How the Evidence Checklist/Rubric Is Used in Grading

 

What’s on This Webpage:

How Feedback on the History Changes Essay Helps Your Success

What the Evidence Checklist/Rubric Says about CL 1, CL 2, CL 3, CL 4, and CL 5 (This Section Copied from Your Syllabus)

Basic Concepts about Quotation Marks (Used to Distinguish the Words Someone Else Wrote) and Citations (Used to Show Where in What Source)

 

How Feedback on the History Changes Essay Helps Your Success

With the History Changes Essay, I will provide your essay with my Checklist #s pointing to a section of your words. I do this because I discovered that if I pointed to a problem (such as factual inaccuracy—CL 4), then students could figure out what might be wrong by looking at that spot and comparing it with the source. I will give you instructions at that time specifically for your paper.

 

To prepare, take a look at the items in the checklist below.

After looking at the Checklist, if you think…

Then do this…

If you think the items in the checklist are NOT standards for evidence in academics

Ask me to show you the scanned pages from The Bedford Handbook, covering the standards for:

  • Modern Language Association
  • Chicago Manual of Style (the one frequently used for history)
  • American Psychological Association.

 

I will be glad to spent time with you on this.

If you think your prior professors did NOT follow these standards for evidence so these could NOT be standards

Professors can decide not to follow a standard for an assignment, but that does not change the standard for evidence.

FYI: I also break a standard for citations. I do not ask you to provide page numbers for the History Changes Essay or the Unit Essays. HOWEVER, if I cannot guess where you were in the textbook, I will write CL 5 and ask you to show me where you found the fact in our textbook.

If you think future professors will NOT follow these standards for evidence

Other professors may assume you already know these standards—so you want to understand these basic standards so you can succeed no matter what professor you encounter.

If you think these standards for evidence do NOT apply to jobs

Ask me to talk to you about this. In every professional job in industry that I had, these standards saved me.

 

I will be glad to spent time with you on this.

 

What the Evidence Checklist/Rubric Says about CL 1, CL 2, CL 3, CL 4, and CL 5 (This Section Copied from Your Syllabus)

Grading and the Evidence Checklist/Rubric: The word checklist means a list of things necessary for success (such as a pilot’s checklist for takeoff) and you either do them and succeed or you do not and failure occurs. The word rubric usually means a way to give feedback that is useful but quick for both instructors and students, and it is usually a visual tool for determining the level of a grade (such as columns ranging from Needs Improvement to a final column for Exemplary Participation).

 

The term checklist/rubric indicates this is a checklist for success with evidence and it is way to give feedback that is useful but quick for both instructors and students. The items in the checklist, abbreviated as CL 1 through CL 5, are common standards in academics and for jobs that depend on evidence, but they are written very informally and specifically to what you need to do in this course.

 

CL 1

For your source of facts, you use only the textbook chosen by the History Department and the sources provided in our Blackboard course. Do not use Internet websites, another textbook, or any other source—including your own memory.

CL 2

You may write facts in your own words or you may use exact words from the textbook as long as you use quotation marks according to the specific rules in The Bedford Handbook. For example, you cannot copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks or just replace a few words in an author’s sentence. This is what The Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism (page 692).

CL 3

If you use another’s words, you must be sure either not to change them or—if you change them—to follow the specific rules in The Bedford Handbook to reveal any changes you made to those words.

CL 4

You must use the source to verify what you write. If you cannot verify the fact, do not write it and do not assume that the source agrees with you. If you are certain something is true and you cannot find it clearly in our sources, ask me for help.
You also must select facts to reveal the facts accurately. Examples:

- If a question is about something specific (such as a time, type of person, or region), verify that the source is about that specific thing.

- If the source covers facts about two or more sides or positions, do not include only one side as though the other did not occur.

CL 5

With most writing work, if asked, you must be able to state exactly where (a specific page) in the source that each fact came from—whether you wrote the words or the author did. With the alternative third assignment, you must cite according to the instructions.

 

Basic Concepts about Quotation Marks (Used to Distinguish the Words Someone Else Wrote) and Citations (Used to Show Where in What Source)

Frequently students have been rewarded with high grades just to type piles of words from a source. If that is what your professors want, they probably have good reasons for that type of assignment. Do what they want, but do not assume that future professors will want this (and no boss ever will pay people—not well anyway—just to copy words from one place to another).

 

On the other hand, the next professor may mark a zero (0) and say you are plagiarizing, and your submission of the paper is the professor's evidence that you plagiarized. The next professor may call it plagiarism or “half-copy” plagiarism (term from The Bedford Handbook, page 692) if you:

 

Caution: If you think saying the name of the source and perhaps page numbers means you can copy another’s words without quotations marks, look at the table below.

Look at the table carefully.

What Kind of Fact Are You Using

Do You Need Citation (Page # etc.)?

Do You Need Quotation Marks (“”)?

A fact in your own words

Yes—although I do not require that for the History Changes Essay or Unit Essays

No

A fact in the author’s words

Yes

Yes – Notice the Caution

.

In this course, you may not plagiarize or “half-copy” plagiarize. You may however quote, but you have to use the rules in The Bedford Handbook for quoting. One of the simplest ways to avoid problems is:


If you want more tips, please ask.

 

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2012

 

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2012

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/