Evidence Quiz 4 - The 5 Good Habits for Evidence Compared to Its Rubric and How Both Can Help You       

This page covers the 2 parts of the one-page rubric. The rubric itself also includes a section where you mark that you understood the rubric. This page also provides Optional Information. For example, some students did not realize that this method of grading combined with how and what you must cite means an instructor can prove the evidence problems she marks. Or—if the instructor is incorrect (and that happens to everyone), you can prove that you have evidence.

 

What’s on This Webpage:

Grading and the 5 Good Habits for Evidence. 1

Criteria for “C“, “B,” and “A” and the Rubric to Show Your Letter Grade for Content. 1

If You Did Not Follow the 5 Good Habits for Evidence, How to Know How to Improve. 1

Optional Information. 2

Caution 1: What’s Different about Evidence Papers and Other Papers You May Have Done. 2

Caution 2: What’s Different about How Your Instructor Grades and What She Can Prove. 3

Reminders of Your Instructor’s Method of Grading and Your Requirements for Citation and Sources: 3

What Putting 1 and 2 Together Means. 3

Examples from Papers. 3

Grading and the 5 Good Habits for Evidence

The 5 Good Habits for Evidence are so basic to jobs and course in your discipline (not just history) that--if you did not do them--a boss would fire you for and an upper-level prof in your discipline would refuse to give you a reference.

 

This class divides writing grades in 2 parts: content (30 points) and Good Habits for Evidence (30 points). The Syllabus & Success link explains how and why that divided grade raises your letter grade on a paper about 1 letter.

 

The best thing to do is follow the 5 Good Habits for Evidence with your 1st Part writing work. If, however, you did not successfully follow them in the 1st writing, but if you work to change in a later writing, your instructor replaces the Good Habits for Evidence grade for the prior weak writing.

Criteria for “C“, “B,” and “A” and the Rubric to Show Your Letter Grade for Content

If you follow all 5 Good Habits for Evidence (below), you earn a 30 out of 30 for the Good Habits for Evidence and you earn either a “C“, “B,” and “A” for content.

 

In the rubric that contains the table below, I place an X in the yellow box to the left of the letter you earn. Notice how the criteria are different from C to an A.

 

"C" Paper Criteria (21-23.9)

 

"B" Paper Criteria (24-26.9)

 

"A" Paper Criteria (27-30)

 

Accurately read the parts, but did not analyze or try to evaluate or synthesize interconnections.

 

Accurately read the parts and analyzed each one. Tried to evaluate and synthesize interconnections.

 

Accurately read the parts and analyzed each one. Evaluated and synthesized interconnections.

 

Only summarized separately each of the parts of the question, but did not cover interconnections.

 

Revealed each part and covered some interconnections. Provided few examples.

 

Understood each part and revealed the parts’ interconnections. Provided clear and representative examples.

 

Followed the directions. 

 

Followed the directions carefully.

 

Followed the directions exactly.

 

Two or more mechanical errors.

 

One or more mechanical errors.

 

No more than one minor mechanical error.

 

If You Did Not Follow the 5 Good Habits for Evidence, How to Know How to Improve

If you did not follow the 5 Good Habits for Evidence, the highest grade for content that you can receive is 20.9.

In the rubric that contains the table below, if you did not follow the 5 Good Habits for Evidence, I place an X in each of the 2 yellow boxes below.

 

"D" or “Paper Criteria (20.9 or less out of 30) for content.

 

1.11 for the 30-point 5 Good Habits for Evidence (If you change, you can replace that grade.)

Think about this for a second: no boss would pay you more if your work were not accurate. On the other hand, if your boss wanted you to stay on the job but to improve, he or she would let you know how to improve. That is the positive reason for feedback.

 

You get feedback in 2 ways:

·         In the left margin of your paper by the line of your paper with the error, I write the Habit # and –if applicable—whether the habit was a “D” (a sign of a danger to you) or an “F” (a sign of failure or even getting fired on a job)

·         To give you details, I underline the Habit you missed in the rubric below.

Example: If you plagiarized, to the left of the line with the copied words without any quotation marks, I write 4F.

How to Have Good Habits for Evidence and Prevent Ds and Fs

If You Do Not, Dangers in a Class (D Grade) or a Job (How marked beside the spot in your paper)

If You Do Not, Failure in a Class (F Grade) or Fired on a Job (How marked in the left margin in your paper)

Habit 1. Reliable Sources Only

--

Used an unreliable source. (Marked as 1F).

Habit 2. Factual Accuracy That You Verify with the Reliable Source Before You Write

Misread or read passively or wrote passively (Marked as 2D)

Did worse than misread or miswrite. Assumed or wrote assumptions (Marked as 2F).

Used an incorrect or incomplete part of the source required for the question asked. (Marked as 2F).

Did not answer all parts of the question. (Marked as 2F).

Habit 3. Factual Accuracy That Is Verifiable for Every Statement You Make  and Three Frequently Asked Questions about Citing

--

Made errors such as cherry-picking facts or embellishing facts (Marked as 3F).

Habit 2 and 3 combined.

--

Did not cite accurately and according to the directions (Marked as 2F & 3F)

Habit 4. No “Half-Copy” Plagiarism or “Patchwriting”  and Why I Make a Big Deal about Plagiarism and Patchwriting

--

Plagiarized or did “half-copy” plagiarism (also called “patchwrite”) (Marked as 4F).

Habit 5. Quotation Changes Revealed Clearly  

Used "" inaccurately, including making the author's sentences look grammatically incorrect. (Marked as 5D).

Used "" inaccurately and changed meaning. (Marked as 5F).

Optional Information

Caution 1: What’s Different about Evidence Papers and Other Papers You May Have Done?

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).

Traits of the Type of Paper

Evidence Papers

Other Papers

Your goal in writing

Be true and be useful (what you will have to be on a job).

Be interesting.

You state your feelings about some individual or fact in the history you are covering.

No

May be accepted.

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

You say nothing that is not proved on a specific, citable page of the required reliable source.

Yes

May not be required

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.)

You use facts that are significant and representative.

Yes

You never rely on memory or so-called common knowledge.

Yes

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

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

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

 

Caution 2: What’s Different about How Your Instructor Grades and What She Can Prove?

Reminders of Your Instructor’s Method of Grading and Your Requirements for Citation and Sources:

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.

 

What Putting 1 and 2 Together Means

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.

Examples from Papers

The phrase not supported means that the source does not provide evidence for what you said.

Traits Listed Above That You Want to Have

Examples of What the Instructor Can Prove Is Not Supported

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
Tip: Parker is getting free labor from another man’s slave so Parker had a reason to lie.

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.)

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2019

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or  bibusc@wcjc.edu  

Last Updated:

2019

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/