<p>I am a senior at a state school and have yet to get a grade below an A. I was just wondering how bad a paper, specifically a history paper, would have to be to get an F. Do professors ever give F’s to anything besides blatantly plagiarized papers? Has anyone received an F on a well-written paper that they worked hard on, but that simply did not answer the question it was supposed to? </p>
<p>One thing I am really interested in is what separates a D- or D paper from an F. Please tell me if you know. Obviously I recognize that there is considerable variation amongst professors, but I think that some universal standards exist across schools and profs.</p>
<p>Depends on the school obviously, UMich and UVA are “Public Unis” but so are those fifth-best-school-in-the-state schools with 2/3rs of the student body having a 2.5 or lower and a 750 sat. Some public schools will have very high standards, some not so much.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to state Us (I go to a small LAC) but I’d have to say your paper would have to be pretty ****ing bad to get an F.</p>
<p>Usually, in my opinion, you get at least a D for <em>writing</em> the paper at all. If you don’t address the prompt (and there’s no way the professor can stretch it so that you do) then I’ve mostly found professors will more have you rewrite the paper (if it’s well written) rather than give you an F. But my papers have been pretty open ended in terms of prompt - “sexuality in the Pardoner’s Tale” for example — there is a LOT to write about that could address that prompt.</p>
<p>The only way I think you can get an F on a paper in any university is if you don’t do the paper itself.
For trying, you will get at least a passing grade.</p>
<p>I know on one assignment I failed like a third of the class because their writing wasn’t up to the level expected for the course they were in (this was not a writing course, but they were required to write at a certain level and a lot of students turned in papers with egregious errors). After that, the class shaped up pretty quickly and I graded more kindly from then on, but it really depends on the course. If you’re taking an upper division class in the humanities (incl. history), you should be writing well. If you make more than a few major errors, I don’t think a prof should accept your paper.</p>
<p>Make your your prof isn’t the type to give you an F because of margins, or because you used the wrong font or type of paper. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve heard horror stories.</p>
<p>I was supposed to write a paper that was 4-5 pages double spaced with 1in margins and it ended up being 2.5 pages with 1.25in margins, and I still got a D. I did at least write about the topic it was supposed to be on though (comparing war in Gilgamesh and the Iliad), so I think that’s why I didn’t fail.</p>
<p>This was the first paper in world lit 1 last fall after I hadn’t taken any english in over a year, btw. I ended up getting a B in the class (two B’s and an A on the rest of the papers) after I shaped up.</p>
<p>I got a 50% on a major paper for my philosophy class. We had a couple of different prompts to choose from, and one was asking what a certain philosopher thought about programs like affirmative action. TA said I was wrong.</p>
<p>Incidentally, my roommate wrote on the same topic except with the opposite viewpoint and was also told on his paper he was wrong. He wound up with the same grade.</p>
<p>^If that’s all you need to do to get a 61%, why the hell was I spending hours on a paper for the same grade? And even 1% less? Pfft. Crap. ;[ And that was high school.</p>
<p>I got a pretty bad grade on one of my political philosophy papers… I was reading the comments and the professor wrote what the philosopher believed, and said that I said the opposite. I read what I wrote, and maybe it wasn’t as clear as I should’ve been, but I didn’t think I was arguing based on a fundamentally wrong premise. I did much better on the other 2 papers, but overall my grade wasn’t too good for the semester</p>