<p>Unless there is a policy that profs must keep papers and/or return them to students, the professor has done nothing wrong. Find another paper to use.</p>
<p>Bluealien, I do not need comments. I want it because it deals with educational inequality and the internship place is education non-profit. You don’t just send “anything” as a writing sample.</p>
<p>Tenisghs, stop taking everything so seriously. It is starting to seem like you have an entitlement issue. This, combined with your airline seat thread dores raise some concern as to how you live with the realities of evreyday life. There will be non responsive profs. Airlines will get as much as they can for each seat. There will be people prettier, smarter and just plain better equipt to lead. That’s life Ten, just take what you have and make the best of yours.</p>
<p>Tenisghs, I agree with another poster, who said that no answer might be the answer, especially since many schools do not allow professors to return papers to students because of plagiarism issues (ie, fraternity test files, residential college paper files, etc). </p>
<p>You are not entitled to your paper back; your professor is not your secretary, and if they aren’t responding, you can probably assume one of two things:
- Professor may be on sabbatical and not even receiving your emails.
- You did not build the kind of relationship with this professor that would allow you to ask for a favor and have it granted.</p>
<p>Learn from the experience, and move on, but don’t ask favors from people who don’t owe you anything and then stamp your foot when they don’t comply with your wishes.</p>
<p>Actually, I was under the impression that profs are supposed to return papers, graded and (not always) commented on. I believe the point of papers is not just to give students a grade but also to help them with their writing. Keeping the papers undermines that goal. At many colleges, profs tell students to give them a self-addressed and stamped envelope so that their term papers and bluebooks can be mailed to them at the end of the year if they so choose. It the students do not pick them up, the profs are expected to keep them for a year or so in case a dispute arises over grades.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why a professor would not give a paper back. Final exams I can understand keeping, but did the professor tell you when you took the course that you couldn’t have the paper back but you could see it at a later date if need be?</p>
<p>Bet he lost it and is hoping you will stop asking</p>
<p>Because it would just be easier to give it back</p>
<p>Do you know the grade you got, and have you spoken to other students about missing papers? Does he have a TA you can talk to?</p>
<p>Go to his office and see him in person</p>
<p>university e-mail accounts are notorious for being filled with junk! webct is often not an option as once a class is over, those e-mails might never be checked again either. papers might have to be kept until a grade appeal deadline has passed, and then they are often sent straight to a shredder. </p>
<p>stop by his office during his hours. face to face–wait if you must, but many professors don’t respond to emails because students use them so frequently for needless requests.</p>
<p>At this point, emails are not working. I can’t understand why you would not make more effort to catch him on office hours. One try was not enough. Ask a dept. secretary how to best reach him. Leave a note on his door or under the door. Come back during hours another time he has them. The emails may not be a reliable way to reach him.</p>
<p>As a practical matter, one useful thing to do when you want to be sure not to lose papers is to send them to yourself when you hand them in; that way they are prety much permanently in your own email system and you can retrieve them if you ever need them. It is also a good idea to save on as many kind of disks as you have and keep them in a safe place–and keep track of what that place is. When you say you cannot find a copy on your computer or disk it isn’t clear whether you neglected to save it or the comptuer ate your homework:)</p>
<p>I don’t see what the issue is here - just go talk to him. I have tutors who don’t reply to emails, and guess what, I walk into their offices and get whatever it is sorted. Most of the time, they hadn’t checked their emails for a long period of time and didn’t even know I wanted to discuss something with them.</p>
<p>Also, the fact that you didn’t save your own work really isn’t your professor’s problem. Is there no other paper you can use? If not, I think you said you had saved an earlier version of it - if so, why not use that as a basis and just edit it?</p>
<p>Laylah, the paper was 5 pages long. The most updated version I had was one ONE page (!). So much for editting…</p>
<p>And I ALWAYS email or save to a disk my work. I have been doing this since freshman year.</p>
<p>Hi Tenisghs,</p>
<p>The most baffling thing about your situation is the tone adopted by some of those who have responded here. Your requests for the return of your paper are absolutely reasonable–you have every right to at least make a photocopy of that paper. You did not “lose” your homework–you’re dealing with a lazy prof who does not want to be bothered with returning your work. I taught college for fifteen years and believe me, I kept some papers for years afterwards. Why? Aside from common courtesy, the most significant reason is for self-protection in the event of a grade dispute. Most schools instruct professors to retain exams and papers for at least one semester (or quarter, in your case), before disposing of them. I’m very surprised that anyone would believe that a professor has the right to ignore your requests. Even if you had not been polite about it, (and I do hope that you were), he would have been obliged to reply–professors are employees of institutions that charge hefty sums of money as tuition–they are not gods who may deign to respond to students only when they feel like it. All students should have the right to view their final exams and papers–after all, those assignments determined their course grades. This professor’s behavior is inexcusable, especially given the tuition charged by your university! I cannot understand why some people would scold you for not retaining a copy of your paper–many times students contacted me later to read my comments on their final assignments. (I returned them permanently after one term). It’s a check on any potentially arbitrary grading behavior, for crying out loud.</p>
<p>That said, you must go by his office in person during his posted office hours. You should have done this right away, although I can understand how students sometimes hesitate about that (that’s a lesson to learn for next time–make the request in person). I know that you are on spring break now (my daughter goes to your school), so you just go straight away next week. Is it possible he was on sabbatical last term? (I skimmed through the last part of your thread, so I might have missed that). </p>
<p>As far as a formal complaint in the event of more stonewalling on the part of this guy–that probably will not help you, especially if this is your major field (again, sorry, I didn’t see if it was). It won’t help you get your paper back and it may indeed burn a bridge. If he’s tenured, you are surely aware that nothing can hurt him. But you must at least make your request in person–if he’s old maybe he really doesn’t understand how to use email. (eyeroll, here)! Geez, I hardly ever come by this site anymore since my daughter got into college and this issue has me all worked up. Best of luck to you, tenighs.</p>
<p>tenisghs - I see. So go see your professor, and if he doesn’t have a copy then submit a different paper or sit down and re-write the old one. Do you want an internship or not?! It is not your professor’s job to get you one!</p>
<p>Suzy - I see what you are saying, and I agree. It is certainly a student’s right to see their papers/examinations/grades and discuss them with their professors. I don’t think anyone is denying this. What I don’t understand is why tenisghs has not gone to see the professor in person before threatening to lodge a complaint against him. To me, that makes no sense at all.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is why tenisghs has not gone to see the professor in person before threatening to lodge a complaint against him. To me, that makes no sense at all.</p>
<p>in context taken with other threads on similar issues it does-</p>
<p>Laylah, it is odd how some students are very shy about speaking with their profs. I remember that some students were fearful of disturbing me, even though I would be sitting in my office with my feet propped up on my desk and the door wide open! But you are correct in insisting that she speak with him personally before lodging a complaint (which I think would probably be a mistake as well as futile).</p>
<p>emeraldkity - ah, have their been other incidences with the professor in question? I was not aware of that. I would still try talking to him first, and if that fails… use a different paper. I agree with Suzy, if he is tenured nothing will be able to touch him.</p>
<p>Id have to sort out the posts to figure out if it was this particular prof- but some students have a harder time figuring out that most profs expect them to be adults and take responsiblity for their own work, including getting help if they need it, and accepting a grade once it is given.</p>
<p>At my university, and I believe at most others as well, there is a “Code of Teaching Responsibility” that defines the teacher’s obligations in certain areas. One of these concerns returning papers and tests; at my university we are required to keep them for up to one year and to return them to the students upon request. Who enforces this kind of thing? Either the Department chair, as the officer of first resort, or a university Ombudsman who makes a polite intervention to resolve the dispute. My guess is that the OP’s college has something akin to this system. In addition, depending on how that paper was submitted, it may well be archived either in the e-mail system or in the course or class-management system. For example, at my university students submit their papers into an on-line “drop-box” set up for the given paper and class. So if that system is in place, the paper probably hasn’t yet been deleted or purged.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with resorting to one of the options that I mentioned above. The OP should either go to the department chair or the ombudsman. And another resource is the students’ academic advisor, who may also be able to intervene constructively or advise how best to proceed.</p>
<p>If you haen’t switched computers since the time you had it, you could try restoring it using a program (computers never really delete anything…that’s why computers get slow over time)</p>
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