Writing Assignment Instructions:

For each writing assignment, you submit multiple drafts and provide peer feedback.

You will submit the assignments at Turnitin.com (for instructions on how to login to turnitin, go to the introductory assignments page from the first week of classes (there is a link to it on the Assignments page).

1. First you will submit a draft to be read by your peers.
2. Then you will give feedback on 3 papers written by your classmates, and you will review your own paper using the criteria that I will use when grading your work.This is a critical part of your writing assignment grade.
   As you read each paper, you will have to answer several questions about the paper and to assign points for each category - this will be the same way that I will assign grades when I grade your final draft.  You cannot submit comments late. 
3. Finally, you will read your peer feedback and use this to revise your paper and submit it for a final grade.
   After the deadline for the peer review has passed, you will be able to view the comments that other students made on your paper.  If you have missed the peer review deadline, you may still submit a final draft, but you will lose significant points, and you will not have peer comments to use to improve your writing before submitting your assignment. 

To see how writing assignments are graded, go to the rubric here.

Important: While you can refer to various source for ideas and guidance, your writing should ultimately be your own. Your papers will be checked to see if they are too similar to my lectures, other internet sources, other papers submitted by other students across the country, or to papers produced by feeding the prompt into various AI services. To avoid any issues:

• If you use AI in any way, clearly disclose this at the top of the paper. It needs to be clear that you personally wrote most of the content and that any examples provided are your own (and not from AI). For example, including a sentence like "I used OpenAI to check my paper for grammar and spelling before submitting it" is acceptable, but a sentence like "I fed the prompt into ChatGPT and then modified it a little and added a few extra examples" is NOT an acceptable use of AI.
• Remember that the goal here is to show what you personally have learned about the topic and how it may impact your practice as a medical professional, not to regurgitate facts from other sources. This is important whether you ever use AI or not. Long before AI, I have seen students submit papers that repeat or summarize facts from elsewhere, but most of these essays are about your experiences and thoughts, which can't be found online or in a book.
• Be sure to follow the prompt and answer every part of it for each writing assignment. Too often, students look at the overarching question and answer it without actually looking at the assignment. Be sure that you are actually following all directions. Working in the medical field, it is especially important to be very careful and follow directions/protocols exactly!