Assessment Information and Writing style guide

DELC resit policy for all non-honours courses

A guide to word count, formatting and referencing in essays for DELC courses and to our policy on inclusive writing.

Information on the principles of assessment used by the University of Edinburgh.

Taught Assessment Regulations

An explanation of the marks and grades applied to coursework and exams. If your Language has a specific Language based marking scheme you will find details on the course Learn page under assessment.

Common Marking Scheme

DELC Marking Scheme

Plagiarism is taken very seriously and incurs penalties.  Follow the links provided to make sure you know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

All assignments submitted for assessment must be strictly YOUR OWN WORK. Use of all online translation tools (i.e. Google Translate, WordReference, etc.) is therefore STRICTLY PROHIBITED, as is seeking exterior help (friend, native speaker flatmate, tutor, etc.).

Please be aware that if a tutor/marker has reason to believe that a submitted piece of work cannot have been entirely the product of the student’s own work, he/she will file a report for possible academic misconduct and send it to the School Academic Misconduct Officer. The student may then be called to the SAMO’s office for an assessment of their linguistic ability in exam conditions, under the SAMO’s supervision, before the case is forwarded to the College Academic Misconduct Officer for a final decision. This concerns all submitted pieces of assessment, for coursework or coursework resits.

Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

Formal assignments must normally be submitted electronically through the course Learn area.  All electronic submissions will be reviewed by the plagiarism detection service Turnitin.

Coursework Submissions

You can apply for an extension of up to 7 days by submitting a request before the assignment is due.  Please note that penalties for late submission will be applied unless an extension request has been approved and this requirement applies to ALL students, including those who have an adjustment schedule.

How to apply for an extension

Deductions for unauthorised late submission will be calculated as follows:  5 marks per calendar day for up to 7 days;  zero awarded thereafter (Taught Assessment Regulation 28).

Penalties for late coursework submission

Feedback on in-course assessed work will be provided within 15 working days of submission, or in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course, whichever is sooner, but please note the following exceptions:

• This timescale does not apply to the final in-course assessment, including exams.
• The University Christmas closure period is excluded from the 15 working day calculation.

Coursework feedback

Where applicable you will find dates of forthcoming exam diets here, and exam timetables once available.  The majority of our assessments are online so consult your course Learn page for assessment dates. Please note that exam diets are scheduled centrally and the School is unable to influence this.

Exam Diet Dates

You can look at exam papers from previous years here.

Past Exam Papers

Please note that this is not permitted, except in a few specific cases where all students on a course are allowed to do so.

Use of dictionaries in examinations