What is an essay rubric? It is a way for professors to assess the student's writing task results. In other words, an essay rubric is a list of specified factors influencing the final grade a student gets for a completed writing assignment. Additionally, it is a time-saving thread for professors: factors important in essay grading are gathered and displayed on a single list of paper. In fact, this organizational document has the potential to bring a positive impact on students' writing skill, if the teacher knows how to use an essay rubric effectively.
Coolessay.net writers know essay rubric rules and methods well. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to create high-quality writings for students to help them reach academic success. Let's take a close look at the essay rubric points which appear most frequently in grading rules, and also try to understand how to write A+ essay texts all the time.
Essay Rubric: Top 5 Most Important Criteria
As we mentioned before, in the essay rubric, students can check how the teacher assesses their writings. In other words, if you keep up with rubric demands, you will increase the chance to get a higher grade. Which criteria matter the most, according to the essay rubric? Here they are.
Essay Rubric Point #1: Details and Focus
Details? Focus? What’s that?
At this point, the professor evaluates how clear and well-focused a student was about the essay topic. A student might demonstrate mad skills in composition, use large vocabulary and many stylistic tricks, but none of these criteria matter if the topic is not visible behind all the metaphors and cool phrases.
- Poor – The student failed to be clear about the main ideas and the topic.
- Average – One topic with barely clear ideas.
- Good - The topic is clear and has a good focus. Ideas are understandable but lack some grounding information and (or) proofs.
- Great – A clear topic with excellent focus, substantial ideas, and suitable logical arguments.
Essay Rubric Point #2: Text Structure
Professional essay writers highly recommend students organizing their essays well. To know how to shape the text structure, see any essay writing guide: all the quality articles note that it is important to actually separate the text into three parts: introduction, main body, and conclusion.
- Poor – no intro, main body or conclusion, the essay structure is unclear.
- Average – the main topic is underlined in the introduction. The conclusion: exists.
- Good – in addition to stating the main topic, the introduction contains a brief essay review. The conclusion is included and clearly visible.
- Excellent – the introductory part interests the reader, reveals the main essay topic, overviews the paper in general. The essay contains relevant information ordered logically. The text conclusion is solid.
Essay Rubric Point #3: Voice
To say shortly, this essay rubric part estimates the student's professionalism and knowledge about the topic. Additionally, it is a matter of how they demonstrate vocabulary and overall education level.
- Poor – no clear writing purpose visible to the reader.
- Average – readers are able to understand the purpose of writing, and there are moments of treating the audience attentively. The writer has limited knowledge (experience) about the stated essay topic.
- Good – readers can see the writing purpose, the author is attentive about the audience. The essay contains pieces of evidence about the writer's knowledge (experience) in the subject area.
- Excellent – the writing purpose is underlined and clearly visible, the author treats the audience very attentively. The text shows that the writer’s knowledge and experience about the topic are obviously extensive.
Essay Rubric Point #4: Vocabulary
Of course, when it comes to the essay rubric and grading, what is written matters the most. But the way a student writes it has a big meaning too. Words they use and phrases they operate can show their educational level perfectly.
- Poor – actually, a poor vocabulary. Language clichés and jargon words appear and possibly distract the reader from the topic.
- Average – communication is clear, but the author’s language isn’t variable enough.
- Good – vivid phrases and words. Sometimes, expressions may be placed inaccurately.
- Excellent – phrases and words are vivid and placed naturally and accurately.
Essay Rubric Point #5: Grammar, Spelling, Sentences
The way students construct sentences, their grammar knowledge, spelling, and other mechanical parameters influence the overall impression readers have from the text. Even the perfectly constructed essay with a topic revealed greatly will not get good grades if there are multiple language errors.
- Poor – repetitive, difficult to understand, and awkwardly sounding sentences. Many mistakes in mechanics, grammar, spelling, etc. Errors prevent readers from understanding the text.
- Average – most sentences have a good structure, but all of them are built in the same way and have equal length. There are some grammar, mechanical or spelling mistakes making it more difficult to understand the text.
- Good – well-structured sentences with varied length and construction. There are some mistakes that don’t influence the level of text understanding.
- Excellent – all sentences have good construction with different length and structure. No spelling, grammar, mechanical, and other mistakes are present.
To Conclude
So, according to most essay rubric rules, writing a text that is worth higher grades is not too difficult. Here is what you should do:
- Think over the topic, your ideas, and arguments.
- Remember about the general essay structure: intro, main body, and conclusion. Interest the reader in the introduction, provide arguments and ideas in the main body, and sum up things in the conclusion.
- Make sure your text reflects your knowledge of the subject and topic expertise.
- Use different words, be creative but don't overwhelm your essay with "heavy" words just to make an impression.
- Check your grammar, spelling, and punctuation twice before sending the assignment to the professor.
Keep up with the rubric points above, and your texts will surely be great. And don’t forget that you can always go for cheap essays on the Internet to see the example of how it’s done.