Subject: Position Paper #2 From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:56:10 -0500 (EST) A student writes: "I'm a bit confused on the grading of my paper in reference to the rubric and your comments. The string of numbers on the last page of my final draft is as follows: 3,3,3,3,3,0,0,2, which indicates that I appropriately responded to arguments 1-5, did not explicitly state my opinion on argument 6, had no sources that I needed to cite or issues with citation, and got 2 points for having my peer edited drafts." Reply: Sorry--my scheme was more confusing than I thought, so thanks for this opportunity to clarify it. The string of 8 numbers correspond to the first *6* items on the grading rubric, the last two of which each have two parts (which is why there are 8 numbers). Students who had points taken off for citation or peer-editing problems actually had 9 or 10 numbers. Here's the scheme: agreement + reason for prem 1 agreement + reason for prem 2 agreement + reason for prem 3 agreement + reason for prem 4 conclusion 5: validly inferred? + reason conclusion 5: agreement + reason? conclusion 6: validly inferred? + reason conclusion 6: agreement + reason? So "3,3,3,3,3,0,0,2" means: full credit for the first 5 items on that scheme; 0 points for conclusion 5: agreement + reason? (i.e., I couldn't find any place where you clearly stated whether you agreed with statement 5) 0 points for conclusion 6: validly inferred? + reason (i.e., I couldn't find any place where you clearly stated whether you thought that the agrument from 5 to 6 was valid) and partial credit for conclusion 6: agreement + reason? You lost no points for improper citation and lost no points for forgetting to attach your peer-edits. If anyone is still confused, please let me know and I'll try to translate.