Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Sir/Madam ??
I would like to appeal a mark I received in PSYC 100 for the Fall Mega Lab. Our marks were received on the 25th of November and our exam was booked for the 8th of December. I tried to book an appointment to discuss the lab and my mark, but the first available time was on the Tuesday before the exam. I thought it would be unfair to my fellow students who may have needed the time to prepare for the exam, if I booked one of the available spots. I selected the first available spot right after the exam. This was still within the 21 days of receiving my mark.

My appointment was cancelled by the department and I was unable to book another one. I had no idea about a regrade request form, never having had to fill one out before, and if my appointment had not been cancelled, chances are, I would have been told about it. At that point, I would have filled out the form and still would have been within the 21 day limit. However, none of that happened.

The issue I have with my grade comes from the following comment from the TA who marked my assignment:

peer reviews - unfortunately you peer review could not be open. your comments that you made (yellow stickies) can be opened in a read only file. I was also unable to download the .pdfs to convert them to readable file.

I was given a 0 for the mark on the peer reviews. My responses are as follows:

Peer 1 submitted their document in .pdf format. I was unable to download and convert it to a Word document successfully, so I used the built-in comment/notations feature from Adobe Acrobat. I used the tools built in Acrobat that would allow me to do my peer review and meet the requirements.

Peer 2 submitted their document in a Word format. Nowhere in the instructions did it state that we could not use the review and comment feature that is built-in Word. I have been editing and reviewing contracts for many, many years, and this is the feature that is used throughout the business world. If this is unacceptable, then the instructions should clearly state that.

It has since been suggested that I put all my comments into the comment box provided. I will certainly do that next time, but the ability to attach a document is also provided, and because I made all the comments on the documents, I felt that was sufficient. The work was done, and I do not feel that I should be penalized because the TA was unable to access the comments.

I thank you for taking the time to review my appeal and look forward to your comments.