Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Studies),

POLS 369:

I am appealing the grades that I received for my Final Essay and Take Home Essay. Regarding my final essay, I lost 6 percent of the final essay mark due to errors in citation. As I used chicago in-text citations, rather than footnotes, I believe that I should have at least only lost 4 percent. As I used enough scholarly sources and cited all relevant information accrediting the sources I used, and used a form of chicago citation, I believe that my mark should have been higher than the 78 I received. The instructor even said it was a solid paper with a scholarly tone.

Regarding my Take Home Essay, I was given a 68 with reasoning that I did not answer the question or use course readings and lecture notes. If one refers to the question that I answered and my paper, it is evident that I structured my essay based on the question, answered all components of the question, and used primarily course lectures and course readings. This does not make any sense to me how I received 68. I skilfully attempted to answer the take home exam question. Another comment that the instructor brought to my attention was my focus on internationalism in addressing peacekeeping. I fully understood this course however, and only incorporated internationalism into my paper because this is how peacekeeping evolved and remained part of Canadian foreign policy. Prior to the turn of internationalism in 1950s (when peacekeeping first was implemented), Canada had an isolationist foreign policy, which explains why it was never involved with peacekeeping prior to the 1950s. Internationalism was also a big focus in explaining peacekeeping within the textbook and the Eric Wagner course reading which I used in my paper. I believe that this was a paper that should have received at least an 80. I even incorporated course themes such as Canada as a middle power and a values-based approach to foreign policy.



PHIL 301:

Regarding the 3 papers I submitted in this course, I believe that they were marked way too harshly. Regarding my first paper, I made a valid rebuttal to the argument presented in the paper and was graded a B/B+ because of reading the argument too strictly. I believe that in philosophy, an argument can be interpreted in any way, where if I read the conditions strictly, as the argument allowed it to be read, and I am able to formulate a rebuttal due to this reading, it should be taken as credible and valid. I had tried to ask for my papers to be reread by the professor, as a TA was the one responsible for grading, but I was told that it was too late. I was just really busy during the semester and was waiting to see what my other grades were before I asked for my term work to be reread. I also answered all components of all the questions asked for the term essays. No comments were given for the final paper submitted, I only received a grade of B-, while I believed that I had written a solid paper.


Thank you for your time,


Brittany Singh