Open Informatics

These are all valid questions, of course, and the decisions you make over the next couple of hours and days will determine whether the answers you receive are positive or negative. By following some basic guidelines, you can ensure your late essay or term paper doesn’t drag you down.

First, it is vital to contact the professor for whom the paper was due. An email will usually suffice, though you should meet with the professor if it is requested of you. In this email, there are two courses of action you can pursue, the worst and most common of which is the excuse. This is a completely fabricated tale about some personal tragedy which befell you, preventing you from handing in the paper on time. Note that a doctor’s appointment will not suffice here in most cases; you have had weeks to prepare this paper, and the fact that you had to miss a single day or class is no excuse. So, many students invent something more serious, like a chronic disease/injury or a family death. Despite being immoral, this causes you to have to devise a wealth of details about the circumstances at hand, and it may also prompt the professor to meet you to discuss your problem/loss, and you may even be recommended for medical or psychological treatment. Also, your professor could ask for some confirmation, and providing this will prove difficult if not impossible. In short, it would take far less work to just do the paper, and so this course of action is not recommended.

Contrary to popular belief, many professors are very reasonable, and most have handed in a late paper from time-to-time. Your email to them does not need to offer an excuse! Most times, a simple explanation of where you ran into difficulties, and where you are in the process of writing will be sufficient. This shows that you have been thinking about the issues and working through them, which reflects well in the eyes of the professor. The next element is to propose a new deadline which you will be able to meet. There is no point in suggesting you will have the paper in tomorrow if this is not possible; missing a self-imposed deadline is far more damaging than missing the first one. Consider how much time you will need to make the essay paper a quality one, and propose a deadline based on this. This action will cast you in a positive light; you have maturely identified that you have not performed to expectations, but you have taken the situation in hand and come up with a solution.

Finally, keep in mind that your grade rests in your professor’s hands, and any approach you take must respect that. You need to remain polite and reasonable at all times, either in person or via email. Remember, regardless of how unreasonable the assignment or the deadline were, complaining about this will not help your cause. You are the one who has missed the mark, and so your correspondence should aim at a somewhat apologetic tone. By acknowledging the problem, claiming responsibility for it, and making a plan to correct it, you have given yourself a chance to redeem yourself, and many professors will not penalize you, even if such punishments (such as grade reductions) are present in your course outline. In essay writing as in life, effective social skills and communication make everything easier.