Thursday, May 8, 2008

Mid-Term Essay: Structure

Here is the Writing-Intensive arrangement and the schedule of dates for the Mid-Term Essay, twenty five hundred words and revisions. The assignment is worth thirty percent of the Course grade.

Eight-week writing path

  1. June 2nd: choice of topics posted on the blog
  2. June 16th: draft version due in class.
  3. June 30th: draft returned with comments & conditional grade.
  4. July 7th: peer-editing of draft revision.
  5. July 14th: revision due in class.
  6. July 21st: revision returned with comments & final grade.
  • The draft is an opportunity to get your ideas and structure freely down on paper. The marking will identify the types of error which require revision: after studying these you are encouraged to bring the draft to Office Hours for additional and thorough-going help.

Grading structure:
  • Intensive copy-editing and analysis, in red ink, will be done on the first two-thirds of the essay. The remaining third is left unmarked, to provide you, once having read and studied my work, with a practical document on which to apply the same degree and type of copy-editing corrections yourself. Upon completion of that exercise, you are welcome to bring that to me in an Office Hour for discussion.
  • There is a circled grade beside my concluding comments at the end of your paper.
  • This is your conditional grade.
  • Upon revision of the draught, the mark can go down no more than one full letter grade and can go up no more than one full letter grade: conditional upon the quality of your revision.
  • If little revision is done, the conditional grade will stand
  • If no or poor revision is done the mark will go down.
  • If comprehensive revision is done, the mark will go up.
    • The mark after the revision will be the final grade for the assignment.
    • The revision will be graded according to the improvements made from the draught.
    • A complete re-write is possible, if the student feels that they wish to improve upon the range available from the conditional grade received. The complete re-write will be judged as a final revision and the grade on that re-write will be the final grade for the assignment.

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