We'll be busy this semester, and in order to keep up, you'll need to meet all deadlines for readings, writing assignments, exercises, and lab work as they come. If you miss deadlines consistently, you'll have a hard time passing this course. Late work won't be accepted, except under the most extraordinary of circumstances and at my discretion.

 There are a lot of good practical reasons for being somewhat arbitrary about deadlines, but the best one I have is this: this is the sort of course (like the art of writing itself) that you should work on a little every day. If your paper is late, it may mean that you neglected to work on it all until the last minute, and few people can write anything worth reading that way. We'll be working on your early drafts in class long before the paper is due, so no one should have problems keeping up with the schedule.

Often writing has to be done a little at a time. It may well be that the best thing (though I hope not the only thing) I can do to help you improve your writing is to help you change your writing habits.