Psychology 206

(Note: This information can also be found in our ANGEL classroom. Click on the In Box/Out Box tab.)

ESSAY GRADING CRITERIA

This is important. Please read carefully. Your answers to essay questions need to be as specific and as complete as possible. Be sure to address every part of the essay question you have chosen from the course website for each chapter. Be thorough.

Before you begin your first essay, read all the material about plagiarism on our course website and watch the tutorial. CLICK HERE FOR THE TUTORIAL. You can also find this information in the folder "About Essays" in ANGEL. Avoiding plagiarism is extremely important but first you need to know what it is. Do not plagiarize your essays or seminar posts!!

Liberal use of examples to illustrate your understanding is expected. Use of examples is a sign of good and thoughtful writing.

All essays must be proofread carefully and free of "static" (e.g., spelling, syntactical, grammatical, typographical errors).

One way you can be more specific is to point to a passage from the text (and/or another resource of your choice) to substantiate what you said. Either paraphrase or quote the author, identify the page number the quote or idea comes from using correct MLA or APA citation format, and then explain what you think the author means. (If you’re quoting or paraphrasing from our course textbook, you’ll only need to put the author’s name and page number in parentheses after your quote or paraphrase.)

Point at the book or other source to substantiate your claims. Your proper citation is the evidence for your claim. What I want to be able to determine is: 1) did you do the reading? 2) to what degree did you understand what you read and to what depth?

Each essay can earn a maximum of 20 points.