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Section
Contents
University of Guelph Grading Guidelines
Grading Written Reports or Papers
Grading Oral Presentations
Grading Class Participation
Grading Examinations and Tests
Plagiarism: It Does Happen in University
In the Classroom . . . |
Grading Written Reports or Papers
(Source: Barbara Christian, The Learning Commons, University of Guelph)
A Marking Procedure
There is no one correct system for grading papers. Grading criteria
often differ from one professor to another; these criteria, furthermore,
are meant to set guidelines for the marker, and will not produce infallible
results. Do not agonize over assessing a grade. The following list suggests
steps for setting up a system of marking. You should revise the method
so that it works for you.
- Discuss with the instructor the expectations for the assignment. Clarify
the relative emphasis on content, form, and style.
- Offer office interviews to discuss students' plans for their papers
before they write and to review first drafts.
- Give students clear directions for the assignment, and give them well
in advance.
- When papers have been submitted, skim through several without marking
and determine whether the quality fits with the expectations. If they
don't, meet again with the instructor to see if the expectations should
be revised.
- In developing marking criteria consider: What are you expecting, and
what value are you assigning for each aspect of content and form? (Note:
Many authorities advise against splitting the grade between content and
writing because students then believe that they could write an excellent
paper even with frequent errors in style and mechanics. Instead, reinforce,
through one overall grade, that innovative ideas and an understanding of
the material are meaningless if they cannot be communicated effectively.)
- Skim all papers without marking and tentatively sort into piles for each
letter grade. Keep in mind the criteria for each grade described in
the section University of Guelph Grading Guidelines.
- By marking all papers in one letter grade at a time, you will be better
able to decide where each paper fits into the range by comparing it
to the other papers you have just marked. You may also realize that
your first impression was not accurate for some papers - readjust the
grades accordingly.
- Read each paper carefully. (Suggestion: Start with the lowest letter
grade so that you are having to make fewer comments as you mark more papers.
You will probably find that you make fewer comments on an excellent or
extremely poor paper than on a mediocre one.)
- When marking, read through quickly for overall focus and organization,
then read more carefully to consider paragraph structure, coherence (and
transitions), introduction and conclusion. Think carefully about what
specific and general comments will be the most valuable before you make
them; then be selective. If you overwhelm the student with abundant comments
on the first page, he/she may not even want to look at the rest of the
paper.
- Note consistent problems with sentence structure, grammar, diction
and spelling, but avoid marking or correcting all errors.
- After you have made your comments (both general and specific), try
to distance yourself and think about the paper in terms of overall effect
and of how it compares both to other papers and to assignment expectations.
- Assign the specific grade. (You will probably need to translate your
letter grade into a specific numerical grade. Or do you want to assign
a range of grades between 60 and 69%? Can you distinguish and justify
a grade of 61% versus 63%?) If you need to give numerical grades on a
question or part of a question out of fewer than 100 points, decide on
the letter grade and then calculate that grade out of the value assigned
(i.e., for a C answer, 60% translates into 9/15).
- Be prepared to discuss your grades, but only after students have demonstrated
that they have considered the comments. Be firm but fair. Decide with
the instructor whether you will provide opportunities for revision and
re-submission.
Tips From the TA Next Door . . .
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If one of your students challenges the
grade you have given, ask him or her to put their concerns in writing.
Give yourself time (without the student standing over your shoulder)
to review their concerns and review the paper again. This may help
you to have a more effective meeting based on some well thought-out
reactions from both the student and yourself. It also lets some time
go by so that you are not dealing with an immediate emotional response
to a poor grade (i.e., anger or despair). |
DE Notes
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- For Distance Education courses ,TAs should be aware that projects often
take a week to get to you from the student and will take another week to
get back to the student after the graded paper is submitted to the distance
education office. Therefore, the usual time period for grading and returning
assignments is between two to three weeks.
- Many distance education courses have multiple assignments, so in order
for students to improve throughout the semester they need effective and
timely feedback on each of their assignments.
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Commenting on Papers
- Avoid using a red pen for marking. Use a pencil, or a green pen.
- Summarize your comments in a general note at the end of the paper
as well as making specific comments throughout.
- General endnote comments should emphasize major as well as recurring
minor errors in the paper.
- Identify strengths as well as weaknesses. Aim for three of each -
more than that may frustrate and discourage students. Balance comments
on details with those about overall impression.
- Avoid negative comments which are sarcastic, humorous, vague, or overgeneralized
(as in "you always . . . " or "you never . . . ").
- Use "I" in your comments rather than "you," as
in "I didn't understand the link between these sentences"
rather than "You didn't link these sentences adequately."
- Make comments as specific as possible, referring to examples in the
paper if possible. (e.g., "I didn't understand the link between
the discussion of and ___").
- Let your comments try to answer the students' unspoken question: "How
can I do better next time?" Try to identify specific strategies
for revision.
- Remember the paper belongs to the student, and don't impose your ideas
upon him/her. Don't say "You should have . . . ," but "Perhaps
you could have . . . ." or "I would have understood this better
if you had . . . ."
- Avoid copyediting and proofreading the paper in your comments throughout.
Your comments are intended to improve the student's writing abilities,
not the paper itself. You do not have to point out every punctuation
and spelling error.
- The first time a stylistic or mechanical error occurs, write a brief
explanation of the problem. You could circle a few other examples of
the same problem and identify them with a code. If the error occurs
frequently, don't attempt to mark every occurrence, but make sure you
emphasize it in your general comments as a consistent error.
- You may want to recommend a specific grammar handbook for use in the
course. You can then refer to sections in the handbook rather than explaining
a grammatical point in detail, and students have a resource for further
information and examples about an error you are asking them to correct.
- Avoid underlining and circling words without some kind of identifying
code. Make it clear whether the comment refers to meaning or mechanics.
Explain your code to the students.
- Write comments as specific questions about the material written, rather
than so?/why?/what?/???.
- Use lines or arrows in the margin to indicate whether your comment
refers to the word, the sentence, the paragraph, or the entire section.
- If you tend to make numerous specific comments throughout, students
may tend to conclude that the only things wrong with their papers are
the items you have marked. Discourage this idea by making more general
comments.
- Remember that a "general" comment doesn't mean a "vague"
comment. Instead of "Poorly organized," write "Perhaps
your section on physiology could have been placed after the section
on morphology since some of the terms needed to be defined first."
- If you are commenting on a rough draft or if students have an opportunity
for revision, avoid making comments on both mechanics and meaning in
the same draft. Students will have trouble determining how to respond
to "I notice some repetition of ideas between this paragraph and
the previous one--perhaps you could combine and condense," when
at the same time you have identified the need for a comma in one particular
sentence. They may tend to correct the more easily remedied surface
errors rather than dealing with revisions to the text itself.
- Students can be asked to identify and correct their individual sentence
errors. This process works best for a final draft when an earlier draft
has been reviewed and revised for major structural problems. Instead
of your correcting and explaining the recurring stylistic or mechanical
errors, mark a symbol (check mark or 'x') in the margin next to each
line containing an error. Students are then responsible for determining
what the error is and how to correct it. Their rewrite of those sentences
could be submitted for an improved grade.
Making Written Comments More Specific
When making written comments on papers, your aim is to provide information
that will help a student understand not only how the grade was determined,
but how the paper could have been improved. These comments should be designed
both to guide them in revision efforts if the paper can be resubmitted and
to provide them with tools for avoiding the same weaknesses in their next
paper. However, short, cryptic comments or questions that are open to a
variety of interpretations are likely to be ignored by students because
they are uncertain what is being asked of them. Following are some frequently
used vague comments and some of the possible interpretations by students,
each of which could result in drastically different revisions:
| When you say: |
Do you mean: |
| not clear |
- The meaning of this sentence is not clear to me.
- This concept is not clearly explained to me.
- It is not clear why you believe this.
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| so? |
- How will this affect that?
- What is the relevance of this to that?
- What are the implications of this for that?
- Why is this important to the discussion of that?
- How is this related to that?
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| Why is this here? |
- This is not relevant to the discussion of that.
- This information is too general.
- This information should be in that section.
- Why are you discussing this in a section on that?
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| ? |
- I don't understand your point in this sentence.
- What is the relevance of this to the topic?
- Why is this information in this section?
- This idea needs to be developed/explained further.
- How is this related to that?
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| Why? |
- Why do you believe this?
- Why did this happen?
- Why is this relevant to that?
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| What? |
- I don't believe this is true.
- I don't understand your point.
- I don't know what you mean by this word/sentence/paragraph.
- I don't see evidence of your support for this claim.
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DE Notes
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Due to the limited contact distance education
students have with the markers of their assignments, clear and constructive
feedback is extremely important especially if they have multiple assignments
during the semester. If you have a student who is repeatedly making
the same writing error you might want to send them one of the FASTFAX
handouts that are available through the Learning Commons. |
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