Discussion on answer by cag51: Grading on a curve in required doctoral course, failing as a result

@DikranMarsupial: You sound like you’re thinking of a very harsh version of the policy, where a student who loses a semi-colon gets an irrevocable zero. That’s not what I’m advocating — I agree, that’d be unfair. I’d treat the lost semi-colon like a student who had internet difficulties and wasn’t able to upload their assignment, or had LaTeX errors that mangled their pdf: I’d typically allow resubmissions to fix the technical issues, and (if necessary) offer help fixing them. But there is a baseline expectation of how assignments should be submitted before they can be graded.