Summary Grading Criteria
A
Sophisticated summary of the thesis and all the main points (may not follow chronology of article, may synthesize information, understands context of argument, contains no misreadings of article); uses attributive tags and/or citations consistently and correctly to indicate the information presented is the author’s and not the student’s; smooth integration of any quotes; adequate paraphrases; smooth transitions between ideas; fluid sentence-level prose
B
Clear and coherent summary of the thesis and most of the main points; may contain minor misreadings of article; personal opinion is limited; uses attributive tags and/or citations somewhat consistently and correctly; quotes may not be integrated but they are explained; adequate paraphrases; competent transitions; clear and concise sentence-level prose with some lapses
C
Correct summary of purpose of article but may place too much emphasis on one main point, may miss the thesis but summarize the main points, may focus too much on minor points, may misunderstand context of article, may contain some misreadings but these misreadings don’t extend to the purpose or thesis of the article; any personal opinion does not come at expense of summary; uses attributive tags and/or citations inconsistently and/or incorrectly; quotes are unexplained and there may be too many quotes; paraphrases may contain occasional minor lapses; transitions exist but may be inappropriate; sentences are mostly correct (the occasional fragment or run on) but may be awkward or simplistic.
D
Inadequate summary (may misread purpose of article; may invent too different a thesis for the article; may read so much into the article that it is somewhat unrecognizable); personal opinion substitutes for summary; fails to use attributive tags and/or citations to indicate the information presented is the author’s and not the student; quotes may be mostly unexplained; most paraphrases too close to original and most of the original sentence is unchanged; transitions may be nonexistent; sentences contain many errors and boundary issues though they are readable
F
Exam may fail for any number of reasons: the writer responds to the ideas in the article rather than summarizes; the writer grossly misunderstands or misreads the article; the writer copies sentences without quoting or citing; sentences may be impossible to follow