For now
this just has the Rubrics and the 5 Requirements for Evidence in Essays and
Tips for Success.
Rubric
These are the same rubric except for description of how many parts you write about:
· Rubric used when you have to read all the parts of something but only write about one part - Rubric used for the Practice Essay (when the answer is worth 10 points) and for the 1st essay question on Unit 1 (when the answer is worth 25 points)
· Rubric used when you have to read about two things and write about both – Rubric used for the 2nd essay question on Unit 1 and ALL other Unit Essay topics (the answer is worth 25 points)
The Evidence Checklist is
the other side of the Rubric. Think of the Checklist and the Rubric as a
two-sided coin. I use the Evidence
Rubric to grade with so you can get detailed feedback. You can use the Evidence Checklist to help yourself be stronger.
Both rely on common standards
(accepted rules or models) for academics and for jobs that depend on evidence:
·
The word evidence emphasizes that you must have
proof for what you say—some fact from our approved source that anyone using
that source can see for himself or herself.
·
The word checklist means a list of steps or
things necessary for success (such as a pilot’s checklist for takeoff).
Each checklist number
from 1 to 5:
·
Begins with an informal
statement of a common standard that applies to academics and to jobs
·
Below that are our
specific requirements, identified with the underlined phrase In
this course.
I also offer additional tips below or click here for the tips.
|
1. |
For your source of facts, you use only
sources your professor (or boss) accepts as reliable. In this course, the only
sources are the textbook chosen by the History Department and the sources provided at our Course Website. Do not use Internet websites, another
textbook, or any other source—including your own memory. |
|
2. |
You must follow
common standards to reveal to your reader who created the words and/or found
the facts you are using in your writing. This is a requirement in courses and
in some jobs. In this course, you
may: ·
Either write facts in
your own words ·
Or you may use exact sentences or phrases from
the textbook placed within quotation marks according to the specific rules
for quotation marks (“”) to reveal ownership that are covered in The Bedford Handbook In this course, you may not copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks. You also
may not replace a few words in an
author’s sentence. Both are what The
Bedford Handbook calls “half-copy” plagiarism (page 692). |
|
3. |
You must follow common standards to reveal any changes you made to the
author’s words. This may not be just a punctuation error. You may be
misleading your reader about the evidence.
In this course,
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 those changes to the reader. |
|
4. |
You must use
reliable sources to verify what you write. (To verify means you use a reliable source to confirm the accuracy of
anything you write.) In this course, 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.
·
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 or actions from two or more groups or individuals, do not include
only one side as though the other did not occur. |
|
5. |
With most written work for professors (or
bosses), 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 many college
assignments, you must provide citations and use a specific standard (such as MLA, APA, or the Chicago Manual
of Style). In this course
with most written assignments,
you do not need to provide citations (the specific page number from our
textbook) unless I cannot recognize where the fact came from. If I cannot recognize where the fact came from, then you must show me the location on the page. It cannot be a vague
statement: if a reasonable person using a reliable dictionary and reading the
entire passage would not agree that you have evidence for what you say, then
neither will I. If you ask to do the more challenging alternative assignment instead
of the essays for Unit 2, then you must cite
according to the instructions. |
If you already have methods that work, then use those. If not, you may want to try these. These methods reinforce each other—they work best if you do them all. This shows only the first lines of each item in the Evidence Checklist.
For the full text in the Evidence Checklist, scroll above or click here.
|
1 |
For
your source of facts, you use only
sources your professor (or boss) accepts as reliable. |
|
Read the right stuff—the right time and the right place and the
right person or type of persons--for the question:
Read to understand (to figure out, not just repeat
mindlessly) the evidence that the author is providing you:
|
|
|
2 |
You
must follow common standards to reveal to your reader who created the words
and/or found the facts you are using in your writing. This is a requirement
in courses and in some jobs. |
|
Before
you worry about quoting something, click here
to see the basics of facts and: ·
citations
(how you show exactly where the reader can find the fact) ·
quotation
marks (how you show who owns what
words) Once
you are sure you want to quote (to use the author’s exact words), then use the
brain trick in with checklist item 3 (just below). |
|
|
3 |
You must follow common standards to reveal
any changes you made to the author’s words. This may not be just a
punctuation error. You may be misleading your reader about the evidence. |
|
The
rules for showing what you have taken out (…) of the author’s words or put in
([ ]) are complex and for most of us they are not worth learning. This
brain trick lets you be accurate but
avoid learning those rules:
|
|
|
4 |
You
must use reliable sources to verify what you write. (To verify means you use a reliable source to confirm the accuracy of
anything you write.) |
·
So you have a chance to know what you need to read ·
So you can ask a question if you do not understand my question
·
Before you start to read, stop and be sure what you are reading is appropriate
for that question. (Once you start writing, you will not catch your error.) Examples: Do not use information about
New England to answer a question about the South or information about
ranchers to answer a question about farmers. ·
Before you stop reading, look to see if some other things happened
or if some things changed.
·
Notice
words that reveal limitations of a fact. ·
Notice
the sentences (and sometimes pages) before and after what you are reading. Caution: You are not summarizing or paraphrasing a section of words. You are
figuring things out so you can briefly answer a question in a common sense
way. Just because some fact is in
that section of words does not
mean it belongs in your answer. If the fact does not apply to the
question, do not bring it up or you will look like you misread or miswrote
(wrote without thinking). |
|
|
5 |
With most written work for
professors (or bosses), 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. |
·
The
facts that you write in your own words are in the source. ·
The
facts that are in the author’s words are unchanged between the opening
quotation mark (“) and the closing one (“”) For
some people, touching the fact in the source and in your list of what you
plan to cover helps them. This visual
might help. If you decide to do the
alternative assignment which does require citations, I will provide
instructions for you. |
With something that
people talk about in many ways, sometimes it helps to state what is not the goal. With writing in this course, you:
·
Are not
summarizing or not paraphrasing the textbook.
·
Do not need to
repeat every fact or word in the textbook.
·
Are not showing your
personal writing style while stating your feelings or your opinions.
Instead, in this
course, the goal of all writing assignments is for you to do activities that
help you learn the history of our nation. One of the most powerful ways to learn something is to try to teach it.
You will succeed in these
assignments if you do these things:
·
If you read carefully and
work to understand what happened and ask if you need help.
·
If you figure out what
essential facts that you would teach your cousin.
·
If you figure how you
could organize those facts as simply and as accurately as you can.
·
If you write in a common
sense way as though you are teaching your cousin history that he or she needs
to understand.
This
textbook is required. You use it as your only source of facts when you write; I
use it when I grade your evidence.
Edward Ayers, Lewis Gould, David Oshinsky,
and Jean Soderlund.
American Passages: A History of the United States. 4th edition.
The ISBN for the current 4th edition in paperback is ISBN: 9780547166469. (If you need tips
on buying or borrowing a cheap book, click on the FAQs in this
learning module.)
Caution: You cannot use the BRIEF, 4th edition which has 2 fewer chapters than the 32 chapters in the other 4th
editions and all prior editions of this book.
Because the goal of
writing is to help you learn our nation’s history and the priority is for you
to be accurate, I grade your writing by comparing what you wrote side by side
with the facts in the textbook. With essays submitted, I use a method that lets
me quickly identify all of the submissions where the students wrote on the same
question. It is—as is obvious—a slow method, but it works.
1. I place side by side these things. (With distance learning classes, I
download the submissions, print them, and then place them side by side).
|
·
On the left, the textbook
opened to the probable section or sections students should have used. ·
On the right, a stack
of all the submissions of students’ papers on that question. I also have a stack of rubrics to mark and a matrix for recording the
class results. |
|||||||||||||
|
In other words. I make it possible to
grade you accurately and very fast.
|
2. I use the Evidence Rubric for feedback (shown above) and grade each
student’s submissions one by one.
3. If there are multiple possible questions, I then repeat the steps above
with the next question.
With the two essays for
the Unit exams, I grade one of the questions using the method above. Sometimes
I toss a coin or something like that to be sure I am not grading the same topic
number each time.
Unless I find problems
such as factual errors in that first essay I grade, I grade the other one without
the textbook side by side with your paper—a quicker method.
Students are usually puzzled about the plagiarism or “half-plagiarism” marking because they lack some basic information. Here are the basics.
1. The
submission of a paper with words from an author without quotation marks can be the professor's evidence that you plagiarized. Some professors may not
notice, but some may call it plagiarism. Do
not assume that past responses by professors guarantee what future
professors will want (and no boss ever will pay people—not well anyway—to copy
words from one place to another).
2. If you do this, some professors may label your work as “half-copy” plagiarism (term from The Bedford Handbook, page 692) if you:
|
· Either copy an author’s phrases without quotation marks (“”) ·
Or use the author’s sentence structure and just swap a few words with what
you think are synonyms |
Caution: If you think saying the name of the source means you can copy another’s words without quotations marks, look at the table in How Citation and Quotation Marks Fits Together with Facts in Your Own Words and/or Facts in the Author’s Words
If you use a fact in the author’s words, citation is not enough; you must also use quotation marks.
What are the rules for citation and use of quotation marks? The rules vary
depending upon whether you are writing:
· A fact from the source in your own words
· A fact in the author’s words (you are quoting):
|
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 Note: I do not require that in the Blackboard’s tiny box for essays or in an essay an on-campus student writes in class. |
No |
|
A fact in the author’s words |
Yes |
Yes <Notice this. |
Specifics about this course:
·
I do not require citations when you use facts in an essay that you do in
the Blackboard’s tiny box for essays, but there are conditions.
·
On the other hand, I do require quotation marks if you use the author’s words. In this
course, you may not plagiarize or
“half-copy” plagiarize. You may however quote, but you have to use the rules
for quoting. If you want more tips, check the preventions link below. If you
have questions, please ask.
If you are confused about when to use quotation marks, these examples may help you.
|
What the Author
Wrote |
What Words You Want
to Write |
Do You Need
Quotation Marks (“”)? and Why |
|
the Mississippi River |
the Mississippi River |
No – Proper nouns belong to all of us. |
|
the green, roaring river |
the river |
No – Common nouns belong to all of us. |
|
the green, roaring Mississippi River |
the roaring Mississippi River |
Yes <Notice this. – These are the author’s unique string of words so you identify them as not your creation with “”: Trade was harder because of the “roaring Mississippi River.” |
|
|
roaring |
Yes <Notice this. – This is the author’s labeling of a condition and it is easier to be clear by using the author’s word with “”. The author explained that the “roaring” river made trade more difficult. |
|
Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2013 |
|
2013 |
|