The three main criteria that I use to evaluate your first and final drafts are (1) your ability to revise your writing; (2) your ability to develop an effective title, opening, thesis, and conclusion--and to develop effective transitions--for your writing; and (3) your ability to cite the work of others accurately, critically, and eloquently. These three skills reflect your ability to read critically, and they will prepare you for English 201.

I divide revision into three major components: (1) revising what you say, (2) revising how you say it, and (3) copyediting and proofreading. Thus I expect you to challenge the ideas you develop in your first drafts, to cut significant portions of what you have written (half of a first draft, three-quarters of a first draft, even ninety percent of a first draft), to rearrange your paragraphs and ideas, to re-write whole sentences and paragraphs, and to develop entirely new material. This is the kind of revision that leads to readable, engaging writing.

Effective titles are like advertisements. They make people want to read what you have written. Thus a good title is memorable and it accurately reflects what your reader will find when he or she reads your writing. A thesis is not a subject or topic, it's not an opinion, and it's not a question. Rather, a thesis is a combination of topic, opinion, and question: It is a debatable point which you establish through your writing. That said, a good thesis usually grows out of a topic, opinion, or question that grabs your interest. When I start writing, I usually don't have a firm thesis in mind, and if I do I always change it several times before I complete a final draft. That's because I refine and revise my thesis as I write. I think one thing, and then, by thinking about it further, I decide that I am wrong, or at least not quite right. In fact, the only really reliable way I know of to come up with a good thesis is to write. (Writers often come up with a rough version of their thesis in the final paragraph of a rough draft; after that, they move things around so the thesis comes somewhere near the beginning, where it belongs.) Openings are critical. The first line of your essay is your most important; if it's not interesting, or if it is just fluff, then readers stop reading. I don't worry about this when I start writing--before I try to interest others, I have to figure out if I can make the topic interesting to myself--rather I start to think of opening lines after I compose my first draft.

Conclusions are tough. One strategy is to sum up what you've said. Not a bad idea, but sort of boring if you think about it. There is no hard and fast way to conclude a piece of writing. I usually use conclusions to make people remember what I have written. What did I say that was important? What single idea do I hope they take from what I have written? What question do I want people to ask themselves after they finish reading? What questions do I have when I have finished a draft? What is the last thing I want my readers to think about? Depending on your topic and thesis, the purpose of your conclusion will vary greatly.

Finally, there are transitions. You've probably read about transitional words and phrases like "therefore," "in addition to," "finally," "on the other hand," etc. Sometimes you'll need to use these transitional words and phrases. More important than such words and phrases, though, is the relation between the different parts (sentences, paragraphs, sections) of your writing. To develop effective transitions, you need to ask yourself, for example, why one paragraph comes after another, or even why two separate paragraphs are in the same essay. If there is no good reason for two paragraphs to be next to each other, then how can you craft an effective transition? If, on the other hand, two paragraphs are closely related--and if you understand how they are related--it will be relatively easy to craft a strong transition.

Technically, citation means giving other people credit for their words and ideas: If you don't cite, then you are plagiarizing. This is the easy part of citation; follow the rules and you've got it. The harder part of citation becomes apparent when you think about your relation to different sources. What's the difference between information gleaned from a random survey, an in-depth interview with an expert, an in-depth interview with a man or woman "on the street," a personal web page, a company web page, a newspaper report, a book in the library? Even further, why cite in the first place? My answer is simple to say, hard to do: We cite because that's how we know things. We learn from other people. Citation is a form of conversation. Thus, I want to offer the following as a working definition of citation: Quoting, paraphrasing, and/or summarizing the thought and language of others in order to communicate and develop our own thought. We'll consider this definition further in class.

Practically, I will evaluate citation in three ways. First, I will look at the mechanical portion of citation: Do you give your sources full credit for their ideas? Do you clearly indicate what ideas are yours and what ideas or not? Second, I will look at your evaluation of your sources. Do you accurately evaluate the reliability of different sources of information? Third, I will evaluate your ability to integrate quotes into your writing grammatically and stylistically. Do you punctuate quotes clearly and accurately? Do you "drop" quotes into your writing without explaining what they say and how they relate to your thesis? Or do you work to make sure your reader knows how you understand the quote in relation to its original source, and how it fits into your essay? One of the best ways to learn how to cite well (and to learn how to write good titles, transitions, opening lines, etc.) is to look at what other people do: What titles do you like? How does someone else in class create graceful transitions? How does an author whose work you have read integrate quotes into their writing?

In recent years, the issue of grade inflation has become a concern in writing programs across the country. In many cases, the issue of grading has been clouded by "process pedagogies" which place a high priority on grading the actual process by which writers create their texts rather than the actual texts themselves. The "process vs. product" debate has been in the background of nearly every theoretical discussion of grading on this campus in the last 2-3 years. One of the main problems is our desire to reward students who work extremely hard at the "process," even though they might not be producing the "product" that is desired. The following document on grading hopes to rectify some of these issues. We wish our writing program to focus more intensively on the "product" that the student produces in the grades of the papers. If instructors wish to issue separate marks under the rubric of "participation" which would account for the time and effort given towards an essay, that would also be acceptable. However, we wish the following criteria to be used when grading the actual papers, and we feel that the use of these criteria will give our students a more clear and accurate guide to what they are being graded on and a set of clear goals for which they will be able to work towards as the semester draws on.

· Must demonstrate abilities in critical and analytical thinking: an A paper is an exercise in intellectual exploration which must go beyond simple rote answers to form a subtle, thoughtful analysis of an issue or subject. An A paper proposes a challenging thesis and effectively uses different rhetorical and argumentative strategies to support it.

· Must demonstrate clear control over the organization of the paper, including a well crafted introduction and conclusion, a specific focus/thesis and good paragraphing. The paper is easy to follow because it is clearly organized and contains appropriate transitional markers. · Under no circumstances is any student essay with above 3 kinds of grammatical mistakes and/or two spelling errors to be given an A, nor can papers which do not meet the page requirements of the assignment be afforded an A.

· Finally, an A paper does not only avoid grammatical mistakes, but also demonstrates a highly effective command of the use of varied sentence structures and of a varied and lively vocabulary.

· A B paper is effective in a significant portion of the organizational skills listed above. Most B papers will have at least an interesting introduction and/or conclusion, a reasonable effort at a thesis and decent paragraphing. Most B papers will be deficient in at least one of these areas.

· A B paper shows much promise in the way of critical thinking/analysis. Most B papers demonstrate an ability to reach beyond the commonplace, but do not demonstrate the conceptual and intellectual risks forwarded in an excellent essay. By awarding a B to a paper, the instructor is signifying that the author is well on his or her way to constructing thoughtful and challenging essays.

· An essay with more than 5 different kinds of grammatical mistakes and/or 5 spelling mistakes cannot be awarded a B grade.

· Most B papers will have sections of their text which run into some problems with repetitious sentence structures. "B" means that they have, for the most part, control over the ways in which they are constructing sentences, but need to work more on style and vocabulary usage.

· B papers are reasonably easy to follow in their organization and transitions, but they will have some minor organizational problems that need to be improved.

· A C paper normally will not exhibit the critical analysis skills which all of our writing classes are attempting to develop. Papers will be filled with commonplace ideas and expressions. The writer has clearly not devoted enough attention to careful thinking and analysis. Such essays tend to summarize material rather than presenting details and examples or analyzing evidence.

· Most C papers will need significant work in the organizational control of the text. Most C papers will not have a clear thesis/focus, will lack good introductions and conclusions or will lack a organization flow of ideas throughout the text.

· Any paper with more than 7 different grammatical mistakes and 7 spelling mistakes cannot be given the grade of C.

· Most C papers will need significant work at the sentence level of their writing (as is indicated by the amount of grammatical mistakes in the text). Students need to work intensively on the skills of subordination, compounding and parallelism. Most C papers will also need to improve incorporating a more sophisticated vocabulary into their essays.

· Any paper that has virtually no thesis/focus, that does not reach the required number of pages and that presents no skill at organizing an essay at either the macro- or micro-levels will be given the D grade. Usually the main point is unclear or non-existent.

· Any paper that contains more than the number of errors allowed for a C paper will automatically fall into this bracket.

· This paper makes no discernible effort to address the topic and is unintelligible. Usually, students will simply not turn in a paper rather than submit one which is clearly failing.

· To be used at the discretion of the instructor in special cases. Forces the student to revise and correct mistakes in the essay. No grade is given until work is completed per instructor's directions.

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HOW TO EVALUATE YOUR PAPER