General Grading Criteria

Grades on all assignments will be determined by how well you adhere to the specific criteria as outlined on individual assignment descriptions, as well as the general grade criteria listed below:

• A - Outstanding work. Shows superior analysis of assignment. Provides excellent selection of content, organization, and wording of material to fit the rhetorical needs of the particular situation. Uses style that is fluent and coherent. Has no mechanical errors. Shows great insight, perceptiveness, originality, and thought.
• B - Good work, significantly above level necessary to meet course requirements. Has thorough, well-organized analysis of the assignment. Shows judgment and tact in the presentation of material appropriate for the intended audience and purpose. Supports ideas well with concrete details. Has interesting, precise, and clear style. Is free of major mechanical errors. Strong, interesting work, although minor problems remain.
• C - Meets all basic requirements of the course and assignment. Provides satisfactory analysis of the writing task, subject, and audience. Accomplishes its purpose with adequate content and detail. Uses details, organization, and expression appropriate for the rhetorical context. Has acceptable mechanics. Could be mailed out in the professional world.
• D - Meets the assignment but is weak in one of the major areas (content, organization, style, mechanics) or offers a routine, inadequate treatment. Shows generally substandard work with some redeeming features.
• F - Unacceptable work, in one or more of the major areas. Fails to meet one or more of the basic requirements of the course or the assignment. Fails to cover essential points, or may digress to nonessential material. Has inadequate development resulting from failure to support generalizations or from unclear relationships between generalizations and examples or details. Lacks adequate organization and show confusion or misunderstanding of rhetorical context. May use an inappropriate tone, poor word choice, excessive repetition, or awkward sentence structure.