I loved taking this class, and the format was honestly super helpful. The grading breakdown is very clear and fair: two non-cumulative exams worth 20% each, homework worth 30%, a final paper worth 20%, a proposal (5%) and presentation (5%), plus 2% extra credit available through SONA participation. There is also a 96-hour late policy, which is super generous and takes a lot of stress off.
In terms of the exams, they were very spot on with the lectures and mainly covered the most important aspects. Before every exam, Thomas does a full review, and that review tends to closely reflect what actually shows up on the test. He makes it pretty clear what to focus on, which makes studying feel focused rather than overwhelming.
As for the homework, it was not stressful at all. I never needed to use the late policy because the assignments were straightforward and easy to complete using his lectures. Everything felt manageable and directly connected to what we were learning in class.

The final project is also very doable. The proposal and presentation are only 5% each, and it does not have to be an experiment you actually run, just a well-developed idea. There is a short Q&A portion, which is not intimidating. If other students do not ask questions, Thomas will step in. His questions can sometimes sound more intellectual than expected, but he seems to grade based on effort and whether you understand your own material.
Overall, I would not judge the course based only on the grade distribution, since a lot of people did not attend class regularly. Thomas genuinely seemed interested in answering questions, stayed after class to help, and was consistently supportive during office hours. There was even a student who never attended in person and missed her assigned presentation day, and he still let her present later. He is a pretty cool professor, and I would definitely recommend taking his class.

The lecturer was Harold Torrence. I loved this class -- it was supposed to just be a GE, but it was so so interesting. In terms of workload, there are two analysis papers that are 1200 words long; the research took some time (like 1-2 days) but overall the papers are not unreasonable at all (and the TAs graded fairly!). We also get weekly open book quizzes based on the online lectures. The midterm and final were also not difficult at all if you paid attention to the lectures.

The asynchronous format can make it really easy to fall behind, but the flexibility was convenient for midterms/finals season. Lecture videos are taught by Professor Torrence and are very clear and thorough--although I borrowed the textbook from YRL for the quarter, the lectures and discussions were sufficient enough such that I didn't need to reference it at all.

Homework is fairly light (roughly every other week, untimed, and open note/textbook/website), but still lock in for these because they make up 25% of your grade.

The two analysis papers (each worth 15%) were pretty chill. Give yourself a few days to do them, follow the instructions carefully, and it should be easy to get an A on them.

The midterm and final were very doable with some studying. I personally fed my lecture notes and the discussion slides into NotebookLM and asked it to generate quiz questions and flashcards. For more technical units (phonetics, morphology, and syntax), practice questions during discussion and the extra resources were helpful. You do have to memorize IPA for the phonetics unit, but a vowel chart is embedded into the exam.

Overall, would take this class again. Just make sure to not fall too far behind, and it should be very doable :)

I took this class over summer with Nicco A. La Mattina, but the async lectures were from Professor Motter. The class itself is GREAT it was super fun material, the content was managable, and the weekly quizzes were not too difficult. My TA, however, was CRAZY STRICT on the grading for no reason. It's literally a GE introductory class, no way you're handing out C's and D's like they're candy on Halloween. I know I'm a good writer and I have never gotten anything below an A- on any paper I've ever written, but for some reason I failed this one?? I don't know about the other TA's, but mine specifically mentioned she had TA'ed for this class several times and knew the course inside and out, which maybe is why she doing too much for this course and failing essays over nothing. She says its because you need to cite all your sources (which I did) and if you don't, you get an automatic 0, but I guess if you don't cite common sense either you get a 0. I thought she seemed super nice and knowledgable, but honestly taking useless citations so seriously is dtm in my opinion. I honestly just have to take the L on this one because my overall grade wasn't even that bad because the course itself is super straight forward and honestly a lot of fun, but if you got Erika Yagi as your TA....good luck bro ur gonna need it.

Overall, the class content itself is not difficult as long as you take the time to do all of the practice questions/examples on the slides, do the homework properly, etc. It's very easy to make mistakes, but once you understand the material I actually found it interesting. Exams took the same format as homework assignments, but different questions and a bit more difficult. Exam averages were around the mid 70s for both the midterm and final, with no cheat sheet being allowed, but I personally thought it was easy if you reviewed the homeworks thoroughly. Homework was given weekly and about 4-6 pages, taking around 1-2 hours. Graded on accuracy, and the professor decided to drop the lowest score. Lecture was not required and not recorded, but I personally didn't go after week 3 and just reviewed the slides on my own time. Professor Motter is a kind person, but his lecture style is a bit boring. He reads off the slides directly (and quickly) and the slides can feel verbose, so I found it more productive to self-study. Kalen Chang was an amazing TA though! Definitely recommend him if he TAs again. Discussion sections weren't required but I always went because the LA worksheets were very good review and practice for homework + exams, and Kalen is great at explaining exactly what you need to know. I went to his OH before the final, and it was one of my best study resources.