I’m pretty easy to reach via email, and I try as much as possible to be accessible to my students.
But emailing a teacher at 10:30 pm, asking whether or not the deadline is 90 minutes later, and being unhappy when the answer didn’t get to you on time is WAAAYYY above and beyond. I can see wanting your MD to be available at 10:30 to answer a pressing question. But your professor??? Nope, absolutely not. There are medical emergencies, but there are not academic emergencies except those of your own making.
And, for the record, if you knew the answer could possibly be: It’s due in 90 minutes, then why on earth did you choose to wait an additional 40 minutes to check you email?? Your paper was done. What did you have to gain by taking a chance that the deadline was the following day?
Make whatever excuses you choose. There was a deadline. You were told the deadline in class. (Repeat: There was a deadline. You were told the deadline in class.)
You chose not to make note of that deadline.
It doesn’t matter how many people are in the class. It doesn’t matter that the professor is typically lenient about things. There was a deadline. He was clear about it in class. You chose not to make note of that deadline, and missed it.
In my class, the penalty is 10 points per day for a late project/paper. I have no idea what the deadline is in your class.
@bjkmom The deadline was midnight, but the day (Mon or Tues) was apparently ambiguous to OP. The teacher deviated from the syllabus and the typical manner of turning papers in (in person) in this one instance. OP became confused. Yes, OP should not have waited until the last minute to seek to clarify.
I disagree with you that a professor shouldn’t be expected to be available by email at 10:30 p.m. If he sets a midnight deadline, he should expect that things might come up. If he wants to go to bed earlier, then set a 9:00 p.m. deadline.
In any event, the syllabus should state clearly when he can and cannot be reached, and how. All of this could have been avoided with some common sense planning by the professor.
I agree OP should at least check for the professor’s email just like 5-10 minutes before midnight. No excuse that he checked 40 minutes after midnight.
Yeah, it is true that if someone says, “Meet me at midnight Tuesday,” he would mean the midnight at the end of Tuesday/beginning of Wednesday. That’s why it’s so confusing. BUT if you go by a 24-hour clock, 00:00 is midnight and the exact time that the date turns over.
Also: The thirtieth edition of the U.S. Government Style Manual (2008) sections 9.54 and 12.9b recommends the use of “12 a.m.” for midnight and “12 p.m.” for noon. Thus, midnight is the start of the next date (because it is a.m.)
If the deadline was ambiguous to the OP, he could certainly have asked IN CLASS, WHERE IT WAS DICUSSED.
And, sorry, I have to disagree, strongly, on the professor needing to be accessible until that deadline. My high school kids know that if they wait until the last minute to complete an assignment, they run the strong risk that I won’t be available to answer their questions.
Any real or imaginary ambiguity could certainly have been clarified when the deadline was presented and discussed, in class.
Checking email 40 minutes after the deadline had passed, after asking when the deadline was (and getting a timely answer) is inexcusable.
And I disagree with your disagreement. By that logic, a professor should be available 24/7 because a student might have a question while pulling an all-nighter the night before the final.
FWIW, syllabi that I’ve received were very explicit on the instructor’s email policy (often within 24 hours M-F) as well as penalties for late submission.
DS got an F from a college prof because he submitted via email, after the deadline, a paper that was due at midnight.
that was the last time he ever made that mistake…
dont make excuses for screwing up something that was well within your control.
Seems like you think you were late, which makes me question why on earth you would do that.
If your professor allows the submission as on-time, you will have avoided any consequence of this, but don’t ever, ever do it again. You should know at 9am what is due that day, preferably you should know on Monday all the due dates for that week so you can plan you schedule, even plan out the extra review (which is helpful, a good paper can get better if you reread one more time before submitting, especially after a few hours away).
No way should you expect your professor to answer emails at midnight or to give you a break. If you had had a car accident or something, an email to that effect, saying you would get back to him, would be reasonable, otherwise, no emails at night. Guy needs some sleep or he will give your whole class Cs.
Trust me, no professor finds this effortless or charming or anything other than annoying. Don’t expect any special treatment this semester or anything else.
“By that logic, a professor should be available 24/7 because a student might have a question while pulling an all-nighter the night before the final.”
I get your point on this, Ski. My primary point is that the lecturer could have avoided this confusion by clearly stating the parameters on the syllabus. I did, and I didn’t have any problems with my students.
As none of us (other than the OP) has a copy of the syllabus, everybody is simply making assumptions about what the instructor did or did not cover in the syllabus and/or introductory remarks on the first day of class.
Seconding some of the above posters, we would probably have to see the syllabus. Does it say anything about late assignments in general? This is unlikely, but is there some sort of school-wide policy?
For me at least, I’ve seen all sorts of interesting late policies at MIT, including:
Allowing a short grace period in case of bad internet connection, etc.
X points off per day
X points off per day, but you have some # of "slack days"
Linearly decreasing score (like 2, but continuous)
Exponential decaying score (I.e. score has a half-life)
But again, we don’t know what your professor chooses to do. In any case, hope for the best and do not repeat the same mistake.
On my assignments, I say “11:59 pm Monday” or somesuch to avoid this issue. But yes, it’s irritating to get emails at 10:30 pm from students who are looking for immediate replies. I go to bed before that almost every night, and no, I don’t stay up late on nights that assignments are due just in case someone emails me. It’s also really irritating to get emails from students that require immediate replies, when the student then fails to check their emails and so doesn’t get my within-five-minutes reply and then complains “they didn’t know.”
I tell them that true initiative is checking the syllabus and the deadlines carefully, and if you need a reply to a question quickly, than show initiative and discipline by making every effort to allow yourself to receive your answer. Don’t procrastinate checking your email because you’re afraid you won’t like what it tells you.
If you thought the paper was supposed to be handed in during class, why look online the night before to see if it was due in ~an hour or the following midnight? How did you think a paper due at midnight was supposed to be submitted if not electronically? I wouldn’t expect a professor to be lenient with deadlines, no matter what the previous experience has been. He may not make a big deal out of late homework assignments, but that doesn’t mean he’s not docking people’s grades.
Unless the syllabus spells out how he deals with late assignments then I suppose how he reacts depends on whether or not he thinks you’re one of those students who will feign confusion and email close to the deadline (expecting not to get a response) so they can finagle an extra day for the assignment because they “didn’t know.” Some dock more points for papers than regular homework, but usually they state their policies in their syllabus. However, an hour late still counts as late, so whatever his policies are will apply to that the same as every other paper that’s a day late.
The funny thing about a half-life policy is that it makes the punishment diminish proportionally over time. Assuming half-life of a day, turning an assignment in 1 day late is a 50% reduction, but then the 2nd day is only an additional 25%, the 3rd day only an additional 12.5% etc. Exponentially increasing penalty would make more sense to me (e.g. 5% off the first day, 10% more the 2nd day or 15% total, 20% more the 3rd day or 35% total).
As a grad student, I worked in the graduate office of Social Work at my university; part of my job was receiving incoming papers. My job was to receive the paper, place it in the “time/day stamp machine”, and to then place the paper in the professor’s box (this was before email and was used by everyone).
The professors told us that this would tell them if the paper was turned in on time.
You would not believe the arguments/excuses I got from students who thought that my co-workers (also students) and I were heartless and cruel. They begged us not to put a time stamp on it. Those that got tired of begging would resort to yelling at us, calling us names, threatening violence, threatening to have us fired. Some of them targeted us specifically, saying we forced them to be late by not accepting their papers. A group of them signed a petition to have the machine “removed” along with the student staff.
Nothing changed. The professors wanted papers turned in before the close of day. Some of the evening students were allowed to mail in their papers.
The REASON most of the professors stated that they needed it by a certain date was for their time management of grading and recording those grades before the next assignment.
Often, a professor would go out of town, on a lecture series, they needed papers to be turned in before their flights, so that they could grade these during their travel. If the professor wrote back “EMAIL, NOW”; he knew you were up to send the email. He MEANT that he wanted it right then and there.
Using and making excuses means that your paper wasn’t done. If it had been finished, you would have emailed before the deadline. Checking to see if it’s due, just PO’s the professor because it tells the professor that your paper wasn’t completed and it also means you didn’t listen to the original explanation and instructions because you didn’t have enough sense to ask about the actual date of submission at the time of instructions.
^ oh my…id have been fast asleep by then. Sorry kids, is old folk don’t work on a college kid schedule!! 12 or 24 hour turnaround should be enough.
Though I would say in my job, many things must be turned around in minutes, and is guess profs do that too if it is important enough…meaning midnight questions are not:)
Not sure why this student is asking us for advice, but it’s nice to see other instructors chiming in here. In my syllabus, I guarantee only a 24 hour turnaround for emails on weekdays. I have them submit assignments via Blackboard, which has a strict deadline of 11:59PM. No late assignments accepted . I have heard all the usual stories -" Internet went out", “computer crashed”, “lost my flash drive”, “thought I can do the essay on my Iphone”…
But I love the idea of the score half-life! Although, my students probably wouldn’t get it (not exactly MIT caliber).
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