Writing Well: Good writing reflects good thinking.
Grading papers involves at least two things - grading your writing, including formatting, and grading your mastery of what you were supposed to learn. Many student's lack of writing and formatting skills have a negative impact on their grade.
| Grading | Formatting | Organizing | Plagiarizing and Referencing |
| Cheating | Grading papers on-line | Writing Hints | Grading and APA formatting |
Grading: Things I have learned in grading papers
- Good writing reflects good thinking.
- Good thinking is reflected in good writing.
- A poorly written paper, one that will result in a bad grade, can mean that a student
- a) cannot write or
- b) has not really thought about the topic.
- Students, particularly graduate students, can learn to write.
- Students have not often learned to write.
- Good writing contains both organization and imagination.
- Any good paper, or section within a paper, contains:
- a point,
- at least one reference (a citation in APA format),
- an example,
- an explanation of the example connecting it to the point,
- and an explanation of how the point of the section is connected to the paper, and all other points in the paper.
- Headings will turn a poor paper into a good one.
Formatting papers using APA style and format:
I have created the shell of an APA formatted paper with title page, a single page of text with headings and a Reference page. You can download this (no citation required) and use it as a template (using the 'Save As' function in Word) or use it as a blank paper each time. APA Class Paper Template.
There is also an APA Research Paper Template available from Microsoft at (http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/templategallery/) that contains lots of good material, but needs some work to make it appropriate for my classes.
Click here for specific instructions on using Word for APA formatting.
The following types of format and style issues have an effect on how I grade.
- Headings - I cannot stress enough the importance of headings. Using
headings well will turn a C paper into a B+ paper merely on the addition of
organization. If the student uses headings to analyze the structure of the
paper, then it may well become an A paper. Without headings, the paper will
never get a good grade. Headings illuminate major points (APA Level
1 headings) minor points within that major point that should take a
subheading (APA Level 3 heading) and details within that minor point that
should take a sub-sub heading (APA Level 4 headings). Headings correspond to the
points on an outline, and can be copied directly into a table of contents.
- If you write from an outline, then use your outline as headings. If you write text, then create headings to organize your material during your first re-write stage.
- Most papers should use 2 levels of headings (major (APA Level 1) and a single sub-heading (APA Level 3) below) or 3 levels of headings (APA Levels 1, 3 and 4) to help organize the points. Often the difference between a B+ and an A paper is organization and headings. I cannot stress too much the importance of levels that provide internal organization for the paper.
- If you use Word or WordPerfect create heading levels in your 'Styles' (using the documents below for example) for APA Levels 1-5. This makes your work easier, and enables you to create a Table of Contents that will act as an outline and will help you with the paper.
- Samples of APA Headings - in Word Format, and sample APA Headings - in rtf format can be had here for your use To add these headings to your Word template so they will be available to you later, open the paper you downloaded above, click FORMAT, STYLE, highlight each APA Style Level individually and click MODIFY, then click the check box for "Add to template".
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APA Heading Levels Level 1 Heading - Centered, Upper and Lower Case Heading Level 3 - Flush Left, Italicized, Upper and Lower Case
Level 4 - Indented, italicized, paragraph heading ending with a period. Text of paragraph starts after the period. N.B. the old headings form APA 4th Edition were bold and not italics. |
- Gender Specific Language - Avoid gender specific language like the plague, and avoid constructions that use "him and/or her", "his and/or hers". While "their" can be considered prescriptively as singular - don't count on anyone accepting it. If I read a statement about a single gender (such as "man" or "he"), I will assume the writer is only writing about that gender. Omission of reference to the other gender will cause me to believe that the writer missed a major point.
- Running Head - I really don't care about this in any way, shape or form, but it is a good idea.
- Long Quotes - Quotes of more than 40 words should stand alone indented 5 spaces or 1/2 inch from the left.
- Active Voice - The manual says use active voice, some professors say use passive voice - who are you going to believe? For me use active prose. (Lots of -ing words and few -ion words, such as "solving" rather than "achieving a solution".)
- "I" - This particular word is totally acceptable in APA style, even though many Journals do not accept it. I prefer that you own your ideas and prose and the use of "I" stresses that fact rather than hides ownership in a pseudo-objective writing style.
- Right Justification - Don't. Only the left margin should by aligned - not the right.
- Worpos (Rhymes with typos.) - Avoid WORd PrOcessing errors - like having "their" instead of "there". While the spelling checker will accept it, I won't.
- Print Quality/Paper Quality - Print and paper quality count. Few students realize that grading a stack of papers is also a tactile and aesthetic experience.
- Margins - One inch all around (top, right, bottom and left) makes it much easier for me to write constructive comments in the margins. These margins also make the paper look better and affect your grade.
- Graphics - A good graphic, table or illustration is a great thing and can really help a paper.
- References - On a new page, APA Heading Level 1, and the whole thing double spaced.
Grading papers on-line
Submitting papers on-line is easy. You can attach them to discussion board items or attach them to an e-mail. Either way works fine. Grading papers submitted this way enables the faculty member to use "Track Changes" to comment on and correct your paper. Pay attention to corrections and suggestions in order to do better next time.
Organizing Papers - or Dr. Barratt's Suggestions For Complex Papers
One dimensional papers are only about a single topic or theme. Unless I ask specifically for a one dimension paper, don't count on a grade better than a C+/B- for something like this.
An example of this would be "Group Norms: Their Definition".
Such papers are boring and really constitute only the first section of a multi-dimensional paper, because the only content and analysis in one dimensional papers is the definition of terms. One dimensional papers are the most basic form of "report".
Two Dimensional papers are about two inter-related topics or themes. Two dimensional papers are the basic form for a good paper, and generally get in the B to B+ range.
An example would be "Group Norms: Their Creation and Modification Throughout the Five Stages of a Group".
In a paper like this, the first theme is defined (for example, norms), the second theme (for example, five stages) is defined, and the two themes are inter-related. The paper can be organized (using headings of course) as:
- Introduction
- Definition of norms
- Explicit norms
- Implicit norms
- Definition of stages
- Warm up stage
- Action stage
- Closure
- Interrelation between norms and stages
Alternatively, the paper can be organized as
- Introduction
- Definition of norms within stage 1 (norms and group formation)
- Definition of norms within stage 2 (norms and the explicit norming process)
- etc.
Equally, other paper organizations are possible - a more integrative approach is usually better, because it reflects more insight and gets a better grade.
Three Dimensional papers (and higher levels) are usually great papers. Three dimensional papers are usually the work of graduate students and outstanding undergraduates. Almost always a weak 3 dimensional paper is better than a good 2 dimensional paper.
An example would be "The effects on different types of individuals of the creation and modification of group norms across group stages." Here are three dimensions:
- individual differences
- group norms
- the modification of norms over stages.
Higher dimensional papers could involve another factor, or better yet, sub-categories within each of the three dimensions (which I suppose creates fractal dimensions). For example, individual differences could be seen in terms of gender, and ethnicity, religion, social class and generation, norms could be seen in terms of explicit, implicit, and gender, ethnicity, social class and generation interaction norms.
In such a paper, good organization is essential and headings are absolutely required. The price of greatness is that it is easy to get lost, crash and burn in such a paper, thus the need for outstanding organization and headings.
Plagiarizing and Referencing
While many students have been taught what and how to reference or cite material, many have not. Failure to reference material, statements, opinions or facts included in your paper taken from any source (including the Internet) is plagiarism. Copying any material from other authors without a citation is plagiarism. As a rule of thumb, and a very conservative one, is that if you use more than three words from a source then it requires a set of quotation marks and a citation. This is not a hard and fast rule, but a general guideline. If the three words are key, or incorporate a key phrase or idea, then cite them. If you intentionally took those words as representations of someone else's work, then cite them.
As a rule of thumb, if it is not your own statement, fact, opinion, model, construct, thought or analysis, it requires a citation.
Chances are very good that faculty have read all of the material you reference and can recognize material from sources other than you. It is also an easy matter for faculty to select a unique phrase from your paper and search the Internet for that phrase using google.com.
Cheating
- Handing in someone else's work as your own, even with modifications, is cheating and will result in at least a failing grade.
- Purchasing a paper and handing it in, even with modifications, is cheating and will result in at least a failing grade.
- Downloading a paper from the Internet and handing it in, even with modifications, is cheating and will result in at least a failing grade.
- Receiving a paper as a gift and handing it in, even with modifications, is cheating and will result in at least a failing grade.
ISU references:
Writing Hints
- Make one point, state it in the first paragraph, make it well and support it with citations and reasoning. Anything not related directly to the point has no place in the paper.
- Citations should be of authors who agree with you, not the other way around.
- Edit the next-to-final draft on paper. You will probably catch most errors of format, style, organization and reasoning this way.
- Read your paper out loud, and/or have a friend read it to you out loud. This will make many of your errors obvious.
- Find and use writing partners or form a writing circle where each person submits papers to others, and everyone critiques each paper. Editing other's papers helps you understand how to write.
- Learn to use your word processor's features for headings, for table of contents, for grammar and spelling, and for tracking changes (in Word use, Tools, Track Changes, and check Track changes while editing) when you edit other student's papers.
- Save the document to disk at each paragraph or page. Back up onto another disk at the end of each session. Print out the document every few pages (or every page) just in case the gnomes are out to get you and erase everything. Every possible computer disaster has befallen students in writing papers.
- Don't trust the word processor in any way. For anything. Ever.
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Page last revised:
05/16/07