Writing: Feedback, Rubric, and Composition

Joseph Reagle


Four stages of competence

conscious competence 

Good feedback

  1. highlights both strengths to continue and weaknesses to remedy
  2. is focused on the task, not the learner
  3. is prioritized and in manageable units towards remediable concerns


are are not
reflection of performance reflection of individual intelligence
related to effort assessed on effort; it must be skillful
roughly accurate over time perfectly objective
chance to turn disappointment into learning

Revision symbols



The goal

Writing assignments are opportunities to show your:

  1. knowledge of class material
  2. skills, especially analytic and writing abilities

Exercise the material so as to show your knowledge and skills.


Was the assignment directly addressed and were the appropriate concepts and texts employed? Was it impressive (A), appropriate (B), lacking (C), inappropriate (D), or nonexistent (F)?

Engagement ☑


Understanding of readings, discussions, themes and ideas might be impressive (A), appropriate (B), lacking (C), inappropriate (D), or nonexistent (F)?

Understanding ☑


Writing might be polished (A), clear and competent (B), choppy and difficult to follow (C), fractured and unclear (D), or unacceptable (F).

Writing ☑

Scholarly support

Use APA, MLA, or Chicago. For APA, refer to authors rather than “the article” or “in the book.”

According to Jones (1998), “Silky terriers have soft hair” (p. 19).

Jones (1998) found “silky terriers have soft hair” (p. 19); do you agree?

She stated, “Silky terriers have soft hair” (Jones, 1998, p. 19), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.

—See “APA signal phrases” in OWL or Hacker

APA misc.

—See APA cheat-sheet and self quiz.


Instructions checklist ☑

Heinrich "Milo" Steinborn lifting weights

Active voice




—See Explorations of Style on clear subjects and strong verbs.

“I statements”

Clarity, concision, cohesion, coherence


  1. snappy start
    • sharp, surprising, controversial, or funny
  2. statement of your thesis
    • argue or answer, do not consider, explore, or discuss.
  3. framing of what is to follow
  4. argument/answer/analysis
  5. conclusion
    • a concise restatement of your framing and thesis

—See OWL on structure

Example intro

“According to the 2008 US Census, the state of Massachusetts had a total of 141,843 business organizations…. I argue that although small businesses are often overlooked, they do still exhibit important facets of organizational culture. I will focus on the application of The Zen of Groups, Geert Hofstede’s power distance, and theories of organizational behavior to my experiences in these settings. My goal is to draw upon my professional work experience and identify examples of the aforementioned concepts. Providing concrete instances of these theories will offer a solid understanding of the ever changing and complex environments of contemporary business organizations.”

snappy startthesisframe.

Example structure

Heavy concepts in intro



Analytic concepts

Don’t imply that your analytic concepts are known by that which you analyze.

The phenomenal theory would look at …

Theories don’t look at anything.

The creators of these ads use the theory of ideology …

The creators probably haven’t given any thought to the theory.

Write and then rewrite





“A woman without her man is nothing”?

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.


1 wordy sentences


—Also OWL:Conciseness

Trim redundancies

Visitors are warned to take every precaution to avoid accidents

—Also OWL:Eliminating Words and Williams’ concision

eg trim (a)



eg trim (b)



3a balance parallel ideas: items in a series



—Also OWL:Parallel Structure

5b shift in tense



—Also OWL:Verb Tense Consistency

7a misplaced modifiers



—See OWL:Misplaced modifiers

7b misplaced (distant) phrases or clauses




14a fragmented clauses



—See OWL:Sentence Fragments

14b fragmented phrases




17 The comma

—See OWL:Commas: Quick Rules

17a ind. nonrestr. clause


Do not use when the clauses are dependent


17d coord. adjectives




17d coord. adjectives

Do not use between cumulative adjectives.

He bought a bright red car.

It was not dark red but bright red.

17e nonrestr. clause

A nonrestrictive phrase is not essential and needs commas.


A restrictive phrase is essential and is without commas.


17e restr. appositive


Nonrestrictive with commas:


Restrictive without commas:


17j misuse of commas

(many instances)

18b The colon


20d punctuation within quotation marks

Place periods and commas inside quotation marks; colons and semicolons outside; question marks and exclamation inside unless they apply to the sentence as a whole.

In APA, a period follows the citation.

… the end of a quote" (p. 53).

—See OWL:Punctuation Rules with Quotation Marks

21d The Dash


Other issues