understand something new (especially economic concepts)
apply economic concepts to the everyday life
This page contains some helpful resources for your assignments. For the specific topic and deadline of each assignment,
you should check with the course syllabus.
A: I (or my TA) make my best efforts to be objective in grading every student's assignment.
Most point deductions are listed in the Instructions.
I believe every student gets exactly he/she deserves in every assignment. But then nobody is perfect. If you believe your assignment deserves a better grade,
my policy is that you can find another qualified professor to grade it and I will take whatever the score he/she will assign for your assignment by following the Instructions set for this
assignment. The qualification is simply a Ph.D. in Economics.
A: Sure, but (in my opinion) most assignments are at levels that an average student should be able to complete on his/her own if he/she
pays attention in class and read the relevant textbook material. The professor definitely can't grade your assignment before formally *grading* your assignment, but he might be able to give you some advice on whether a media article
is appropriate for the assignment. In this case, here's the rule: Your inquiry must be at least two days before the deadline; and you
cannot simply email him an Internet URL and ask him to click on it. This is simply common sense. You should copy and paste the text on your email.
A: If you truly complete your work on your own, then you probably don't need to know about the meaning of plagiarism.
But the fact is that in each assignment at least two students receive a zero score because of strong evidence of plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a violation of academic honesty and integrity. It is one form of cheating and is considered an academic crime.
Read this for the meaning of plagiarism.
The threshold (tolerance level) is 10%.
The percentage of Similarity is only evidence of plagiarism, not proof. Turnitin has a computer program that searches a worldwide database in its depository, including other student assignments in this and other universities.
You don't need to "copy another person's entire assignment" to have a matching. A matching is only evidence of plagiarism.
Read this for the meaning of plagiarism.
This webpage explains how the technology works.
Even if you alter some of the words in the original work, Turnitin can still flag it as 'evidence' because the
writing pattern has not changed.
A: The Similarity Index only assesses the originality of your work and it tells nothing about the quality or appropriateness
of your work. Think it this way, you haven't committed a crime but that doesn't guarantee you a good life (you still need to work).
A: No. Point deduction applies only when your matching exceeds 10% because some evidence of matching is factored in.
You can't only pinpoint part of your assignment while ignoring another part of the same assignment.
Think it this way: You are caught shoplifting a can of soda in a store when you've paid for a hotdog, then you claim that you haven't done anything wrong
because you have paid for the hotdog. It doesn't matter whether you have stolen only the soda or both the soda and hotdog,
you have committed a crime.
A: Follow all instructions in the syllabus.
Make sure what you write makes sense. Many students write an assignment that is incomprehensible. One way to achieve that is to have another person read your assignment (after you read it yourself) and
see if he/she understands what you write. You may try the TLC and/or Smarthinking.
Here you will see a student assignment with a score of 40%, even though the format appears to be very similar to the "good" example above.
The major problem with this assignment is the 40% matching with two sources. Another problem is the number of words, which is less than the requirement of 400 words.
Click here for a Report of Similarity Matching from Turnitin.
The Word file is here
ECONOMICS
