Dr. Alex E. Blazer

Curriculum Vita

Teaching Portfolio

Frequently Asked Questions

This page offers a set of answers to frequently asked questions regarding paper style, technology issues, and my attendance policy that arise in my classes at UofL.

Papers

• Staples
• Hard copies of any paper that has more than one page must be stapled. Do not use paper clips.
• Formal Papers and Take-Home Exams
• Follow MLA style for all formal papers and take-home exams.
• Use only Times New Roman 12pt font.
• Do not submit papers with 1.25" margins. Use only 1" margins.
• Double space at all times except when block quoting three or more lines of single-spaced poetry.
• Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or sections. Do not add extra lines anywhere.
• Do not submit a title page.
• MLA Style Penalties
• English 101, 102, 310, 319, 322, and 491: Since these courses are designed for English major (or, in the case of English 101 and 102, as introduction to the discipline) majors, I expect formal papers (and, in the case of 491, take-home exams) to follow the style rules outlined in my MLA Style handout and the MLA Handbook.
• Heading, Running Header, and Margins: Your formal paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if its heading, running header, and/or margins are incorrect.
• Font and Line-Spacing: Your formal paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if its font is not 12pt Times New Roman and/or if it does not maintain double-spacing. Do not use your word processing program to manipulate the font size and line spacing to make your paper appear longer than it really is.
• In-Text Quoting, Block Quoting, and Citing Sources on the Works Cited Page : Your formal paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if it fails to properly quote and/or cite sources.
• English 311, 312, 382: Since these general education survey and genre courses have many non-English majors in them, I am more lax about MLA style. Formal papers and take-home exams will be penalized if their formats do not meet margin, font, and line spacing requirements but will not be penalized for problems with in-text quoting, block quoting, and citing sources on the works cited page.
• Margins: Your formal paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if it does not have one-inch margins.
• Font and Line-Spacing: Your formal paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if its font is not 12pt Times New Roman and/or if it does not maintain double-spacing. Do not use your word processing program to manipulate the font size and line spacing to make your paper appear longer than it really is.
• Length Penalties
• If you follow MLA style of double spacing a 12pt Times New Roman font and using 1" margins, then your should use approximately 330 words per page.
  

  Pages	Words
  1	330
  2	660
  3	990
  4	1320
  5	1650
  6	1980
  7	2310
  8	2640
  9	2970
  10	3300
  11	3630
  12	3960
  13	4290
  14	4620
  15	4950
  16	5280

• Your paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if it does not end at least halfway down on the minimum page limit while implementing MLA style (12pt Times New Roman font, double-spacing, one-inch margins).
• Your paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade for each page it falls below the minimum page limit.
• Note: To determine your electronic paper's true page length according to MLA style, I will fix your margins, font, and line spacing. Therefore, you may receive both an MLA style penalty for margins, font, and line spacing in addition to a a length penalty.
• Informal Papers, Peer Response, and Discussion Board Response
• Although these are informal and less polished, you should nonetheless double-space and use 1" margins.
• Authors' Names
• Use the author's full name the first time you mention, use, or cite an author. Subsequent mentions may use just the last name.
• Never refer to the author by her first name only.
• Titles
• The following titles of works are underlined or italicized:
• novels
• plays
• films
• books of poetry
• short story collections
• television series
• The following titles of works are placed in "quotation marks":
• essays and articles
• book chapters
• individual poems (unless they are very long)
• short stories
• individual television episodes

Computers

• General Note: It is your responsibility to know how to use your word processing program, email, and Blackboard. I am happy to help you with the substance of your work, but I am not tech support or a help file.
• Email: Check your university email address regularly. If you regularly use a private email account instead of your university account, forward your university email to your private email address.
• When sending an email, address the person you're emailing and sign your email. I do not respond to anonymous messages.
• Surfing the Web: If you're taking a class in a computer-enhanced classroom, do not check your email, browse the web, or do homework for another class during class discussion.
• File Formats: You must submit your work in a file format that is readable by your instructor and, in the case of peer response, your fellow students.
• Papers that will be read by me only, such as informal writing, formal papers, and take-home exams, may be submitted in Corel WordPerfect (.wpd), OpenOffice (.odt), Microsoft Word (.doc), Microsoft Works (.wps), or Rich-Text Format (.rtf). If you turn in an assignment in a format other than these, it will be considered late until you turn it in one of the appropriate formats.
• Papers that will be read by your peers, such as first drafts of formal papers in English 101, 102, and 310 courses as well as discussion board responses in English 311, 312, 319, 322, and 491, must be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich-Text Format (.rtf) only. Because most users and all university computer labs have Word, Word and Rich-Text Format will be the standard format for documents that will be shared in my classes. If you do not have Word, then it is your responsibility to determine how to make your word processing program convert your file to the proper format. If your peers cannot open your document, then they are not responsible for responding to it.
• Saving Documents: Although I may empathize when a student loses an assignment due to computer problems, it happens so frequently that I no longer consider computer error a valid excuse for a late assignment. To avoid problems, follow the suggestions below.
• Disk Drives: Do not use 3.5" diskettes to save your work, for they and their drives break easily. Purchase a USB flash drive.
• Save Your Work: Save your work often and in at least two places, including your hard-drive, flash drive, web-based email, or web briefase. If you are working on a paper in a computer lab, save your work to your flash drive every five minutes and email it to yourself every half hour. Never save your work to a computer lab desktop.
• Blackboard: After uploading an assignment to Blackboard, verify that it was submitted correctly. If you are submitting to a discussion board, surf out of the board and browse back in to verify that your post was received. If you are submitting a document to a Group File Exchange, your document is viewable as soon as you upload it. If you are submitting an informal response, formal paper, or exam, make sure that you click the Submit button rather than simply the Save button. After uploading the assignment, check My Grades. An exclamation point (!) means that the assignment is waiting to be graded.

Attendance

• Mandatory Attendance : Attendance in my classes is mandatory. However, I recognize that illness, issues, and emergencies arise; therefore, I permit students in a two-day per week course to miss four days of class and students in a three-day per week course to miss six days of class. In other words, you can miss two weeks of a 15 week semester without hurting your grade. Habitually arriving late to or leaving early from class also constitutes an absence.
• Attendance Penalty: If you miss any more class periods than those allotted to you, your final grade will be penalized one letter grade per day missed, regardless of excuse. For instance, if you are in a two-day per week class, use your four days, and get sick for a fifth day, then your final grade in the course will be penalized one letter day. If you miss another day for whatever reason, then your final grade in the course will be penalized two letter grades.
• Attendance Sheet: You must sign the attendance sheet, passed around at the beginning of each class, to prove that you attended. If you do not sign the sheet, then you will be marked absent. Your signature constitutes the only written proof we have that you attended a class period, so it is imperative that you sign it.
• Attendance Notices: In my response to one of your formal papers or exams, I will notify you about your attendance if and only if you have used up or gone over your skip days. Feel free to ask me to verify your attendance at any time, though preferably via email since I don't carry complete attendance records.