English Composition 1

Evaluation and Grading Criteria for

Essays
IVCC's online Style Book presents the Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments.

This page explains some of the major aspects of an essay that are given special
attention when the essay is evaluated.

Thesis and Thesis Statement

Probably the most important sentence in an essay is the thesis statement, which
is a sentence that conveys the thesis—the main point and purpose of the essay.
The thesis is what gives an essay a purpose and a point, and, in a well-focused
essay, every part of the essay helps the writer develop and support the thesis in
some way.

The thesis should be stated in your introduction as one complete sentence that

1. identifies the topic of the essay,

2. states the main points developed in the essay,
3. clarifies how all of the main points are logically related, and
4. conveys the purpose of the essay.

In high school, students often are told to begin an introduction with a thesis
statement and then to follow this statement with a series of sentences, each
sentence presenting one of the main points or claims of the essay. While this
approach probably helps students organize their essays, spreading a thesis
statement over several sentences in the introduction usually is not effective. For
one thing, it can lead to an essay that develops several points but does not make
meaningful or clear connections among the different ideas.

If you can state all of your main points logically in just one sentence, then all of
those points should come together logically in just one essay. When I evaluate an
essay, I look specifically for a one-sentence statement of the thesis in the
introduction that, again, identifies the topic of the essay, states all of the main
points, clarifies how those points are logically related, and conveys the purpose of
the essay.
If you are used to using the high school model to present the thesis of an essay,
you might wonder what you should do with the rest of your introduction once you
start presenting a one-sentence statement of your thesis. Well, an introduction
should do two important things: (1) present the thesis statement, and (2) get
readers interested in the subject of the essay.

Instead of outlining each stage of an essay with separate sentences in the

introduction, you could draw readers into your essay by appealing to their
interests at the very beginning of your essay. Why should what you discuss in
your essay be important to readers? Why should they care? Answering these
questions might help you discover a way to draw readers into your essay
effectively. Once you appeal to the interests of your readers, you should then
present a clear and focused thesis statement. (And thesis statements most often
appear at the ends of introductions, not at the beginnings.)

Coming up with a thesis statement during the early stages of the writing process
is difficult. You might instead begin by deciding on three or four related claims or
ideas that you think you could prove in your essay. Think in terms of paragraphs:
choose claims that you think could be supported and developed well in one body
paragraph each. Once you have decided on the three or four main claims and
how they are logically related, you can bring them together into a one-sentence
thesis statement.

All of the topic sentences in a short paper, when "added" together, should give us
the thesis statement for the entire paper. Do the addition for your own papers,
and see if you come up with the following:

Topic Sentence 1 +
Topic Sentence 2 +
Topic Sentence 3 =
Thesis Statement

Organization
Effective expository papers generally are well organized and unified, in part
because of fairly rigid guidelines that writers follow and that you should try to
follow in your papers.

Each body paragraph of your paper should begin with a topic sentence, a
statement of the main point of the paragraph. Just as a thesis statement conveys
the main point of an entire essay, a topic sentence conveys the main point of a
single body paragraph. As illustrated above, a clear and logical relationship
should exist between the topic sentences of a paper and the thesis statement.

If the purpose of a paragraph is to persuade readers, the topic sentence should

present a claim, or something that you can prove with specific evidence. If you
begin a body paragraph with a claim, a point to prove, then you know exactly
what you will do in the rest of the paragraph: prove the claim. You also know
when to end the paragraph: when you think you have convinced readers that your
claim is valid and well supported.

If you begin a body paragraph with a fact, though, something that it true by
definition, then you have nothing to prove from the beginning of the paragraph,
possibly causing you to wander from point to point in the paragraph. The claim at
the beginning of a body paragraph is very important: it gives you a point to prove,
helping you unify the paragraph and helping you decide when to end one
paragraph and begin another.

The length and number of body paragraphs in an essay is another thing to

consider. In general, each body paragraph should be at least half of a page long
(for a double-spaced essay), and most expository essays have at least three
body paragraph each (for a total of at least five paragraphs, including the
introduction and conclusion.)

Support and Development of Ideas

The main difference between a convincing, insightful interpretation or argument
and a weak interpretation or argument often is the amount of evidence than the
writer uses. "Evidence" refers to specific facts.

Remember this fact: your interpretation or argument will be weak unless it is well
supported with specific evidence. This means that, for every claim you present,
you need to support it with at least several different pieces of specific evidence.
Often, students will present potentially insightful comments, but the comments are
not supported or developed with specific evidence. When you come up with an
insightful idea, you are most likely basing that idea on some specific facts. To
present your interpretation or argument well, you need to state your interpretation
and then explain the facts that have led you to this conclusion.

Effective organization is also important here. If you begin each body paragraph
with a claim, and if you then stay focused on supporting that claim with several
pieces of evidence, you should have a well-supported and well-developed
interpretation.
As stated above, each body paragraph generally should be at least half of a page
long, so, if you find that your body paragraphs are shorter than this, then you
might not be developing your ideas in much depth. Often, when a student has
trouble reaching the required minimum length for an essay, the problem is the
lack of sufficient supporting evidence.

In an interpretation or argument, you are trying to explain and prove something

about your subject, so you need to use plenty of specific evidence as support. A
good approach to supporting an interpretation or argument is dividing your
interpretation or argument into a few significant and related claims and then
supporting each claim thoroughly in one body paragraph.

Insight into Subject

Sometimes a student will write a well-organized essay, but the essay does not
shed much light on the subject. At the same time, I am often amazed at the
insightful interpretations and arguments that students come up with. Every
semester, students interpret aspects of texts or present arguments that I had
never considered.

If you are writing an interpretation, you should reread the text or study your
subject thoroughly, doing your best to notice something new each time you
examine it. As you come up with a possible interpretation to develop in an essay,
you should re-examine your subject with that interpretation in mind, marking
passages (if your subject is a literary text) and taking plenty of notes on your
subject. Studying your subject in this way will make it easier for you to find
supporting evidence for your interpretation as you write your essay.

The insightfulness of an essay often is directly related to the organization and the
support and development of the ideas in the essay. If you have well-developed
body paragraphs focused on one specific point each, then it is likely that you are
going into depth with the ideas you present and are offering an insightful
interpretation.

If you organize your essay well, and if you use plenty of specific evidence to
support your thesis and the individual claims that comprise that thesis, then there
is a good possibility that your essay will be insightful.

Clarity
Clarity is always important: if your writing is not clear, your meaning will not reach
readers the way you would like it to. According to IVCC's Grading Criteria for
Writing Assignments, "A," "B," and "C" essays are clear throughout, meaning that
problems with clarity can have a substantial effect on the grade of an essay.

If any parts of your essay or any sentences seem just a little unclear to you, you
can bet that they will be unclear to readers. Review your essay carefully and
change any parts of the essay that could cause confusion for readers. Also, take
special note of any passages that your peer critiquers feel are not very clear.

Style
"Style" refers to the kinds of words and sentences that you use, but there are
many aspects of style to consider. Aspects of style include conciseness, variety of
sentence structure, consistent verb tense, avoidance of the passive voice, and
attention to the connotative meanings of words.

Several of the course web pages provide information relevant to style, including
the following pages:

 "Words, Words, Words"

 Using Specific and Concrete Diction
 Integrating Quotations into Sentences
 Formal Writing Voice

William Strunk, Jr.'s, The Elements of Style is a classic text on style that is now
available online.

Given the subject, purpose, and audience for each essay in this course, you
should use a formal writing voice. This means that you should avoid use of the
first person ("I," "me," "we," etc.), the use of contractions ("can't," "won't," etc.),
and the use of slang or other informal language. A formal writing voice will make
you sound more convincing and more authoritative.

If you use quotations in a paper, integrating those quotations smoothly, logically,

and grammatically into your own sentences is important, so make sure that you
are familiar with the information on the Integrating Quotations into
Sentences page.

Mechanics
"Mechanics" refers to the correctness of a paper: complete sentences, correct
punctuation, accurate word choice, etc. All of your papers for the course should
be free or almost free from errors. Proofread carefully, and consider any
constructive comments you receive during peer critiques that relate to the
"mechanics" of your writing.

You might use the grammar checker if your word-processing program has one,
but grammar checkers are correct only about half of the time. A grammar
checker, though, could help you identify parts of the essay that might include
errors. You will then need to decide for yourself if the grammar checker is right or
wrong.

The elimination of errors from your writing is important. In fact, according to

IVCC's Grading Criteria for Writing Assignments, "A," "B," and "C" essays contain
almost no errors. Significant or numerous errors are a characteristic of a "D" or
"F" essay.

Again, the specific errors listed in the second table above are explained on
the Identifying and Eliminating Common Errors in Writing web page.

You should have a good understanding of what errors to look out for based on the
feedback you receive on graded papers, and I would be happy to answer any
questions you might have about possible errors or about any other aspects of
your essay. You just need to ask!

Copyright Randy Rambo, 2019.