(Revised 12/18/01)

The median on the paper (due 12/11/01) was 70. Excluding the paper which received a zero, the average was 68 and the standard deviation was 12.5. The three papers which received grades below 60 had plagiarism issues, one of which was terminal as you see. I emphasized throughout the course that my tolerance level for plagiarism is zero.

A 60 on the paper means it was competent but I didn't find much there beyond what was explicit in the sources, or else there was a lot of confusion in the writing. A 70 is good work, with some synthesis and analysis of literature content, and an 80 meant especially clear or complete exposition of the area. I was prepared to go to 90 but no one did brilliant work this time around.

The paper actually made very little difference, except in plagiarism cases, to your relative standing in the course and therefore to your grade. It was intended simply to benefit the writer.

Revised histogram after adding late papers:

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