onlinepapers

Guidelines for Writing Online Papers

Gatekeeping Criteria for Papers and Essays

These criteria are conditions that must be present so that I may evaluate your paper/essay. These conditions apply to all papers unless specified otherwise. If these conditions are not present, I reserve the right to refuse to read the essay/paper, or the essay/paper may receive a D or E grade.

Place ENG 111, 112,113, or 271 in the subject field of ALL correspondence. If there is more than one section, you will be asked to place your section number after the class.
Assignments are due on the date assigned.
Double space all papers
Font size: 12 point
New Times Roman font; do not use fancy type fonts.
Margins: top/bottom 1 1/2 inches, sides 1 inch
Labeling information: in the right hand corner, put your name, class (i.e. English 112), section (for example, 03), type of assignment (i.e. Descriptive Assignment #1) and the date.
Put a title on your paper.
Every paper should have an introduction stating the thesis, a body, and a conclusion.
At the end of your paper, label it "END" .
Contact me well ahead of time if you would like me to proofread your paper and offer suggestions.
See Sample Student Papers (with accompanying brief critique) at the classroom site "External Links"
Any maps, photos, tables, schematics, etc. should be placed in the Appendix section of the paper.
Review that you have used parenthetical citations to acknowledge informational sources. Material, quotes, statistics, etc. that you obtained from any source, other than yourself, should be cited. Your paper should use the MLA format with parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page. See MLA Guidelines .
Proofread your paper very carefully. Items to particularly pay attention to are: spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. Be aware that some spell and grammar checkers will not catch all errors. Also, they cannot differentiate between words like "there" and "their"; they are both words, so one will be accepted in place of the other when it should not be. Further, if you type "toe" for "to" as in "to the class", it will be accepted as correct. Always proofread and revise several times so as not to loose points on errors.
Finally, when evaluating your paper, I will be reviewing if you met the requirements of the specific paper, i.e. if assigned a narration, is the paper a narration? The chart below will help you understand what I am looking for when evaluating your paper as well.

Category

A Range

B Range

C Range

D Range

Organization	Highly effective thesis, well developed and supported; cohesive; very logical reasoning	Clear thesis, developed and supported well, transitions throughout most of the paper; sound reasoning while developing paper	Adequate thesis, some problem with development and examples; some transitions; reasoning may not always be logical	Thesis is unclear, major problems with development and examples, few if any transitions; lacking logical reasoning
Thesis	Appears in paragraph 1; clearly stated; focused; not generalized	Clear, but may be too generalized	Very general thesis; may not appear in paragraph one	Vague thesis, or none apparent
Introduction	Exciting, informative, and descriptive; good lead in	Attracts reader's attention as it leads in to the paper	General, not specifically informative, uninteresting	Dull, uninformative; provides no lead in to the paper
Body (support and examples)	Shows strong evidence, logical reasoning; highly appropriate, and relevant examples	Good evidence with logical reasoning; appropriate, and relevant, examples	Evidence or support is present, but it is irrelevant, inappropriate, or illogical	Few, or no, support is present; use of highly irrelevant, inappropriate, or illogical examples
Conclusion	Summarizes and closes with highly thoughtful, and logical, insights; restates thesis	Provides good summary and close with some insights; restates thesis	Adequately summarizes paper/essay; may not restate thesis	Lacks clear closure to essay; does not restate thesis; "drops off" abruptly
Transitions	Utilizes excellent transitional devices between paragraphs, sentences, and ideas	Good transitional devices used between sentence, paragraphs, and ideas; may be redundant	Adequately uses transitions, but not consistently; artificially contrived at times, by repeating	Transitions are lacking throughout the paper; little effort made to unify paragraphs, etc.
Grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation	Conventions of English used correctly; easy to read	Very few errors; overall, easy to read	Some errors, occasionally multiple; some distraction for the reader	Excessive errors which make reading and understanding difficult
Spelling	Accurate without fault	Mostly accurate	Some errors	Excessive errors
MLA Citations (if applicable)	Accurate; quoted, and paraphrased, material correctly cited	Fairly accurate; material, quoted or paraphrased, done in fairly consistent format; few errors	Some errors with quoted, or paraphrased, material; format may be wrong or inconsistent; some inaccuracies may occur	Multiple or excessive problems with quoted, or paraphrased, material either in format, inaccuracies, or inconsistent

Link to Eng. 112 Assignments Back to Eng. 271 Assignments Eng. 113 Link Back to Assignments Eng. 111 Link to Assignments

           Last Updated: May, 2005
          Patricia A. Hutchins
           http://www.delta.edu/pahutchi/onlinepapers.html