How to manage the 11:59 PM Deadline Comfortably

Last Updated: 27 July 2023

If you have ever had trouble submitting an assignment or received a penalty for minutes late submission, you understand how strict some professors can be. From losing an entire grade to losing a specific percentage of the grade or re-sitting a paper submitting an assignment (essay, discussion post, online quiz, homework, or research paper) can affect you as a student.

Late assignment submissions, albeit controversial, aim to make students learn the aspect of time management. Unfortunately, the immutable deadlines are sometimes biting lazy students, pushing them to begin working early and avoid even 1-minute late submissions.

Even though some educators might offer a grace period for a minimal time, some will apply a sliding scale late policy where they deduct a percentage of the score for each hour or day you are late with your assignments.

From the perspective of the professors, such policies ensure fairness for students who submitted their assignments earlier. We have tips and tricks to help you understand and manage minute late submissions to avoid being on the wrong side of the zero-tolerance late policy of your university.

What causes students to submit assignments late?

Different reasons can cause you to submit assignments late. We are addressing them here so that you are in the know and so that you can devise various strategies to avoid the associated late submission penalties.

Here are the top nine reasons students submit assignments late (you can use some when requesting a late submission from your professor or instructor):

1. Procrastination

Students sometimes find themselves missing submission due dates due to procrastination. Sometimes, procrastination can occur with the rigorous nature of studies and the fact that some students work and study. Furthermore, life outside of class, such as parties, festivals, movies, and meeting with friends, leaves one with little time to complete assignments on time. Having commitments and deciding to complete an assignment later can cause you actually to miss the deadline. Common ground is if you later learn that the assignment is demanding or complex or do not know what to write or hate writing essays.

2. Waiting for a response from a professor

Another reason students find themselves unable to meet submission deadlines is due to the late response from a professor. In most cases, especially when assignments are complicated, you can seek clarifications from your lecturer or professor. However, if your professor responds to your email late, the chances are that you will also submit the assignment late. We will see shortly how to manage such situations and avoid submitting your assignments late.

3. Lack of proper planning and time management

This happens mostly for working students. They often find themselves having too much on their schedule that they probably forget to complete and submit a school assignment early. For instance, if you are an undergraduate or MBA student working and studying, having assignments that require time at work can hamper your completion date for the assignments from school.

4. Writer's Block

Sometimes it is not about did I get the question right? or inadequate time management. Even with the right skills, time, and resources, you might still feel lazy to complete an assignment. With the fast-paced world around us, we get fatigued faster. Suppose you are one of those that like completing assignments last-minute; writers' block has probably messed you up before. We have tips to address this, as we shall see shortly.

5. Lack of knowledge about the assignment

Finally, lacking the knowledge to complete an assignment can make you submit it late. Sometimes, you will end up submitting a late assignment that is incomplete : two wrongs at a go. In addition, many classmates might not be willing to assist you with understanding the assignment.

6. Using shitty assignment help websites

Today, almost seven out of ten students use an assignment writing service. However, without choosing a reliable and legit service, you might run into problems with your submission deadlines. Mainly, this occurs due to the late submission of assignments by writers. Rogue writers are everywhere online, from Twitter to Reddit and now Facebook; they will approach you with sweet deals, and once you assign them to your homework and pay them to do it, they disappear on the internet. Putting too much trust in another person without a legit website to write your essay or assignment can mess you. We had a case where a client wanted to use our write my late assignment ASAP service because a previous writer from Twitter had held their paper ransom and requested more payment or expose them to their school and professor. Well, you can manage this by working with our custom assignment help website.

7. You just hate writing assignments

The assignment writing process is tedious and rigorous. For instance, when writing an essay, you begin by researching, then drafting an outline, and going all the way to proofreading and editing. As a result, if you hate writing homework, you might be slow and find yourself submitting an assignment late.

8. Unforeseeable Circumstances

Deadline violation often occurs when you face nasty circumstances that you cannot foresee as a human being. These circumstances include disasters, sickness, death, accidents, or injuries. Professors have a soft spot for accepting minutes late submissions if you face these issues, so you need not worry as long as you have proof. Sometimes it is your laptop that got either rained on, attacked by a virus, or stolen. Whatever happens to your computer or laptop, you probably do not have time to complete the assignment or begin doing it over and beat the deadline unless you are very fast.

9. Poor Internet

We have cases when you travel for the weekend, visit with others (friends or family), which can cause you to either forget submitting or, because you are in a hurry, to save the assignment on your laptop or phone and submit it later.

If you run into slow internet issues or poor coverage, you might find yourself turning in an assignment later than the 11:59 PM deadline or the deadline set by your professor.

Tips and Tricks to use to avoid minute-late submissions

To avoid submitting assignments after the deadline, missing full marks due to lateness, or earning a bad reputation, it is necessary to take precautions. Here are some tips and tricks that you can use to avoid turning in assignments later than the due date and time.

Do your assignment early enough

Even with one-minute lateness, submitting an assignment later incurs some loss as a student. Expressly, professors and lecturers set the dates on Canvas and Turnitin and set an automatic deduction once your work is late.

If you know that your deadline for a ten or 5-page paper is 11:59 Sunday or Wednesday, and you have been assigned the paper 3-5 days before the deadline, the best thing is to begin earlier.

Students who draft a research paper or essay plan often find it easier to complete assignments within the deadlines than those who do not. As soon as you are assigned a paper, make it a point to clarify with the professor anything unclear. This leaves you plenty of time to research, decide on a topic, write the first draft, edit, and submit the paper on time.

Write the fast draft early enough, then edit later as the deadline nears. Sometimes submitting an assignment too early might be judged by the professor as you rushed the paper. Therefore, before you hit the submit button, ensure that everything is addressed per the instructions and the rubric.

Set your deadline early before the actual submission deadline

Apart from just beginning the paper early, another excellent strategy is to set your personal deadline for completing the paper early than the actual deadline. If an assignment is due in 5 days, set your deadline to 3 or 4 days. You can use the rest of the deadline to do other stuff or equally edit the paper thoroughly.

There is some deep joy and peace that comes with completing a paper. However, you can only experience the moment when you complete the paper.

Do not procrastinate editing and submitting the final draft.

Sometimes students write the papers early enough and procrastinate editing and proofreading. Nevertheless, doing so might land you in trouble because you might experience unforeseeable circumstances. For instance, your laptop might crash, or you can fall too ill to complete the paper. Although if you have an unrefined paper, you can hire a proofreader or editor to paraphrase, edit, and polish your essay. It is, however, a great practice to completely do away with a paper before committing your time elsewhere. Instead, plan your time, have adequate rest, and allocate the time you have the highest concentration to completing your paper.

Have an accountability partner, group, or study buddy

Another great way to ensure that you complete assignments before deadlines entails having an accountability partner, study group, or a study buddy.

An accountability partner is an effective strategy that helps you set and achieve goals. It also helps you maintain the zeal to complete assignments, read course materials, and hone your writing/reading/research skills.

With a study group, you will have members who share like interests. They will likely remind you about your unsubmitted assignments and keep you in check. They can also be helpful with research and sharing insights on how to approach an assignment.

Finally, a study buddy (a friend, classmate, or roommate) can help you maintain the morale of reading, studying, and completing assignments.

Having either of the three can help you begin working on your assignments early enough to avoid the last-minute rush.

Email your professor for a deadline extension

If you are very sure you have done your best to complete a paper, but due to unavoidable circumstances, you cannot complete the paper on time, you can request your professor to accept a late submission. Note that with such a request, you must have proof. For instance, if your excuse is being sick or a family member died or fell ill, you should produce credible hospital evidence. In most cases, if the email is not answered soon enough, proceed to call your professor.

If you have already submitted an assignment later than the set deadline, email your professor to convince them not to hit you with the 10-25% deadline violation penalty. You should apologize and then explain the reasons for submitting the assignment late. Also, suggest how being rated poorly might affect your GPA and convince your professor that you will never submit a paper late again.

Play around with Turnitin Settings

If you want to make your professor not penalize you for late submission, you can tweak some settings on the Turnitin website. First, you can modify the assignment link from the control panel. First, select the Course Tools, then pick the assignment whose link you wish to edit. Next, select the link to the assignment and then select Edit Assignment. You can then comfortably change the deadline so that your submission deadline is within the deadline.

Another common trick you can use is submitting a corrupted Word or PDF file of the assignment. In this case, since your professor cannot open the file, they will write to you requesting the original uncorrupted file. You can use the time in between to complete your paper and wait for their call or email request.

Finally, you can also find a way to edit the submitted assignment by editing the content folder. In the case of Turnitin, you will find the link to the assignment and click on the Action Link tab to make the change.

Since these are not guaranteed tips to work because of ongoing updates, you should contact your professor because they are a person who has emotions. Alternatively, complete your papers early enough.

Work with a last-minute assignment service.

The ultimate trick to avoid minutes-late submission is hiring a fast essay writing service to write your last-minute paper. Gradecrest has experts who can write your last-minute essay faster. Our writers are experienced enough to write two pages within an hour or ten pages in 6-8 hours. Therefore, if you realize that the deadline is very close and you cannot complete your assignment, you can use our affordable academic writing services.

When someone is working on your paper, keep them on your toes, ask for progress, and involve yourself so that the final paper has much of your input and matches your writing style. Also, work with credible writing websites to avoid having papers that are traceable through Turnitin.

Understanding the 11:59 PM assignment submission deadline

11:59 PM, mainly on Sunday nights, is a dreaded time by many students. It is when all the discussion posts, assignments, essays, and most homework are due.

For Canvas, SafeAssign, and Turnitin, it is common to see the submission deadline set at 11:59 PM- a minute to midnight. If you do not take the precautions, we have highlighted above, the chances are that your 1-minute lateness might cost you a grade.

Submitting assignments at 11:59 means, you can submit your assignment at 11:59:59 PM. After the deadline, Turnitin, SafeAssign, or Canva automatically marks the submission as late.

Such lateness could be why you miss an A or B and get a poor grade for an otherwise easy paper. Therefore, complete your assignments on time, use writing services, plan your time, and consult with your instructor early enough to avoid late submission penalties.

You might incur risks when you submit an assignment later than 11:59 PM. First, you will face the consequences of being late. One of the consequences includes being undermarked. You can as well be requested to take a re-sit of the paper or lose the marks altogether. Either way, your final grade will be impacted by otherwise avoidable circumstances.

Note that 12-, 24-, or 1-hour late submissions are treated the same as 1-minute late submissions in terms of consequences.

Another risk of submitting an assignment late is facing technical hitches with the system. For example, your internet might act up, and also, because everyone is rushing to submit at the last minute, the chances are that the system gets overloaded and slow.

Before you close this Tab, ...

We have looked at some of the best strategies to avoid submitting your assignments late. However, if you are a frequent late assignment submitter, these tips and tricks can work well in your favor.

Related Reading: 

Above all, you can always spare some cash to hire an assignment writer to assist if you have little time on your hands. However, if you have adequate time, avoid procrastination and writer's block by planning early, setting your own deadlines, and consulting with your instructor early enough.

We have experts if you have an online exam and want someone who can write your short answers in real time. They can save you from violating the exam deadlines.