It is not quite over yet – at least for some of you. I am still planning to write that post on that neurobiology article, but since some of you are already working on reworking your essays, I thought it best to give the details now. So here it goes:
If you wish to receive a grade, please send one PDF with all three (reworked) assignments to me by September 30th, 2016. Reworking is not mandatory, but resending is! This is, because I want to be sure that you have had the opportunity to go over these texts and have consciously made a decision on how much work you would like to put in. I will not grade anything that has not been resent.
The PDF should contain a cover page which states the class title, your name and some contact details, as well as the titles of the assignments and their length (word count). Each assignment should please start on a fresh page – it is easier to read that way. Also, I appreciate margins that are not too narrow and print that has a reasonable size. Include complete lists of references and make all references to one style! I don’t care which one (but Harvard works best), but make it one and the same for all your texts.
I would like to compile a reader of all final papers for the participants of the class only. I think it would be very interesting for all of us and really quite impressive. If you wish for your papers to be included, please also send them as three/two separate papers in a doc/odt format. I cannot copy the texts out of PDF documents. The reader would be available in early fall. So much for the formalities.
I promised details on grading as well. When grading papers I usually work with a point scale to a maximum of 100. I will not tell you the “cut off” point for specific grades, because that tends to lead to misunderstandings. Be assured, when you were close to getting a better (or worse) grade, I will have considered if you should have gotten more or less points extra careful. The passing grades are distributed along a normal distribution, making it slightly more likely to receive a grade between 1,7 and 3,3 than receiving any one of the more extreme values. The minimum that must be reached to pass is 50 points – all of you easily would get that and more on the first draft!
I also usually work with questions and give points according to how well you have done any of these things. They will, in this class, be slightly different for each assignment. The first assignment, because it was in many ways the easiest, will be valued slightly less, than the second and the third (If you only did two assignments, the distribution of points will be 1st=40/2nd=60).
1st assignment – The set essay question (30 points)
- Does the paper address the statement appropriately and argue a concise point?
- Does the author develop a clear and well structured argument?
- Does the authors make appropriate use of sources/evidence and provide adequate citations and references?
2nd assignment – Free essay (35 points)
- Does the have a clear objective/hypothesis? Does it address this statement appropriately and argue a concise point?
- Does the author develop a clear and well structured argument?
- Does the authors make appropriate use of sources/evidence and provide adequate citations and references?
3rd assignment – Research Proposal (35 points)
- Does the proposal state a clear research question? Does it say how this research question addresses a gap in the reviewed literature?
- Does the proposal say how the research will answer the proposed question? Does it explain, why a certain approach/method is used? Does it demonstrate knowledge of the method in question?
- Does the author show sufficient knowledge of the field (literature review) and a realistic understanding of the challenges involved (methodological reflection and research plan)?
Grading is not arbitrary, but please keep in mind that writing is a very individual process: There is no single right way of doing this, so it is likely that very different texts will receive similar marks. If you have any questions afterwards, you are welcome to make an appointment and ask, how your grade came about.
Tags: about you, grading, writing
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