Benefits of Evaluating Papers
The purpose of assigning papers—of whatever length and scope—continues to be to encourage students to develop their writing skills that are coterminous with their thinking skills. If they cannot write something clearly, most often they have not thought it through. It also makes them see their thinking and the need to support statements with evidence, logic or data, all of which are good habits to develop in our students.

Reading their papers gives us a chance to notice the quality of their thinking and provide suggestions for ways to improve it. Our comments make a difference, and the conferences that happen around writing papers provide occasions to provide feedback and help our students grow.

Ways to Make It Easier on You and Your Students
One of the most difficult tasks about assessing papers is providing some objectivity and balance when there are a lot of papers to read. Some of the ways to help you include: providing criteria, listing key points, rearranging the order of papers and taking breaks.

Evaluative Criteria
Describing explicit criteria that you use in evaluating a paper can help give students an awareness of what you look for in evaluating their work, and it can remind you what parts of the paper you will look for when grading. Some of the general criteria many faculty members use for evaluating papers include:

• Focus of the paper
• Clarity of logical argument
• Depth of analysis
• Breadth of insights
• Quality of the evidence and reasoning presented
• Lack of spelling and grammatical errors
• Specificity of evidence provided
• Accuracy in using the APA, MLA or other style (whichever your program or you require) for documentation

In my experience, explaining these criteria in the syllabus and in class have diminished greatly the discussion of grades and student attempts to negotiate a higher grade. It has also helped make the grading process easier. Developing rubrics—listing grades for various levels of attainment of these criteria—can also make it much easier for some assignments; it has also proven difficult for some faculty members who feel too locked in with categories and checklists that some rubrics contain.

Listing Key Points
Another strategy to ensure that you bring the same perspective to each paper is to provide a list of key points you are looking for in a paper. If you have assigned a field report of a field trip, an analysis of a paper or article or a review of a book or restaurant, the key points can be relatively easy to describe. Unfortunately, we often do not take the time to make that list because we are sure that we will know a good paper from a bad one. Listing the items you will look for in a paper, however, can help you make a clearer assignment and assist greatly in evaluating the paper.

For example, in a field-trip report, you might look for a description of the site, details about the operation, evaluative comments about the facility, and application of concepts from the reading. For a restaurant review, you might expect comments on the staff greeting; ambience and layout of the dining room; menu design and content; presentation, temperature, ingredients, preparation and flavor of the food; beverage options and service; staff knowledge of the menu items; and overall attentiveness of the service. With research papers, the key points may be harder to specify, but you might look for clear structure, use of evidence, clarity of thesis, use of evidence, depth of description or analysis and range of sources consulted.

Rearranging Papers and Taking Breaks
Although it may sound too simplistic, the suggestion of reshuffling papers and reading them in whatever order can be refreshing. Typically, I turn over the cover sheet and ask students not to put their name on each page so by shuffling them, I do not know whose paper I am reading. That practice provides me with a fresh perspective and opens my mind to whatever I am reading. When I have papers on various topics, shuffling gives me a chance to read ones that strike my fancy at the time.

Taking breaks from reading also helps bring a new perspective. I typically take a lap around the office or the building so that I bring a new mental perspective to what I am reading. Moving around also helps me refocus my eyes and makes me think about something other than the papers. Then I am ready to read more. Reading them in small batches can also help. Long reading paper sessions can be mentally tiring!

Comments
Taking the time to provide comments to the student on insights, language, logical structure and clarity of the description or analysis is a great gift and can help him or her improve. Sometimes, there are so many comments on papers that students get offended. I only use blue or black pen because red marks can cause real resistance among students, but the more comments I provide, the more chances they have to learn how to improve their thinking and writing.

Summary
Thank you for reading this column on evaluating student papers. Next month, we will talk about field trips. If you have comments about this topic or suggestions for others, send them to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will include them in future “Mayo’s Clinics.”

Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT, is a clinical professor at New York University and a frequent presenter at CAFÉ events nationwide.