At this point in your academic career, your skills should be higher than simply finding and transferring information without thoughtful processing. Your work is only 50% done once you have found the information to answer my questions. You must then organize and present this information in a way that makes sense to the reader.
· Show me that you have processed the information and thought through it
· Paraphrase and summarize in your own words
· Make your own arguments and draw your own conclusions
· Organize and present the related issues so they are connected to each other while falling under an overall coherent theme; don’t jump around
· Use of introductory paragraphs, summary paragraphs, concluding paragraphs and transitional phrases (used to guide the reader from one thought to the next)
· Ex: In addition, furthermore, for example, in comparison, therefore, on the other hand
· The concluding paragraph should only be a place to summarize the information in your paper and what your key takeaway is. It is NOT a place to introduce new ideas or references.
Formatting and Proofreading
· Look out for spelling and grammatical errors
· Sloppy, inconsistent, or unprofessional looking formatting is unacceptable
· Any assignments that are sloppily formatted will be returned and will not be graded until the issue has been fixed.
· Is everything presented in a logical and coherent fashion?
· Are there duplicative parts or contradictory statements?
· Long paragraphs and sentences are hard for the reader to follow. Break them up into multiple, shorter sentences and paragraphs.
· May ask another person to proofread for you (take advantage of the GSU Writing Center)
Citation and Plagiarism Issues
· Use of in-text citations AND references list/bibliography
· Paraphrasing and/or using direct quotes
· Cite evidence and sources when presenting your own statements
· Cite cases, laws, statistics, data and any ideas or statements that are not your own
References: avoid repeatedly making the same mistakes
· Use APA 7 for all assignments/papers and refer to the APA Publication Manual or Purdue Online Writing Lab for how to format references correctly
· https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
· https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html
· Make sure you clean up the references list to ensure all references are correctly and consistently formatted; do not rely solely on software
· For example, capitalization and abbreviations should be consistent (not some titles in caps while others are in lower case). If you use Refworks it will not automatically do this for you; you must manually clean up the list.
HLAD 4103 Assignment Rubric
Excellent
Good
Needs Improvement
Poor
90-100
80-89
70-79
60-69
Paper addresses issue
Author directly addresses main question or issue.
Author indirectly addresses main question or issue.
Author attempts to address main question or issue, but fails.
Author does NOT address main question or issue.
Synthesis of material
Papers successfully integrate all relevant concepts and ideas from various places into a coherent whole. The connections among them are clear and insightful.
Papers successfully integrate relevant concepts and ideas from various places into a mostly coherent whole. The connections among them are generally clear.
Papers connect relevant concepts and ideas into a somewhat coherent whole. The connections among them are somewhat unclear.
Papers use concepts and ideas that are not relevant or not integrated. The connections among them are unclear.
Support for arguments
Evidence is used from a wide range of sources and data with in-depth research.
Evidence is used from many sources, but author relies heavily on a more limited set of sources.
Uses only material or sources provided in class and does not do additional research; lacks in-depth research.
Does not use sources or only minimally uses sources and lacks in-depth research.
Citations
All evidence is properly cited in footnotes or endnotes.
All evidence is cited in footnotes or endnotes, but there are some minor problems with completeness or format of some citations.
Some pieces are unreferenced or inaccurately referenced, and there are problems with completeness and format of citations.
No attempt is made to cite evidence.
Clarity and style
All sentences are grammatically correct and clearly written. No words are misused or unnecessarily fancy. Technical terms are always explained. All information is accurate and up-to-date. Paper has been spell-checked AND proofread and contains no errors.
All sentences are grammatically correct and clearly written. An occasional word is misused or unnecessarily fancy. Technical terms are usually, but not always, explained. All information is accurate and up-to-date. Paper has been spell-checked AND proofread, and contains no more than a few minor errors, which do not adversely affect the reader’s ability to understand the essay.
A few sentences are grammatically incorrect or not clearly written. Several words are misused. Technical terms are rarely explained. Not all information is accurate and up-to-date. Paper has been spell-checked AND proofread, but still contains several errors. Reader’s ability to understand essay may be compromised by these errors.
Paper is full of grammatical errors and unclear writing. Several words are misused. Technical terms are rarely explained. Not all information is accurate and up-to-date. Paper has not been spell-checked or proofread, and contains numerous errors. Reader has a difficult time understanding essay because of errors.