GRADING CRITERIA FOR PAPERS
(FINAL DRAFTS)

A: Excellent

To receive an A, a paper must meet the standards described in all of these categories:

• CONTENT
  Central idea clearly defined & developed with originality & careful thought, supported substantially & concretely.
• ORGANIZATION
  Paper progresses by clearly ordered & necessary stages; paragraphs unified & developed with unusual effectiveness; transitions between & within paragraphs clear & effective; paragraphs & sentences coherent & emphatic.
• DICTION
  Appropriate, clear, carefully chosen, & idiomatic.
• GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SPELLING
  Except for very infrequent minor errors, grammar & punctuation help to clarify meaning by following accepted conventions; only very infrequent misspellings.

B: Superior

To receive a B, a paper must meet the standards described in all of these categories:

• CONTENT
  General idea defined with more than usual care & clarity, developed fully & with consistent attention to proportion & emphasis, & supported with sufficient & consistently relevant detail.
• ORGANIZATION
  Purpose & method consistently apparent & completely fulfilled; well- developed & unified; transitions between paragraphs explicit & effective; & paragraphs & sentence coherent & emphatic.
• DICTION
  Appropriate, clear, carefully chosen, & idiomatic.
• GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SPELLING
  Except for very infrequent minor errors, grammar & punctuation help clarify meaning by following accepted conventions; only very infrequent misspellings.

C: Average

A paper will receive a C if it is seriously deficient in the ways described in any one of these categories:

• CONTENT
  Central idea adequately defined but trite, trivial or too general; or developed adequately but with occasional disproportion or inappropriate emphasis; or supported adequately but with occasional repetition or sketchiness.
• ORGANIZATION
  Plan, purpose & method apparent but fulfilled mechanically or incompletely (e.g., sketchy introduction or conclusion); or paragraphs unified & coherent but occasionally ineffectively developed; or transitions between paragraphs usually clear but occasionally abrupt or mechanical; or sentences coherent but occasionally monotonous, unemphatic, or ineffective.
• DICTION
  Occasionally inappropriate, vague, trite, or unidiomatic.
• GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SPELLING
  An isolated serious error in grammar or punctuation; occasional errors in grammar & punctuation; occasional misspellings.

Serious errors:

• Sentence fragments
• Fused (run-on sentences)
• Comma splices
• Subject-verb agreement errors
• Nonstandard forms (e.g., had went)
• Pronoun-antecedent agreement errors

D: Weak

A paper will receive a D if it is unsatisfactory in the ways described in any one of these categories:

• CONTENT
  Central idea loosely defined or carelessly thought out; or developed & supported with occasional irrelevance, redundancy, or inconsistency.
• ORGANIZATION
  Plan, purpose & method not consistently apparent; or paragraphs occasionally disunified or inadequately developed; or transitions between paragraphs occasionally unclear or ineffective; or paragraphs & sentences occasionally incoherent.
• DICTION
  Inappropriate, vague, or unidiomatic often enough to interfere with the expression & development of the important ideas of the paper.
• GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SPELLING
  Occasional serious errors in grammar or punctuation; or frequent minor errors in grammar or punctuation; or frequent misspellings.

F: Unacceptable

A paper will receive an F if it is unsatisfactory in the ways described in any one of these categories:

• CONTENT
  Central idea unclear or inadequately developed & supported.
• ORGANIZATION
  Plan, purpose & method not clearly apparent; or paragraphs often incoherent or disunified; or transitions between paragraphs inadequate or lacking; or sentences often incoherent.
• DICTION
  Generally inappropriate, vague, or unidiomatic.
• GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SPELLING
  Frequent serious errors, or one serious error made more than twice; or very frequent minor errors in grammar or punctuation; or very frequent misspellings.

NOTE: Any paper that does not fulfill the terms of the assignment or that fails to acknowledge borrowed materials properly will receive an F.

To top of page

 Back to Eng 102 Syllabus