On-line Research Writing:  English 102 
Professor Gary Parks (gparks@shoreline.edu)
Shoreline Community College 
Shoreline, WA, USA 

English 101 Scoring Rubric

Level 6:  3.5-4.0

• Focus (thesis, purpose or controlling idea) is clear, imaginative, fully realized, and insightful.
• Body paragraphs supported by a variety of relevant facts, examples, illustrations from experience, well-reasoned arguments, observations, references to related readings, etc.
• Demonstrates specific attention to relationship between audience and purpose.
• Clearly and effectively responds to assignment.

• Clear, logical, and inventive organization of ideas in relation to one another and to the essay's focus.
• Highly effective introduction and conclusion.
• Appropriate and smooth transitions between paragraphs and sentences

• Engaging and individualized voice appropriate to the audience/purpose.
• Consistency of tone/voice.
• Refreshing and revealing word choice
• Varied and interesting sentence structure.

• Full variety of sentence structures used correctly.
• Accurate and precise diction and phrasing.
• Virtually no grammatical, punctuation and mechanical errors (none which affect the flow or clarity of the paper).

Level 5:   2.9-3.5

• Focus is clear and thoughtful
• Body generally supported by facts, examples, etc. though support may not be as varied and vivid as level 6.
• No more than one paragraph with inadequate support.
• Demonstrates understanding of audience and purpose.

• Clear and logical organization of ideas in relation to one another and to the focus.
• Appropriate introduction and conclusion.
• Appropriate and smooth transitions between paragraphs and between most sentences.

• Voice appropriate to the audience/purpose though it may be somewhat generic or predictable in places.
• Consistency of tone/voice.
• Interesting and varied word choice.
• Sentence variety.

• Variety of sentence structure used correctly.
• Accurate diction and phrasing.
• No more than two sentence structure errors.
• Infrequent grammatical and mechanical errors rarely disrupt flow or clarity.

Level 4:   2.0-2.8

• Focus is generally adequate but may not be immediately clear to all readers.
• Response to assignment is generally adequate and thorough.
• Body supported by facts, examples, details. No more than one paragraph with inadequate support.
• Demonstrates some understanding of audience and purpose.

• Ideas generally organized in relation to one another and to the focus; organization readily apparent.
• No more than one paragraph unrelated to the focus.
• Adequate introduction and conclusion.
• Adequate transitions.

• Voice adequate to the audience/purpose though often generic or predictable.
• May be slight inconsistencies in tone/voice.
• Predictable word choice; low range of synonyms employed.
• Sentences mechanically sound but predictable; some variety of sentence structures.

• Complete sentences with some sentences demonstrating effective coordination and subordination.
• Diction/phrasing usually accurate.
• Few grammatical, punctuation, and mechanical errors (the errors do not frequently disrupt the flow or clarity of the paper.)

Level 3:   1.2-1.9

• Focus is vague, either too general, too narrow, superficial, or indirect.
• Body supported by few facts, examples, etc.
• More than one paragraph with inadequate support.
• Demonstrates poor understanding of audience/essay purpose.

• Unclear ordering of ideas; organization not readily apparent.
• More than one paragraph not clearly related to the focus.
• Underdeveloped or inappropriate introduction and conclusion.
• Transitions often lacking or inappropriate.

• Voice noticeably generic or inappropriate (eg. first person narrative may predominate in an analysis assignment)
• Inconsistent style/voice.
• Wording very predictable; few synonym alternatives used; diction at times inaccurate.
• Little sentence structure variety; most sentences written in basic and repetetive structures.

• Frequent sentence structure problems.
• Diction / phrasing often inaccurate.
• Frequent and varied grammatical, punctuation, and mechanical errors which interfere with the clarity.

Level 2:  .7-1.2

• Focus is vague , missing, superficial, or indirect.
• Body supported by few facts, examples, etc.; some may appear to be inaccurate, unsubstantiated, cursory, or unrelated to essay focus.
• Demonstrates little or no consideration of audience/purpose.

• Unclear or random ordering of ideas; organization not apparent.
• Underdeveloped or inappropriate introduction and conclusion.
• Transitions frequently lacking.

• Voice generally hard to characterize because of frequent mechanics problems.
• Phrasing problems, garbled sentence structure noticeable in several places.
• Overall lack of confidence/control of writing voice.

• Sentences often simplistic or incoherent.
• Frequent misuse of common words and phrases.
• Many major grammatical, punctuation, and mechanical errors.

Level 1:  0.0

• Focus is not evident or unrelated to assignment.
• Body largely unsupported by relevant facts, examples, details.
• Demonstrates no understanding of audience/purpose.

• Minimal organization; inappropriate or no paragraphing.
• Ineffective or missing introduction and conclusion.
• Minimal or no use of transitions.

• Voice/style not possible due to severe mechanics problems.

• Simplistic or incoherent sentences outweigh intelligible sentences.
• Diction frequently inaccurate or severely limited vocabulary.
• Mechanical errors predominate.