What’s on This Webpage:
Rubric
for This Paper as a Marked List of Bad Habits for Evidence
Criteria
for “C,” “B,” and “A” and Rubric to Show Your Letter Grade
Caution
1: What’s Different about Evidence Papers and Other Papers You May Have Done
Caution 2:
What’s Different about How Your Instructor Grades and What She Requires
Reminders
of Your Instructor’s Method of Grading and Your Requirements for Citation and
Sources:
What
Putting 1 and 2 TogetherMeans
Your
Name __________________________________________ Your Class Starting Hour ____________
I place an X beside each of the Bad Habits (the yellow boxes) that you
showed in this paper. In the left margin of your paper, I place the phrase that
shows you what Bad Habit you followed.
Example: If you plagiarized, I write
Habit 4 > and the > points to the sentence or, if you
plagiarized in many sentences, I draw a line beside the area
If you no longer follow these Bad Habits on the next paper, I will replace the grade for the prior writing with the full points. Example: If the full grade for Good Habits for Evidence is 30, I replace the 1.11 with 30.
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Bad Habits That You Showed in This Paper (and How I Point Out
the Habit in the Paper’s Left Margin) |
How to Have Good Habits to Prevent the Problem |
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Used an unreliable source (Habit 1). |
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Used an incorrect or incomplete part of the source
required for the question asked (Habit
2). |
Habit 2. Factual Accuracy That You Verify with the Reliable Source Before You Write |
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Did not answer all parts of the question. (Habit 2-all of ?) |
“ |
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Misread or read passively or wrote passively (Habit 2-bad) or, worse, assumed or wrote assumptions (Habit 2-worse) |
“ |
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Made errors such as cherry-picking facts or embellishing
facts (Habit 3). |
Habit 3. Factual Accuracy That Is Verifiable
for Every Statement You Make and Three Frequently Asked Questions about Citing |
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Did not cite accurately and according to the directions (Habits 2 & 3) |
“ |
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Plagiarized or did “half-copy” plagiarism (also called “patchwrite”) (Habit
4). |
Habit 4. No
“Half-Copy” Plagiarism or “Patchwriting” and Why I Make a Big Deal about Plagiarism and
Patchwriting |
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Used "" inaccurately, including making the author's
sentences look grammatically incorrect (Habit
5-bad) or, worse, used
"" inaccurately and changed meaning (Habit 5-worse). |
You must avoid all of the dangerous habits above to earn a C to an A. I place an X in the yellow box to the left of the letter you earn. Notice the criteria that are different from C to an A.
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"C" Paper Criteria |
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"B" Paper Criteria |
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"A" Paper Criteria |
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Accurately read the parts, but did not analyze or try to evaluate or synthesize interconnections. |
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Accurately read the parts and analyzed each one.
Tried to evaluate and synthesize interconnections. |
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Accurately read the parts and analyzed each one.
Evaluated and synthesized interconnections. |
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Only summarized separately each of the parts of the
question, but did not cover
interconnections. |
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Revealed each
part and covered some
interconnections. Provided few examples. |
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Understood each
part and revealed the parts’
interconnections. Provided clear and
representative examples. |
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Followed the directions.
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Followed the directions carefully. |
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Followed the directions exactly. |
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Two or more mechanical errors. |
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One or more mechanical errors. |
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No more than one minor mechanical error. |
Evidence papers are common in history, in social sciences,
in the sciences, with jobs, and in other places where reality must be as
accurate as possible and where information must be useful.
FYI: I am grading your content as a freshman student, but I want you to either
have or start to have the habits you
will need before your junior year
(and with some teachers and disciplines before your sophomore year).
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Traits of the Type of Paper |
Evidence Papers |
Other Papers |
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Your goal in writing |
Be true and be useful (what you will have to be on a
job). |
Be interesting. |
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You state your feelings about some individual or fact in
the history you are covering. |
No |
May be accepted. |
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You cite a specific page from one of the required
reliable sources for everything
you write. (That does not mean you have to have a footnote or citation for
each sentence. Click here for Three Frequently Asked Questions about
Citing.) |
Yes (On a job, you have to know where you got facts, but
your boss will probably not want to see footnotes.) |
May not be required |
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You say nothing
that is not proved on a specific, citable page of the required reliable
source. |
Yes |
May not be required |
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You make no assumptions.
(If the source does not say that X event caused Y event, you do not.) |
Yes |
May not be noticed if the person grading your paper is
not in your discipline. (But on a job, your boss will always be in your
discipline.) |
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Yes |
“ |
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You never
rely on memory or so-called common knowledge. |
Yes |
“ |
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You watch discipline-specific words such as slave or
indentured servant that are used in the sources so you understand what they
mean. If you are not sure, you look the words up in resources in the class. |
Yes |
“ |
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You watch general words used in the sources (such as deposition).
If you are not sure, you look the words up in the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. |
Yes |
“ |
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You never
write about what you do not understand. If you can, you figure it out and
then write. If you cannot, you do not write about it. |
Yes |
“ |
1.
Your instructor places your paper
side-by-side with the sources, including the online primaries. She can easily
see if you did not read accurately.
2.
You are required to use only the
pages of the textbook and the online primaries as your source.
1
Your
instructor can prove that you were
inaccurate in a cost-effective way (in less than 15 minutes per paper).
Tip: This method is not meant to hurt your grade but to
help you realize what you are actually doing so you do not hurt your future.
2
If your instructor is wrong (such as
did not see another spot on the page that supported what you wrote) and
everyone is wrong sometime, you can prove that you were accurate.
The phrase not supported means that the source does not
provide evidence for what you said.
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Traits Listed Above That You Want to Have |
Examples of What the Instructor Can Prove Is Not Supported |
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You state your feelings about some individual or fact in
the history you are covering. |
The student wrote that Anthony Johnson was wrong to have
had slaves and that is not on the cited page. (Reminder: slavery had been
legal for thousands of years when Johnson had slaves. Tip: The goal was to teach and you are not teaching your feelings
about history, but what another person needs to learn. |
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You cite a specific page from one of the required
reliable sources for everything
you write. |
The student wrote the Monroe Doctrine was about
Europeans invading the United States and that is not on the cited page. |
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You say nothing
that is not proved on a specific, citable page of the required reliable
source. |
The student wrote that the court ordered Anthony Johnson
to free John Casar and cited a page of the primary and that is not on the
cited page. |
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You make no assumptions.
(If the source does not say that X event caused Y event, you do not.) |
The student wrote that Anthony Johnson’s success in the
1655 case led to Virginia writing more restrictive laws but there is nothing
like that on the page cited. |
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You use facts that
are significant and representative. |
The student wrote
that the Library of Congress source about the 1660s and beyond covered laws
about Africans not owning land and there is nothing like that on the page
cited. |
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You never
rely on memory or so-called common knowledge. |
The student wrote that all Africans were slaves in
Virginia from the beginning and both the textbook and the example in the
primaries shows that is not accurate. |
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You watch discipline-specific words such as slave or
indentured servant that are used in the sources so you understand what they
mean. If you are not sure, you look the words up in resources in the class. |
The student wrote about free slaves. In all of the
sources, those words are never together. A free person is not a slave and a
slave is not free. That use of words was not on the cited page. Tip: By definition, an indentured servant was a free person who gave
up his or her freedom to serve for a specified period of time. Indenture refers to the torn paper
that states the length of service and what the person receives in return for
the labor. See below about Casar. |
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You watch general words used in the sources (such as deposition).
If you are not sure, you look the words up in the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. |
The student wrote that Casar was an indentured servant,
but everything on the cited page does not support that. The deposition (sworn testimony under oath where lies are illegal and with
consequences if you are caught) by Captain Samuel Goldsmith was that Casar had no
indentured papers and that Mr. Parker had Casar. |
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You never
write about what you do not understand. If you can, you figure it out and
then write. If you cannot, you do not write about it. |
The student wrote that Mr. Park was executed. (FYI: execution
was about his paying the price of services by the court because of his
actions.) |
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Copyright
C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2018 |
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WCJC Department: |
History – Dr. Bibus |
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Contact Information: |
281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu |
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Last Updated: |
2018 |
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WCJC Home: |