Coursework Penalties
Summary of penalties that can be applied to coursework and links to further information.
Penalties for late essays
Planning, time-management and the meeting of deadlines are part of the personal and professional skills expected of all graduates. For this reason, UCL expects students to submit all coursework by the published deadline date and time, after which penalties will be applied.
If a student experiences something which prevents them from meeting a deadline that is sudden, unexpected, significantly disruptive and beyond their control, they should submit an Extenuating Circumstances (EC) Form. If the request is accepted, the student may be granted an extension. If the deadline has already passed, the late submission may be condoned (i.e. there will be no penalty for submitting late).
Further information:
Penalties for over-length coursework
Assessed work (including dissertations) should not exceed the prescribed word count. References and footnotes in the main body of the essay (or which need to be read to understand the content) count towards the word limit; the bibliography and title / question do not.
Penalty for work which exceeds the specified maximum length: the mark will be reduced by 10 percentage marks, but the penalised mark will not be reduced below the pass mark, assuming the work merited a Pass.
Minimum Length
There is no automatic penalty for under-length essays, providing there is sufficient suitable content.
Reuse of material
Any paper submitted by you is presumed to be original work that has not previously been submitted for another course. You should therefore, as a rule, avoid writing on topics that you have written on previously. If you consider that there is good reason for you to revisit a topic, or to overlap with previously submitted work, then you must consult, and obtain prior written approval from the course tutor. If permission is granted, the onus will nevertheless remain on you to avoid mere duplication.