Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 14059
Submitted: March 4, 2026 at 1:36:34 PM
First Name: Avery
Last Name: Cobban
Pronoun: She/Her
Student Number: 20473615
Email: 23gck5@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BAH
Plan: SOCY
Level of Study: 2
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Request a review of instructors' decisions on grading of final examination and/or term work
Code: SOCY 201
Term: Fall
Year: 2025
Petition Category: Request a review of instructors' decisions on grading of final examination and/or term work
Instructor's Name: Joseph McDermott
Component: Final Essay
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: I am writing to request a formal review of Professor McDermott’s re-grading of my final paper for SOCY 201. I initially asked the assignment grader for more feedback and a re-evaluation of the grade. Some additional feedback was provided but the re-evaluation request was denied. I subsequently appealed the grade to Professor McDermott, who agreed to re-evaluate the paper and slightly increased the grade from 24.5/35 to 25.5/35.
A review of this re-grading is warranted for two reasons. First, the assignment grader and course lecturer provided divergent criticisms of the paper and yet somehow arrived at nearly the same grade. A full comparison of their evaluations is not possible because the original grader did not include their grading breakdown on the assignment. That two evaluators reached nearly identical grades but provided sharply contrasting criticisms is not, of course, sufficient grounds for an appeal, but is nonetheless curious and at a minimum raises questions about whether or not the appeal was taken in good faith.
Second, and more substantively, concerns the feedback and grading breakdown provided by Professor McDermott, which appears to be either deliberately punitive or insisting upon an impossibly high standard for a second-year survey course. On “Formatting”, for example, the only mistake is a single spacing error that appears in the References list, but the grade assigned is 2/3. The paper is also well-written (both evaluators agreed) and without any grammatical or typographical errors and yet it receives 1.5/2 on that segment of the rubric. The course instructor argues that the paper needed “more background” in the description section and so assigns it only 1 out of 3 possible marks. Throughout the paper, Professor McDermott insists that more sources are required, and again assigns a mark of 2/3, yet the References lists 26 sources (in a 10.5 page paper). This is 19 more sources than the seven that the assignment instructions ask for. Were this a graduate-level seminar course, some of Professor McDermott’s criticisms would be valid. But it is not. It is a second year survey course, and papers should be graded fairly and reasonably for this level.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
A review of this re-grading is warranted for two reasons. First, the assignment grader and course lecturer provided divergent criticisms of the paper and yet somehow arrived at nearly the same grade. A full comparison of their evaluations is not possible because the original grader did not include their grading breakdown on the assignment. That two evaluators reached nearly identical grades but provided sharply contrasting criticisms is not, of course, sufficient grounds for an appeal, but is nonetheless curious and at a minimum raises questions about whether or not the appeal was taken in good faith.
Second, and more substantively, concerns the feedback and grading breakdown provided by Professor McDermott, which appears to be either deliberately punitive or insisting upon an impossibly high standard for a second-year survey course. On “Formatting”, for example, the only mistake is a single spacing error that appears in the References list, but the grade assigned is 2/3. The paper is also well-written (both evaluators agreed) and without any grammatical or typographical errors and yet it receives 1.5/2 on that segment of the rubric. The course instructor argues that the paper needed “more background” in the description section and so assigns it only 1 out of 3 possible marks. Throughout the paper, Professor McDermott insists that more sources are required, and again assigns a mark of 2/3, yet the References lists 26 sources (in a 10.5 page paper). This is 19 more sources than the seven that the assignment instructions ask for. Were this a graduate-level seminar course, some of Professor McDermott’s criticisms would be valid. But it is not. It is a second year survey course, and papers should be graded fairly and reasonably for this level.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: NO DOC
Document: crim final paper rough writing-3.pdf
Documentation Detail: I have attached an unmarked copy of my final paper.