to meet me in person or on zoom so I can ask you questions about the material covered in the assignment, and you will need to pass that examination to get credit for your work.