Grading Standards for Writing Assignments

Department of English
California State University, Bakersfield
A. EXCELLENT - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment thoughtfully and analytically, setting a challenging task.
▪ Displays awareness of and a sense of purpose in communicating to an audience.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates coherent and rhetorically sophisticated organization; makes effective connections between ideas.
▪ Provides clear generalizations with specific detail, compelling support and cogent analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources and evaluates their validity, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays superior, consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.

B. STRONG - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment clearly and analytically, setting a meaningful task.
▪ Addresses audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a clearly focused controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates clear and coherent organization.
▪ Provides clear generalizations and effective support and analysis.
▪ Cites relevant sources, effectively integrating them into text when appropriate.
▪ Displays consistent control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.

C. ADEQUATE - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment with some analysis.
▪ Addresses most audience needs and expectations.
▪ Establishes a controlling idea.
▪ Demonstrates adequate organization.
▪ Provides support for and some analysis of generalizations.
▪ Cites appropriate sources, adequately integrating them into text.
▪ Displays adequate control of syntax, sentence variety, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors do not slow the reader, impede understanding, or seriously undermine the authority of the writer.

D. SERIOUSLY FLAWED - a paper in this category
▪ Addresses the assignment inadequately.
▪ Shows insufficient audience awareness.
▪ Strays from the controlling idea or the idea is unclear.
▪ Displays formulaic, random, or confusing organization.
▪ Lacks generalizations, or provides generalizations with inadequate support or analysis.
▪ Fails to cite sources or cites and/or integrates them inappropriately.
▪ Shows deficient control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English; errors impede understanding.

E. FUNDAMENTALLY DEFICIENT - a paper in this category
▪ Fails to address assignment.
▪ Demonstrates a lack of audience awareness.
▪ Lacks a controlling idea.
▪ Lacks organization or organizes illogically.
▪ Displays inability to generalize, analyze, or support ideas.
▪ Fails to use outside sources or misuses the texts of others.
▪ Shows inadequate control of syntax, word choice, and conventions of Standard English.