The next hour
Before anything else, secure your own position, because everything afterwards is easier once your section exists. Finish your part completely, upload it to the shared space, and post that you have done so. Do that even if it feels pointless with the rest missing.
Then take stock in writing: which sections exist, which are outstanding, and who committed to each. Not to build a case against anyone, but because you cannot make a good decision about the next four days without knowing precisely what is missing.
Only then decide what to do about the gaps. People skip straight to the deciding, and they usually decide badly because they are working from a general sense of disaster rather than from a list.
One clear message, not five anxious ones
Post once in the group space, addressed to everyone rather than to the missing members individually, and make it easy to answer. Say what is done, what is outstanding, when you need it, and what you will do if it does not arrive.
That last part is the important one, and it should not be a threat. Something like: if I have not heard by Friday I will draft placeholder sections so we can submit something complete. It gives people a deadline, it removes the awkwardness of them having to explain, and it makes your subsequent actions predictable rather than unilateral.
A surprising number of silent teammates reappear at that point, because what looked like disengagement was often paralysis: they had fallen behind, felt embarrassed, and stopped opening the course. A message that offers an easy way back in gets more people back than a reproachful one ever does.
Writing to your instructor
Do this before the deadline. Everything about how it is received depends on that. Before, you are a student managing a problem; after, you are a student explaining a bad grade, and there is much less anybody can do.
Keep it short and factual, and leave every adjective out.
- What was agreed, and when, with the group space as the record
- What has actually been submitted to the shared document so far
- What you have personally completed, and when you completed it
- What you are doing to cover the gaps
- One specific question: whether they would like you to proceed that way
- No characterisation of anybody's motives, effort or reliability
Then finish it anyway
If the sections do not arrive, write them. This is unfair and it is still correct, because graders mark the document in front of them. A visibly incomplete submission punishes you considerably more than it punishes the people who vanished, and it removes the option of a sympathetic response.
Write the missing sections plainly rather than trying to imitate four different voices, and make sure the whole thing reads as one document. A deliverable stitched together from mismatched fragments loses marks on coherence, which is a criterion in nearly every group rubric.
Keep the evidence: the version history, the group space thread, your message to the instructor. If a peer evaluation is part of the assessment, that record is what you complete it from, and it is far more persuasive than a recollection.
Afterwards, and next time
Peer evaluations exist for exactly this and students routinely soften them out of discomfort. Be factual rather than harsh: describe what was agreed and what was delivered, without adjectives. Instructors weight those more heavily than most people realise, and a vague evaluation gives them nothing to act on.
For the next group, the whole problem is preventable by two habits: post a skeleton of the deliverable in the first forty-eight hours, and set an internal deadline several days before the real one. Groups that do those two things very rarely reach this article.
And if this one has landed entirely on you in a week you did not have spare, finishing somebody else's project is a perfectly ordinary thing to hand over. It costs a great deal less than repeating a course does.
Questions people actually ask
The deadline is Sunday and nobody has replied. What first?
Finish and upload your own section right now, before anything else, and post that you've done it. Then list what exists and what's missing. Only after that make decisions, because deciding from a general sense of disaster produces worse choices than deciding from a list of four named gaps.
Will my instructor actually do anything?
Frequently, if you write before the deadline rather than after it. Faculty have discretion they don't advertise: splitting the grade, extending, or accepting an individual submission. Almost none of that remains available once the work has been submitted and marked, which is why timing matters more than the wording of your message.
Should I submit incomplete work to show what happened?
No. Graders assess the document in front of them, so an incomplete submission mainly damages your own grade and forfeits any sympathetic response. Finish it, keep the record of who contributed what, and raise the participation issue separately and in advance. Those are two different conversations.
How honest should my peer evaluation be?
Factual and specific, without adjectives about anybody's character. Describe what was agreed and what was delivered, with dates. Instructors weight these more heavily than students assume, and a softened evaluation leaves them nothing to act on. Being accurate isn't unkind; it's the only thing that makes the mechanism work.
