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 - Top-notch, excellent, extraordinary accomplishment. Really strong conception and execution. Minor tinkering at most needed to make this comparable to professional-quality work.
• B - Very strong work. Everything in order, well conceived and well executed. Minor editing problems at most.
  NOTE: The differences between an A and a B have to do with a combination of originality, excellence, thoroughness, and attention to detail in execution. Although A grades may include comments on sentence level editing, doing this type of editing would not be sufficient to raise a B to an A.
• C - Average, but missing some components. No glaring conceptual or execution problems, but nothing particularly outstanding in either department. Topic or problem may be somewhat limited, or execution may be less than optimal.
• D - Acceptable, but below average work. Either conception, execution or both definitely need to be improved.
• F - Not of acceptable quality. 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.