Meetings with your Writing Colleague are considered an extension of your work for this course and will be required for several assignments throughout the semester. Students should schedule and attend these meetings with the same level of preparation and professionalism as they would meetings with the professor. Therefore, Writing Colleague meetings may not be skipped or rescheduled and are a required element of several assignments.

Writing Colleagues do not grade essays or any other assignments, nor do Writing Colleague meetings take the place of receiving verbal and written feedback from the professor throughout the semester. However, Writing Colleagues do have similar goals for student writing as those of the professor. As with meetings with the professor, Writing Colleague meetings should be approached with courtesy and a sincere commitment to the work of writing. Students, Writing Colleagues, and the professor will work as a team to facilitate learning.

Guidelines for academic success:
In this course, you are expected to attend three hours of lectures weekly and complete eight hours of homework weekly—reading, writing, and looking—in preparation for those lectures. (This adds up to 45 hours of faculty-led instructional time and 120 hours of homework over the course of the semester.) Attending class regularly and engaging in discussions with me and your peers is important for your learning. If, however, you need to miss a class (for reasons including celebration of your religion, athletic participation, field trips for a different class, or illness), I expect you to notify me as soon as possible. Attendance counts toward your grade as follows: everyone is allowed four missed classes with no penalty. After that, for each class missed, your final grade will drop by three points. Absences are not excused or unexcused—you are allowed four total, no matter the reason. Use them wisely! You can make up for an absence, though, by writing a 300- to 600-word discussion of the assigned reading for the missed day.

In addition to the above, you are required to attend three events related to art or Asia (adding up to three hours of equivalent academic activities total), over the course of the semester. Please consult the Related Events schedule on Canvas and plan in accordance with your interests and availability. Alternatively, you may substitute a meeting with me or with Writing Fellows at the Center for Teaching and Learning about your written assignments for any of the events, in which case you will be excuse from a response paper.

Finally, you are required to meet three times with your Writing Colleague (adding up to two hours of equivalent academic activities).

Those of us meeting in person all share responsibility for the health and safety of all in the classroom environment. In the event that you find yourself experiencing symptoms of illness, I request that you do the following:

• Stay home! This is the best way to prevent spreading COVID-19 as supported by scientific evidence.
• I expect that you will contact me to discuss missed coursework. In the case that you are not able to make up missed coursework by the end of the semester, we will need to consider options that may include a medical withdrawal or incomplete for the semester, which will be done in consultation with your Dean.

Be assured that I will do what I can to work with students to facilitate their successful completion of the course. I encourage you to contact me if you have questions or concerns.

Format for written work:
Please follow these guidelines for all written assignments.

1. Type all work in a 12-point font.
2. Double-space.
3. Leave one-inch margins on all sides.
4. Number your pages.
5. Put your name and the date on the first page.
6. Check that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct—these are crucial to effective communication of your ideas. Your grade will drop if you have excessive errors. A Short Guide to Writing about Art has a helpful chapter titled “Manuscript Form” (chap. 14). Read it.
7. If you cite another source, you must use
   a.) parenthetical references or footnotes, and
   b.) a list of works cited, as explained in The Chicago Manual of Style (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html), the documentation style typically used by art historians. (See A note about cheating and plagiarism below.) This citation system is explained in A Short Guide to Writing about Art.
8. Include pictures (with captions) of works of art that you discuss.

For written work that can be submitted via Canvas, please upload a Microsoft Word document (.doc, .docx) or a Portable Document Format file (.pdf): these are the only formats that Canvas will accept. Alternatively, you can turn in a stapled hard copy, plus copies of any earlier drafts, during the class period. PLEASE NOTE: I do not accept papers via e-mail.

A note about cheating and plagiarism:
I will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty. It destroys the trust that I have in you to do your best, it is unfair to the other students, and you will not learn anything if you resort to cheating. If I find that you have cheated on a test or on a written assignment, you will receive a zero for the assignment and I will contact the Deans and/or the Committee on Standards about your case. If a case goes to the Committee on Standards, I follow the Committee's recommendation; if it also finds evidence of cheating or plagiarism, the recommendation is usually failure of the course at a minimum.

In accordance with the Colleges’ Academic Policies (https://www.hws.edu/catalogue/academic-policies.aspx) and the Handbook of Community Standards (https://www.hws.edu/offices/campus-life/pdf/community_standards.pdf), pp. 10–11, 40–41, I define cheating as giving or receiving assistance on any assignment for this course, including all paper assignments and tests, except as directly authorized by me. The Colleges define plagiarism as “the presentation or reproduction of ideas, words, or statements that are not the student’s own, without due acknowledgment.” This means that you cannot use artificial intelligence (AI) unless I have given permission to do so. In addition, you cannot use the ideas of other people without citing your sources. When quoting directly from a text—say, five words or more in succession—you need to put those words in quotation marks and include a parenthetical reference or footnote citing the source. When rewriting a passage from a text in your own words, or including information from a text in your paper, you don’t need the quotation marks but you do still need the parenthetical reference or footnote. In addition, all sources that you cite need to be included in a list of works cited at the end of the assignment. If you don’t understand exactly what constitutes plagiarism, or how to use parenthetical references, footnotes, or a list of works cited, please ask me. I would prefer to explain what plagiarism is and how to avoid it before it happens rather than after.

Grading:
Tests and analytical paper assignments receive numerical grades. Response papers and participation assignments receive letter grades, as described under Course requirements above, or zero (0).If you are unsatisfied with a grade, please prepare a written statement explaining what grade you think you should have received and why, and submit it to me along with the assignment for review.

I mark down three points for each calendar day that an assignment is late. If you think you will need an extension, you should ask for one via e-mail as early as possible.

My grading scale is as follows:

Final grades are subject to reduction for lack of attendance as explained in the Guidelines for Academic Success above.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL):
At Hobart and William Smith Colleges, we encourage you to learn collaboratively and to seek the resources that help you succeed: Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) programs and staff can help you engage with your learning, accomplish the tasks before you, enhance your thinking and skills, and empower you to do your best. Resources at CTL are many: Teaching Fellows provide content support in 14 departments, Study Mentors help you juggle your responsibilities, Writing Fellows help you think well on paper, and professional staff help assess academic needs.