Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: The grader acknowledges that both of my peer-review feedbacks were critical, helpful, and thorough. The grader acknowledges that I was specific about ways to improve as a psychological scientist ?? giving concrete examples to illustrate my points and helping my peers find solid ways of improving. The grader acknowledges that I also grounded my feedback in PSYC 100 content and was informed by the rubric, which was very helpful for this assignment. The re-grader also acknowledged that I did a great job with my peer feedback, providing comprehensive and concrete suggestions for improvement. My peer-review feedbacks were three pages long, in addition to references, which is the same length as my own Mega Lab report. It was like writing two additional Mega Lab critiques. Therefore, I almost wrote two whole Mega Lab reports for my peers to help them achieve their assignments. I believe that I exceeded the expectations for this part of the Mega Lab. For these reasons I am asking for my mark for the Peer Review component to change from 0.87/1 to 1/1.

The re-grader claimed that in my Mega Lab, the Accuracy section of CRAAP model had good links to PSYC 100 content. In contrast, the Authority, Currency, and Purpose sections did not explicitly link to course material. However, the Authority and Purpose sections could not be linked to course material, because they are specific to the authors of the media posting that I was critiquing. The Authority section is supposed to talk about who the author is, what the author's credentials or organizational affiliations are and whether the author is qualified to write on the topic. The Purpose section is supposed to talk about the intentions behind the author writing the article, whether the article is to inform, teach, sell, entertain, or persuade, whether the author makes their intentions or purposes clear, and whether the information is fact, opinion, or propaganda. I believe I covered all of that comprehensively.

The Currency section is supposed to discuss when the information was published, and whether the information has been revised or updated. Again, I covered that comprehensively. There was no need to discuss Memory in the Currency section since it was addressed in detail in the Accuracy section, especially with the limited space that we were allowed to critique with. I already had to delete several paragraphs from the Accuracy section to make my critique fit the strict three-page limit.
The grading rubric only mentions thinking like a psychological scientist for the Evaluation of Source component, which was demonstrated in my critique by using arguments from the PSYC 100 textbook to critique the media article. My References page contained 7 citations (more than half) from the PSYC 100 textbook, and therefore it was grounded in PSYC 100 content. I also used 6 other scholarly sources to support my arguments. Therefore, my critique was grounded in scholarly evidence and directly tied to PSYC100, which is what the rubric asked for. I critiqued all claims in my media post using both the CRAAP and VRGE methods in detail. Furthermore, I also discussed correlation versus causation errors in the media post I was critiquing, provided alternative explanations for results, discussed whether the results were falsifiable and whether they were representative, which are all parts of thinking like a psychological scientist. I made sure to provide reasons for my arguments and connected them to PSYC 100 content. For these reasons I believe that my evaluation displayed mastery of thinking like a psychological scientist and that I comprehensively addressed all considerations, and I am asking for my mark for the Evaluation of Source component to change from 1.8/3 to 3/3.

My Mega Lab was well-organized and followed all instructions. Grammatical and spelling mistakes were nonexistent or very rare, and my arguments were expressed clearly. I copied and pasted my media post to page 1 and beyond as needed and included a URL. My critical analysis was not longer than 3 pages. It was in 12-point Times New Roman font and double-spaced in .docx format. My References page was on a separate page, and I used the APA 7 citation format, which is the most up-to-date APA citation format. My critical analysis was also divided in headings and sub-headings, to make reading it and following my arguments easier. For these reasons I am asking for my mark for the Organization & Style component to change from 0.375/0.5 to 0.5/0.5.

For the above mentioned reasons, I am asking for my Winter Mega Lab grade to change from 3.55/5 to 5/5.

As per PSYC 100 policy, the re-grader was supposed to be blind to my original grade and re-evaluate my Mega Lab all over again. This doesn??t appear to be what happened based on the feedback that I got, and the re-grader was apparently just making sure that the original grader didn??t make errors in the grading process. For this reason I believe that the PSYC 100 grading team, headed by Dr. Norris, is not impartial and just looks for excuses to justify their grading decisions. Therefore, I am asking that my Mega Lab not be evaluated by Dr. Norris or her grading team, but perhaps by someone like Dr. Jeremy Stewart, who was the Winter course instructor, or by any other impartial grader. I have attached the grading rubric, the feedbacks that I got and my Mega Lab assignment.

Thank you very much.