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CATEGORY

4 - Excellent

3 - Good

2 - Fair

1 - Needs substantial Work

Score

Thesis

The paper clearly articulates, early in the essay, an arguable thesis appropriate to the assignment. That thesis in some way combines a feature of the text with the writer’s own interpretation of a significant idea. The thesis is easy to identify.

Typical theses in this category lack either a textual feature or an arguable interpretive position. However, they tend to be in proper thesis position and do state a clear position in the essay’s opening. At times, though, a great idea with a thesis in awkward position or written problematically receives this rating.

The thesis is present, but lacks a clear, arguable interpretive stance and fails to identify a textual feature. However, there may be an opening gesture at the beginning of the paper that serves to at least frame the essay’s content.

The essay makes no attempt to frame an argument or displays a lack of understanding of the interpretive task at hand.

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Focus

The individual paragraphs of the essay make it clear how they fit into the overall argument of the essay; their relationship to the thesis is clear. Furthermore, individual sentences and paragraphs move smoothly and effectively to and from other sentences and paragraphs, creating a sense the paper is part of a coherent, careful argument.

The paper mostly maintains its attention to the thesis, but not always. Transitions between sentences and paragraphs occasionally break down, but not so much that the paper loses its overall coherence.

The connection of individual paragraphs to the main idea of the paper is often unclear (typically, but not always, because the thesis itself needs to be more narrow). Furthermore, the transition between ideas at the sentence and paragraph level breaks down at times as well.

The essay tends to meander with very little sense of purpose, either at the paragraph level or at the sentence level. Papers at this level tend to have no single, easily identifiable thesis.

Textual Evidence

The essay skillfully quotes and summarizes the text as needed and provides a strong sense of the reason for using a particular reference. Quotations are supported with sound reasoning and reflection as to their importance in relation to the thesis. The essay is neither overburdened by quotations, nor is it in dire need of them.

The essay shows clear familiarity with the text and demonstrates detailed knowledge through quotation and summary. However, the supporting reflection may be lacking at times, and particular ideas may be lacking adequate support from the text.

The essay needs much more consistent use of the text as evidence or, in some case, provides extensive quotation and summary with very little accompanying insight, analysis, and reflection.

The use of evidence is such that it casts doubt on the depth of reading that has been done, usually by providing at most superficial summaries of the text.

Language Skills

The paper demonstrates strong command of standard written English grammatical and syntactical principles, with no more than a handful of typos or proofreading issues. Sentence structures are varied, and when appropriate, complex, while paragraph lengths are neither consistently too long nor consistently too short. Appropriate formatting is demonstrated.

The paper still demonstrates strong command of standard written English, but may have as many as 10 typos or proofreading issues. There may also be a problem with sentence structure, paragraph length or formatting (but not with more than one, which would place it in the next category).

Proofreading issues have tended to make themselves conspicuous in the essay, enough that normal reading is frequently obstructed. Further, there are problems with sentence structure, sentence complexity, paragraph length and/or formatting.

The essay appears not to have been proofread and does not demonstrate a sound knowledge of the conventions of written English. Typically, a paper with this rating will also display multiple problems with sentence structure, sentence complexity, paragraph length and/or formatting.