Incompletes

Please read the syllabus where I state that all students who do not finish
their work will automatically be given an incomplete. So don't waste my
time and yours by sending me an email, leaving a phone message or coming by
my office asking for an incomplete. It shows me that you have not read the
syllabus or this notice. Emails and phone messages asking for an incomplete
will not be answered and any direct question will receive the response to
read the syllabus.

If you take an incomplete, you are responsible for securing all of the
required material as long as it was available sometime during the semester
that you took the course. As far as I know at this time, all assigned books
are in the bookstore. The excuse a year from now that the books are no
longer available is not acceptable. If I am teaching the same or similar
course, I may let you substitute a comparable book from that semester but
don't count on it. Repeat - don't count on it.

If you are turning in your papers to remove an incomplete just prior to
graduation, I will do my part by grading them and turning in the grade
immediately. You do your part by checking the syllabus and the supplement
to make sure that you followed all of the rules. In the past, I have been
very lax on the rules with someone on the verge of graduating. I have
decided that this is grossly unfair to those who followed all the rules in
completing their papers. If you have a friend who got by previously, don't
think that you can do so now.

Thus far, I have not kept anyone from graduating except someone caught
plagiarizing word for word from a World Bank document with not a single
word of his own in the paper. I will continue to do my best not to prevent
anyone from graduating but if you turn in papers that go paragraph after
paragraph without a citation or other violations of the instructions, you
will either get a very low grade or the papers will be returned as
unacceptable.