Barratt's Basic Grading Criteria For Papers

A (3.76 to 4.25) = Synthesis or "I wish I'd said that"
B+ (3.26 to 3.75) = Quality Analysis
B (2.76 to 3.25) = Adequate Analysis
C+ (2.26 to 2.75) = Poor Analysis
C (1.76 to 2.25) = Book Report (Regurgitating what others have said.)
D-F = Bad organization, no point. Don't hand it in.

Papers handed in early in the semester are graded easier than ones handed in later in the semester.
Quality of presentation, margins, print clarity, paper quality, spelling and grammer all count.
Following directions closely. If I write it in an assignment, believe it.

See the material on multidimensional papers.

Analysis

Identifying the significant themes, issues, points in the material you are writing about, to understand the social, political, reserach, epistemological and whatnot 'context, of these significant themes, and to identify and write about the issues within issues, topics within topics.

Using some perspective, lense, frame or point of view to examine these signigicant issues. This perspective may be something like learning, student development, gender, ethnicity, social class, religion, generation, or some combination.

Evaluation is essential as an analytical tool. You mist make value judgements on what is a good thing, what is a bad thing, what is an effective thing, what is an ineffective thing, what is a developmental thing, what is a non-developmental thing, etc. Of course, you will need to spend some work on the values that you are applying and make sure that they are clear in their definition and applicaiton. You will need to determine what evaluation scheme is appropriate (or schemes are appropriate) and spend a few sentences defending that choice.

Synthesis

Synthesis is an examined point of view which integrates evidence from multiple perspectives.

Synthesis connects issues, points of view, etc together in meaningful ways, drawing parallels between points of view.

Synthesis identifies important unrelated issues, and explains how the paper topic is not related to other important issues.

Synthesis is a novel or interesting way of presenting material as an integrated whole.

Will Barratt, Ph.D.

University Learning Outcomes Assessment

College Student Affairs Personnel Administration Leadership Management Higher Education Graduate Study Program Master's Masters MS M.S. MA M.A. CAS