Was this fair? (1 Viewer)

[Sherlock]

I received an assignment back today. My tutor failed me (48) because I failed to use footnotes while referencing. I did use in-text referencing for parts I used from other sources. She said it was a structural fail (meaning had I used footnotes, I would have passed). I'm a first year uni student and I'm not pleased because I'm supposed to make mistakes along the way. It's only worth 10% of my final mark, but I'm aiming for a D/HD in order to transfer to law next year.

Is a D/HD still achievable?
And was it fair of my tutor to fail me?

 

[brent012]

Of course a D/HD is still achievable - you've only lost ~5%.

Whether it's fair or not depends on the marking criteria. In a lot of courses (afaik/from my experience) there is often at least one first semester subject which has a low weighted assessment which serves solely to introduce you to journals and databases, the preferred referencing method in your faculty, style guides and standard submission procedure in that uni/faculty.

If you don't get those things correct you'd get heavily penalised, but as a result next time around with a larger assignment you are far less likely to have any issues with these concepts which are important for almost all assignments.

 

[Amundies]

Did you get 48 or 49? If you got 48, then it means that your essay wasn't great either and in that case it probably was fair. Reasoning behind this is that if your only major problem was the references, and assuming they fail you for not referencing properly, they would give you 49 (the highest fail mark, assuming 50 is the lowest pass mark).

Also, they know that it's your first year at uni and so they would have made it easy for you. My tip would be to next time, quadruple check your references (at least). I check my references a LOT to make sure that it's right because even a slight mistake (a full stop instead of a comma, forgetting a comma, etc) can cost you a whole mark.

And yes, a D/HD is definitely still achievable. It's one subject, one assessment worth 10%. This assessment is worth only 0.0125% of your first year mark (I think. It's late so this number may be wrong, but you get the point).

 

[Sherlock]

Did you get 48 or 49? If you got 48, then it means that your essay wasn't great either and in that case it probably was fair. Reasoning behind this is that if your only major problem was the references, and assuming they fail you for not referencing properly, they would give you 49 (the highest fail mark, assuming 50 is the lowest pass mark).

Also, they know that it's your first year at uni and so they would have made it easy for you. My tip would be to next time, quadruple check your references (at least). I check my references a LOT to make sure that it's right because even a slight mistake (a full stop instead of a comma, forgetting a comma, etc) can cost you a whole mark.

And yes, a D/HD is definitely still achievable. It's one subject, one assessment worth 10%. This assessment is worth only 0.0125% of your first year mark (I think. It's late so this number may be wrong, but you get the point).

It was actually worth 2 marks.

 

[isildurrrr1]

It was actually worth 2 marks.

Well it was an assessment for you to learn. Protip if you want to do law: if you don't do your referencing properly you're fucked.

 

[Amundies]

It was actually worth 2 marks.

My point still stands. It doesn't matter if it was worth 1 mark or 10 marks, if you do everything right except one crucial thing which they expect you to do properly (which I doubt they do for single assessments anyway) they'd give you 49.

 

[RishBonjour99]

Everyone loses referencing marks in the first uni assignment. Its your job to make sure the substance of your assignment (i.e. your actual essay) is good enough to offset these loss of marks. Its fair Because every student was subject to this this guideline and there was no special individual circumstances on your part to warrant any special consideration.

 

[kast]

Was there a marking criteria which said you had to use footnotes with referencing? I've never used footnotes... But if you've been told to use them, and you haven't, then yeah you're going to lose those marks. If you lost two marks because of it, then the rest of your marks only added up to 48 and they can't give you extra points out of nowhere to push you over the line for a pass. Like Rish said, you should aim for as high a mark as possible to offset losing a few.