essay grading comment bank

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Jenna Copper

Teaching Secondary English Language Arts

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How to Create an Essay Comment Bank for Quick and Effective Feedback

A comment bank is a pre-written list of essay feedback comments that you can use to quickly leave feedback on student essays. The goal is to pre-create comments for points that you find yourself making repeatedly on student essays. In addition, if created strategically, the comment bank can be an independent student learning opportunity targeted to the goals for the writing assignment. In other words, your comment bank can direct students to independent learning on the topic of choice.

This process will  streamline the essay feedback process, so you can reduce, if not eliminate copy editing, thereby simplifying feedback. It will also provide accountability for students’ learning. Mimicking writing decisions in the real world (e.g., “Should I use affect or effect in this email to my boss?”), students will learn from outside sources and ultimately make their own editorial decisions. This learning opportunity is far more likely to bring about long-term writing improvement versus the simple click to accept revisions that you would make for them.

Still, there are some key considerations that can make or break this activity. First and foremost, you should absolutely go digital when you teach the writing process. Trust me, it’s really the best way for the comment bank to work as an efficient grading tool for you and an effective learning tool for students. Even as an AP English teacher, my students start the year writing completely digitally. It’s not until at least the second semester, after they’ve had revision and practice that we start doing timed, in-class handwritten essays. You may also want to read How to Plan A Successful Writing Unit by Focusing on Revision.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through how to get started with creating your own comment bank system to work for you and your students. Plus, at the end, I’ll share my comment bank that you can use in its entirety, or piece together to make your own.

Step 1: Keep it simple.

The first and important step is to keep it simple. For example, comment banks with 50+ comments, confusing numbering systems, or multiple-step tasks take longer to figure out than just leaving a new comment in the first place.

The solution is to keep it simple. I generally recommend no more than ten pre-written comments. Here’s why:

• Our short-term memory capacity is 7±2 items. Though you don’t have to memorize your comments, I argue when providing feedback, we’re asking our brains to do a lot: comprehend and evaluate at a minimum. Keeping your comment bank simple doesn’t mean you give feedback on other items, it just means you’ll be able to use the comment bank more effectively and efficiently. Plus, going back and forth between the essay and comments is distracting and adds an extra step. The goal is to keep the list simple enough that our limited STM storage capacity can help us out.
• To provide accountability and learning opportunities, each of your pre-written comments will include an independent mini-lesson, a short video, a podcast to listen to, or an article for reading. Some students will need to complete many of these tasks. Over ten can become very overwhelming to students.
• Choosing under ten will help students focus on specific learning goals that are geared to your assignment. These can change in whole or in part with each assignment to provide a new focus, if necessary. 
• I’m going to encourage you to reflect on your comment bank with each essay. Therefore, you’ll want to modify it based on the needs of your students. 

Step 2: Make a feedback list. 

Without extended thinking, you can probably list your students top ten writing issues or points of improvement. For example, I know right away that my students struggle with comma splice, awkward wording, commas and quotations, and punctuating titles. These are points that have come up over and over again for the past 12 years of my teaching career. So, I know before I even get started that I undoubtedly will have to comment on these items in my students’ essays. 

However, they don’t all need to be comments in my comment bank. For example, a quick and simple full-class mini-lesson would be more efficient and effective for teaching students how to punctuate titles. On the other hand, comma splice is a bit more challenging. I may need to do a mini-lesson and then reinforce this with a comment and independent mini-lesson on an individual basis for students who need further practice. 

If you can’t list your students’ most pressing writing points (let’s say you’re a new teacher or you moved to a new grade level), you can ask students to write a low-stakes journal entry as a writing sample. A quick read through should give you all you need to know. Don’t be overwhelmed if your students have many, many errors. Commas, in general, tend to be a major area that needs improvement. It can be helpful to focus on a few specific areas for this essay and then focus on a new set on the next essay.

Put it into practice:

Make a list of all of your students’ writing issues or areas of improvement. You might have a pretty big list, but that’s fine! In the next step, you’re going to refine your list.

Step 3: Refine your feedback list. 

Now that you have your list, the next step is to refine your list to identify the top ten. It can be very helpful to start with your objective for the assignment first, and then work backwards to create a comment bank that relates to your list.

For instance, my AP English Language and Composition class writes rhetorical analysis essays at the beginning of the year. The objective for this essay is to write an essay that analyzes how the writer or speaker’s rhetorical choices help the writer achieve his or her purpose. Therefore, based on this purpose, I’ll need a comment about integrating evidence from a source, one about citing direct quotations, one about using commas and quotations, and one about developing commentary to support evidence. Once I have these four, then I’ll add in a few more that I know students will need help with, like comma splice.

Choose your top ten now. Remember, it doesn’t have to be ten exactly.

Step 4: Write your feedback comments.

Once you have your comment topics, it’s time to write your comments. Rather than just throwing a rule at them, I like to explain the topic, ask a question, and provide a suggestion. Here’s an example:

Awkward wording: This sentence has confusing sentence structure or wording that makes it difficult to understand. Is there a simpler way to write it? Try reading this sentence out loud.

If it’s a grammatical consideration that will likely show up in the essay more than once, I will make a comment on the first one that I notice. Then, I’ll include a beautifully simple, yet important phrase that effectively will end your days of copy editing line by line. The phrase is “revise through.” Here’s an example: 

Comma splice: A comma splice is a grammatical error that happens when two independent clauses (or a group of words that could stand on their own as a complete sentence) are combined with just a comma. To correct this, add a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) after your comma. Another option is to replace the comma with a semicolon. Finally, you could just separate the sentences and add a period to the first example. Revise throughout your essay. 

Write your comments now. Remember, explain, ask, and/or suggest to guide your feedback.

Step 5: Add in independent mini-lessons for full-class feedback.

To really kick learning into high gear, you can add one final step to your comment: the independent mini-lesson. I suggest including a link to your mini-lesson right into the comment box. The less steps students have to take to learn, the more likely they’ll attempt it on their own and learn from it. 

You can keep it simple by providing more reading, or you can make it interactive with a lesson. Of course, you can create your own mini-lesson in a Google Doc, Google Slide, or the Microsoft equivalent, but we’re talking about saving time, so why reinvent the wheel? There are so many high-quality resources already created. Here are some suggestions for the comma splice comment example from above: 

• Grammar Girl’s 5-minute podcast episode on comma splices
• Grammarly’s blog post on comma splices 
• Khan Academy’s YouTube video on comma splices

It took me only a few minutes to find these three examples. You certainly can choose the one you think will resonate best with your students, or even better, you can provide all three and give students choice. 

I personally stop at this point. The accountability piece for students in my class is their revision notes, which I’ve written about extensively here. However, you could use EDpuzzle to create an interactive activity with the podcast or the video. 

Put it into practice: 

Add links to independent mini-lessons to each of your comments.  

Step 6: Put it into practice.

Here’s what it looks like when I put them together: 

Comma splice: A comma splice is a grammatical error that happens when two independent clauses (or a group of words that could stand on their own as a complete sentence) are combined with just a comma. To correct this, add a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) after your comma. Another option is to replace the comma with a semicolon. Finally, you could just separate the sentences and add a period to the first example. Revise throughout your essay. Check out these sources for more practice and further information:

Now that you’ve created your comments. You can upload them to the comment bank option Google Classroom or QuickMarks in TurnItIn, for example. When you’re ready to use them, a quick click is all you’ll need to add the comment. 

For a free copy of my latest comment bank, sign up below, and I’ll email them to you.

Bonus: Reflect and revise.

The final step is to reflect and revise. Are students still making the same errors? How can you provide further remediation? Perhaps, a full-class mini-lesson would do the trick. If students have improved in this area, maybe it’s time to move on to new comments or just simplify and eliminate ones you no longer need.

While this process takes a little bit of time to set up, it can save you hours worth of grading and provide richer, more dynamic feedback that will actually improve students’ writing.

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Writing comment bank , digital feedback , feedback , teaching writing , writing , writing unit , writing workshop

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Reader Interactions

January 11, 2022 at 12:36 pm

Excited to use your comment bank this semester! Thank you so much Jenna.

March 29, 2023 at 12:46 pm

Wonderful! Enjoy! 🙂

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Creating Comment Banks

What is a comment bank.

A comment bank is a collection of comments that may be included in a student's report. Each comment bank has at least one narrative or list comment, though may have more.

To start using The Comment Generator to easily create student reports, you will need a comment bank. You can search for one that someone has already created , but to provide the most relevant feedback to your students, we recommend creating your own.

Step 1: Creating the Comment Bank

Click on the "Comment Banks" link on the top navigation bar. Next, click the "New Comment Bank" button to get started. For this example, we are going to be creating a comment bank to give feedback on a persuasive essay.

Adding the Comment Bank Details

When you start a new comment bank, you will be presented with a form asking for some details about the comment bank. The only detail that is required is the comment bank title, but the other details may be helpful.

The different details are:

• Comment Bank Title: (required) This is what you will call your comment bank. For this example, let's call the comment bank "Persuasive Essay"
• Grade/Subject: This makes it easier to find and organize comment banks. As this bank is not specific, let's just put "English Language Arts"
• Description: Optionally describe the assignment or reporting period that this comment bank will be used for.
• Outcomes: For assignments, optionally add the specific outcomes this assignment is targeting.
• Allow sharing of comment bank: Turn this on if you want to be able to share your comment bank with other colleagues.
• Make comment bank publicly viewable: Turn this on to allow people to be able to find your comment banks. Note that not all comment banks marked as publicly viewable will be findable.

Once you're done, click the "Create New Comment Bank" button. Don't worry, you will always be able to modify these details later.

Step 2: Adding Comments to the Comment Bank

Once you create your comment bank, you will see the editing screen. Currently, there will be no comments in this comment bank, and therefore our comment bank will not be able to generate reports. Let's fix that by adding some comments!

The Two Types of Comments

The Comment Generator has two types of comments: narrative and list . Let's learn the difference between them:

Step 2A: Adding Narrative Comments

Let's start by adding a few narrative comments to our comment bank.

Narrative Comments to Establish Context

First, we are going to add a narrative comment to allow us to record what topic the student decided to write about. I'm going to give this comment the title of "Topic." I want this to be written in paragraph form, so I'm going to select "New Paragraph," but I don't want a heading before that Paragraph so I'm going to leave the heading blank.

Next, I am going to add a quick comment that I can type in the student's topic, like this:

The # that this comment starts with indicates that this comment should be included on reports by default. I use $student wherever I want the student's name to appear. Finally, the $text will give me a box to type the student's essay topic.

This comment will appear on The Comment Generator like this:

Narrative Comments to Indicate Achievement

Next, I want to add a second narrative comment to indicate the student's general level of achievement. I am going to title this comment "Achievement." I don't want a heading, so I'm going to leave it blank again. I also want this comment to continue the paragraph I already started, so I'm going to select "Continue Paragraph" for the format. Finally, I only want to be able to select one achievement level, so I'm going to indicate that users can only select one comment.

To make it easier for me to generate comments, I'm going to indicate levels for these comments. I'm going to start each comment with a <tag> indicating the level, such as <Excellent>. I'm going to write the following for my comments:

Learning More About Narrative Comments

You can learn more about narrative comments by reading this article .

Step 2B: Adding a List Comments

Next, let's add a list comment to our comment bank.

List Comments to Give Specific Feedback

After indicating the student's topic and level of achievement, I want to give them specific feedback. I can easily do this with a list comment. I've considered what I want to see from each student for their persuasive essay and come up with a feedback list. I'm going to indicate what each student's strengths and next steps are for their essay. I'll give this comment the title of "Feedback".

Next, I need to indicate the levels for my feedback, as well as list each item. I can do so like this:

This will create the following input on The Comment Generator:

Learning More About List Comments

You can learn more about list comments by reading this article .

Step 3: Using Your Comment Bank

We have finished adding the comments to our comment bank! Our comment banks will automatically save in between steps, so we are now able to use it.

Getting a Sample Report

To see if our formatting was done correctly, we can generate a sample report. At the top of the screen, click the "Sample Report" button to see it.

Editing Comment Banks

We can edit this comment bank easily. On the Comment Bank screen, clicking the three dots and selecting "Edit" will bring us back to the comment bank editor. To change the edits of the comment bank, click the "Edit" button at the top of the screen. We can edit and comments by clicking the "Edit" button on them. The "Reorder" button allows us the reorder the comments in our comment bank. Finally, we can easily copy and delete comments out of our comment bank by clicking on the appropriate button.

Sharing Comment Banks

If we made our comment bank sharable, we can easily share it with our colleagues. On the comment bank screen, click the three dots and select the "Share" option. A link will pop up. Anyone with this link can access our comment bank (but not edit it) and can make copies of it.

Generating Reports

Finally, we can get to work saving time on our reports! Clicking the Generate button at the top of the page will now allow us to use this comment bank. Learn more about generating reports.

Try This Comment Bank Out

Want to see what the reports generated from this comment look like? Try it out yourself. You can also make a copy of it for yourself. This copy is fully editable - use it as a starting place to make your comment bank!

University Center for Teaching and Learning

Speedgrader comment library, strategies for using the canvas speedgrader comment bank.

• Screencast Video

Comparable Features in Other Tools

Getting help.

Canvas is adding an often-requested feature with its June 2021 feature update, going live on  June 19 . The new feature is called SpeedGrader Comment Library. It allows you to save comments to a library and to reuse them easily and consistently across students when providing feedback with SpeedGrader.

Below, you will find a brief discussion from our Teaching Support staff on how you can use this feature to improve feedback you give to your students, as well as directions for how to use this feature.

Please visit the  Canvas release notes page  to see the details from the vendor

The Canvas SpeedGrader Comment Bank can be used to increase the efficiency of grading and offering feedback. Using comment banks can be a time saver, but student feedback still needs to be personalized. Below are some strategies for balancing creating a bank of frequently used feedback comments and offering individualized student feedback.

Build a comment bank.

As you grade students’ work, you should identify common strengths, areas for improvement, and explanations and reminders that you find yourself typing repeatedly. Create and save  general  comments based on trends. Examples of general comments might include explanations of common errors in student work and links to relevant resources or areas of your course shell.

When composing comments:

•  Carefully consider the language you use so that you can keyword search comments later.
• Also think about your tone, which should generally be direct and encouraging.
• Lastly, remember that good feedback is specific and improvement-focused . Comments should identify strengths and areas for improvement and give students suggestions for how they might improve.

Customize comments as needed.

Once you have a bank of saved comments, you can search and select them as you offer feedback on students’ work. In some cases, you may be able to use your saved comments exactly as you wrote them without revision, but at least some of your feedback should be specific to students’ individual performances.

You can offer personalized feedback by adding text to or revising comments you select from your comment bank. For example, you might elaborate on a general comment by pointing to a specific part of a student’s assignment. You can also use the SpeedGrader annotation tool to offer inline feedback on students’ work.

When determining how much personalized feedback to give and where to give it:

• Identify the purpose of the assessment. You may want to offer more personalized feedback on formative assessments (lower stakes assessments primarily designed to improve student learning) than summative assessments (higher stakes assessments primarily design to evaluate students’ academic performance).
• Identify what types of changes would have the greatest impact on the quality of the student’s work and customize those types of comments. For additional feedback best practices, see the Teaching Center’s Tips for Providing Effective Feedback .

Official documentation from Instructure is not yet available. This should get you started using comment library.

Adding Comments to the Library

Before you can quickly use comments, you will need to add them to your library. You cannot add an already-typed submission comment to the library. To manage your comment library:

• Go to SpeedGrader for any assignment in any course.
• Click on the comment library button above the submission comment box in the right pane of SpeedGrader. See the red box in the following screen shot.

• The comment library will open in place of the right panel of SpeedGrader.
• Type your comment to save in the “Add to Comment Library” text box at the bottom of the comment library panel.
• Click the “+ Add to Library button” (located immediately after the text box) to save the text to your comment library.
• Click the “left arrow” at the top left of the panel to close it once you are done saving comments to the library for now. (You can always add more later.)

Using and Managing your Comment Library

From the comment library panel, the following actions are available to you in addition to adding new comments:

• Click on a saved comment’s text to use it as your current submission comment. (You will need to click “Submit in SpeedGrader” to save it.)
• Click the “trash can” icon next to a saved comment to delete it. (There is a confirmation.)
• Click the “pencil” icon next to a saved comment to edit it. (Save or cancel after.)
• For example, you can save a comment with the word “email” in it (perhaps with the full text, “Please email me to schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss your progress.”) to your library and enable “show suggestions.” Then, while grading, you can type “email” in the comment box and wait a moment. Canvas will pop up the full saved comment. You can click on it to enter the entire text into the comment box and then submit to save it.

Limitations

• You can only use one saved comment from the library at a time. If you would like to use multiple saved comments, you can click on one from the library, then click Submit to save that comment (you may edit it first), and then repeat to apply multiple saved comments from the library.
• This feature only works in SpeedGrader submission comments. (It is not available in gradebook comments or in annotation comment boxes, though that has been requested as a future enhancement.) You could use the comment library for annotation comments, but cut them from the submission comment box and paste them into your annotation comments.
• Comments are saved per-instructor, and not per-course. You can easily reuse your comments between courses, but multiple graders in one course cannot share the same comment library. (In this case, you should coordinate, such as using an shared OneDrive/Office 365 Word document that each of you can copy and paste into your private library.)
• The comments are plain text only, without formatting and without “merge fields” (like inserting the student’s name). LaTeX comments should work if you need to give feedback with mathematical notation.
• In some situations, you may need to resize the panes in SpeedGrader to make the right pane bigger in conjunction with the comment library. (Click on the line separating the document view and the right pane and drag it to resize the windows. Your cursor should change when you are pointing at the line.)

Other tools available to you through the suite of instructional technology Pitt provides have similar features you might try if this one seems useful to you.

Turnitin, in addition to being the supported plagiarism detection tool, also has a very mature, deep version of this feature. You can use QuickMarks to create custom, reusable “pins” that you can drag and drop to a location in any document you can grade in Feedback Studio. Learn more about QuickMarks in the Turnitin documentation . Using this feature does require that you use the “full” version of Turnitin (external tool) and collect submissions, grade and give feedback there rather than in Canvas. The assignments and final grades do integrate with Canvas to make it a little easier. Since Turnitin lets you download, share, and upload these lists, this can be a useful tool to coordinate across multiple graders or courses.

Gradescope’s rubric feature can easily be adapted to give feedback to students. You can add any text (including LaTeX) to a rubric item and apply it to a document. A rubric item can have a 0-point value associated with it so it does not adjust the grade, and you can apply as many rubric items to a question as you need to. Gradescope also saves (on a per-question basis) overall (non-rubric) comments typed to students for easy re-use. Learn more about getting started with Gradescope in our documentation . Using this feature does require that you use Gradescope, including collecting submissions and doing your grading and feedback there rather than in Canvas. The assignments and grades do integrate with Canvas to make it a little easier. Since the rubric items and comments are allocated per assignment-question, this is a good solution for standardizing across multiple graders in one course. (Rubrics can easily be copied from assignment to assignment.)

Feel free to contact the Educational Software Consulting team for help using the feature, or ask for a consultation with Teaching Support staff to discuss how to use this or any other tool to help your students reach their learning objectives in your course. To get help within Canvas, you can also click the Help button at the bottom of the left hand global navigation menu to chat or call Canvas support directly.

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• 10 Tips for Grading Essays Quickly and Efficiently

We’ve all been there. No one likes marking. But as a professor, it’s part of the job description. One of the draft titles of this post was even “How to Grade Essays Without Wanting to Commit Murder.” While there are some great guides on teaching the mechanics of grading available, there isn’t much useful advice on how to make grading easier apart from either having fewer assignments or providing less feedback. In the real world, neither one of these is very useful. But there are strategies that every instructor or professor can follow to make grading essays quicker and more efficient. Here are some of mine.

1) Have Faith in Yourself

One of the biggest problems I’ve faced and continue to face as an instructor is Imposter Syndrome, or the belief that I’ve somehow fooled everyone around me into believing that I am a knowledgeable and competent person. Grading is one area where Imposter Syndrome likes to rear its ugly head. You will have finished reading a paper and then start to doubt that you’ve given it an appropriate grade. Or you worry that your students will get mad at you for giving them a bad grade. Or you’ll worry that this paper will result in a grade dispute, and then real professors will review and judge your work and find you wanting. Resist these thoughts. Remember that you have the expertise and good judgement to evaluate essays. Do not second-guess yourself. Assign a grade, make your comments, and move on. Have faith that you have done your best.

2) Don’t Repeat Yourself

It’s very common in research essays to see that same mistake made more than once. This is particularly the case when it comes to footnotes and bibliographies, which are often filled with tiny mistakes. Don’t spend all your time correcting these mistakes. Fix it once, and explain what you did. If you see it again, circle it and write something like “see previous comment on…” If it’s a systematic problem, I’d then make a note to mention this problem in the comments and say that you’ve only corrected a couple of instances to give them an idea of how to do it properly. This is not high school, and it is not your job to find every single mistake on an essay and correct it. Instead, identify the problem, and give your student an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned. The same goes for grammar and spelling. If it’s a serious issue, I always recommend that students go see the Writing Centre. It’s not your job to teach them how to write (unless it’s a composition class, in which case, good luck!)

3) Create a Comment Bank

You’ll notice that after a while, you will repeat the same sentences over and over again. To save yourself from having to either remember what you said last time or type or to write the same sentence over and over again, create a Word document with your most common comments. This is sometimes referred to as a Comment Bank or a Teaching Toolbox. I will do a whole blog post on this in the near future, but it’s easy to get started. If you save your comments on your computer, read through them and copy and paste the most common into a new Word document. For example, one that I use a lot is “While I can see that you are trying to make an argument here, you spend too much time describing or summarizing your sources rather than analysing them. In general, you should avoid description as much as possible.” The time and frustration you will save is immeasurable

4) Create a Bibliographic Bank

Odds are you will receive several papers on a given topic. Once you’ve been marking for a while, you’ll notice that you keep recommending the same books or articles. Again, to save you from having to remember which sources you want to recommend and/or typing out the full references, create a Word document with a list of topics and some of the most important sources listed for each. This way you only do the research once, rather than a million times. This is also helpful if you want to evaluate whether your students have selected appropriate sources or have missed important ones. Your comps list can be a great starting point.

5) Make a Grading Conversion Chart

In general, most assignments require three different “grades”: a letter grade, a percentage, and a numeric grade (like 7 out of 10). They each have their own purposes, but the odds are you will need to convert between them. Even when working at one institution for many years, it can be hard to do this conversion in your head. Spend several years as a sessional at multiple universities with their own ideas about what each letter grade means, and the problem grows exponentially. My solution is is to use an Excel spreadsheet of grades. This is relative easy to create. Mine look like this:

It’s really easy to do. Each “out of” number has three columns. The first is a numeric grade. The second is that grade converted to a percentage (it’s easier to do with a formula, and then just do “fill down.”) The third column is the corresponding letter grade. You can fill these in manually, or you can use a formula.

Here’s mine, but make sure yours corresponds to your institution’s grading scheme! =IF(K19>=95%,”A+”,IF(K19>90%,”A”,IF(K19>=85%,”A “, IF(K19>=80%,”B+”, IF(K19>=75%,”B”,IF(K19>70%,”B-“, IF(K19>65%,”C+”,IF(K19>60%,”C”,IF(K19>55%,”C”, IF(K19>50%,”P”,IF(K19>0%,”NC”,)))))))))))

6) Mark in Batches

I like to run, and when you’re really tired and facing a long run, thinking of the time remaining in intervals makes it much easier. The same is true for marking. A stack of 100 essays seems insurmountable. So what I do is break that stack down into manageable groups, usually 3 or 5 essays, which is about an hour to an hour and a half of grading, depending on the length of the essay. I sit down, grade those essays, type the comments up, put the grades into my grading sheet, and then take a break of at least 45 minutes. This is part of the SMART goal system (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound). It really does help make the grading feel achievable while also ensuring that you are giving your mind a break every one in a while. Once you’ve finished your batch, either set them aside in a different location or put a tick or some kind of mark on them so you can easily tell that they are all finished.

7) When in Doubt, Roll Up

Many essays seem to fall in a valley between one grade and the next, like when you’re not sure if it’s a B- or a B. In these cases, I almost always roll up. This was advice that I got when I was a TA, and it stuck with me. Try to give your students the benefit of the doubt. Remember that university is hard. Many students take multiple classes and/or work while in school. If you are dealing with a paper on the borderline between one grade and the next, or your paper is within 1 to 2% of rolling to the next letter grade, then just bump the grade. It’s always better to err on the side of generosity. And giving someone a 69.5% instead of a 70% is just a bit of a dick move.

8) Don’t Waste Your Time

There will be essays that are so bad that they defy all explanation. Either there are no footnotes or bibliography, the essay is 3 pages when it was supposed to be 8, or the student just completely ignored your instructions. In other words, it’s obvious that the student just doesn’t care. Don’t waste your time commenting on these papers. If your student can’t be bothered to read the instructions, then you have no obligation to spend your precious time marking the paper. I usually place a comment to the effect of: “I would strongly recommend that you review the requirements for this assignment, which can be found on the Research Assignment Instructions sheet.” I find that this is firm, but fair. Save your energy for the students who really put effort into their papers, even when they don’t succeed.

9) If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Say Something Nice Anyways

Students are humans (though it’s easy to forget this sometimes…), and respond best to positive reinforcement. So try to find something good to say about the essay. Some suggestions, courtesy of my good friend Clare include: “Nice margins!” “Excellent choice of font!” On a more serious note, I usually go with something like “This is a great effort!” or “I can see that you are trying here!” I always use the positive-negative-positive sandwich. Put a positive comment, then a negative comment, and then another positive comment. This tends to motivate students to do better rather than just feel defeated. Remember, your job is to encourage students to learn, so make them feel like you are invested in their success.

Expert Tip: One variation on the positive-negative-positive sandwich comes courtesy of my friend Teva Vidal: “The “shit sandwich” is for kids who deserve detailed feedback but who just missed the mark: start off with the main strengths of what they wrote, then lay it on thick with what they screwed up, then end on a positive note in terms of how they can use what they’ve already got going for them to make it better in the future.

10) Try to find some joy in the work

You know how “Time flies when you’re having fun”? Well, this approach can help with marking. Try to have a sense of humour about the whole thing. There will be times when you become angry or frustrated because it seems like students are ignoring your instructions and therefore losing marks unnecessarily. Laughing this off will help. Some professors like to collect so-called “dumb” sentences and post them online. There are a number of ethical problems with that that I will not get into here. But I can and have shared them with my husband when I’m grading in the room with him. We can laugh together and I blow off steam (Saving your marriage through marking! I can see my husband laughing right now). I also like to mark with a bright pink pen, since it’s hard to get mad when you’re writing in pink ink.

—————————————-

So those are my suggestions for making the grading of essays a little more pleasant. I think the most important takeaway is that it’s worth spending the time to create tools. For many years, I would waste time researching lists of sources, writing out the same comments, and using a calculator. But my time, and yours, is precious, so work smart, not hard (this is becoming something of a motto…). Any other tips for grading essays quickly and efficiently? Let me know in the comments below!

So You Want to be a Sessional

essays expert tip grading Sessional work smart not hard

November 18, 2017 at 7:59 am

Many thanks for this! Found it really useful while I’m grading my mid-terms 🙂 The comment about imposter syndrome resonated with me – I’m always second guessing if I should grade higher or lower, or leave it. Most times, I re-read the essay and see that my grading was actually fair first time around.

November 18, 2017 at 5:00 pm

Same here! I still struggle with this, and I’ve been teaching for nearly ten years! Glad I could help!

October 16, 2019 at 3:32 pm

Im a new tertiary level lecturer and I am finding marking the most insightful way to udnerstand how students think. Some of the papers I have marked recently have been indescribable, incomprehnsible and just mere reflections of what I am defining as ‘laziness’. To justify this definition I thought long and hard and finally realised that if it took me truck loads of hours to get it right on essay writing, and to Masters level thats a lot of assignments.  So when I really feel confused I reflect back on my own learning experiences and use that as a secondary standard with the marking rubric the primary standard…I refuse to compromise my standards of learning just to enable a lazy student to maintain theirs.

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Commenting on and Grading Student Writing

To learn more about how to maximize the feedback you give your students without putting an undue burden on your time, click on items in the list below.

• Focusing your commenting energies

Handling grammar

• Using a grading sheet
• Citation Information

Focus your Commenting Energy

No matter how much you want to improve student writing, remember that students can only take in so much information about a paper at one time. Particularly because writing is such an egocentric activity, writers tend to feel overloaded quickly by excessively detailed feedback about their writing.

Moreover, because most writing can be considered work in progress (because students will continue to think about the content and presentation of their papers even if they don't actively revise), commenting exhaustively on every feature of a draft is counter-productive. Too many comments can make student writers feel as if the teacher is taking control of the paper and cutting off productive avenues for revision.

Focusing your energy when commenting achieves two main goals:

• It leaves students in control of their writing so that they can consider revising--or at least learning from the experience of having written the paper.
• It gives teachers a sense of tackling the most important elements of a paper rather than getting bogged down in detail that might just get ignored by the student.

Typically, we recommend that teachers comment discursively on the one or two most important features of a paper, determined either by your criteria for the assignment or by the seriousness of the effect on a reader of a given paper.

If you assign write-to-learn tasks, you won't want to mark any grammatical flaws because the writing is designed to be impromptu and informal. If you assign more polished pieces, especially those that adhere to disciplinary conventions, then we suggest putting the burden of proofreading squarely where it belongs--on the writer.

You don't need to be an expert in grammar to assign and respond effectively to writing assignments. Click on the list below to read some points to consider as you design your assignments and grading criteria:

Don't Edit Writing to Learn

Editing write-to-learn (WTL) responses is counterproductive. This kind of writing must be informal for students to reap the benefits of thinking through ideas and questioning what they understand and what confuses them. Moreover, most WTL activities are impromptu. By asking students to summarize a key point in the three minutes at the end of class, you get students to focus on ideas. They don't need to edit for spelling and sentence punctuation, and if you mark those errors on their WTL writing, students shift their focus from ideas to form. In other words, marking errors on WTL pieces distracts students from the main goal--learning.

Make Students Responsible for Polishing Their Drafts

Formal drafts do need to be edited, but not necessarily by the teacher. The most efficient way to make sure students edit for as many grammatical and stylistic flaws as they can find is to base a large portion of the grade on how easy the paper is to read. If you get a badly edited piece, you can just hand it back and tell the student you'll grade it when the errors are gone. Or you can take 20-30% off the content grade. Students get the message very quickly and turn in remarkably clean writing.

If a student continues to have problems editing a paper, you can suggest visiting the Writing Center to get some one-on-one help with a writing consultant.

Think of Yourself First as a Reader

Some teachers think that basing 20-30% of the grade on grammatical and stylistic matters is unfair unless they mark all the flaws. We approach this issue from the perspective of readers. If you review a textbook and find editing mistakes, you don't label each one and send the text back to the publisher. No, you just stop reading and don't adopt the textbook. Readers who are not teachers just don't keep reading is a text that is too confusing or if errors are too distracting. Readers who are teachers are perfectly justified in simply noting with an X in the margin where a sentence gets too confusing or where mistaken punctuation leads the reader astray. Students are resourceful (they can get help from an on-campus writing center office or a writing center website) and will figure out the problem once a reader points out where the text stumbles. That's really all it takes.

Use Peer Editing

Perhaps the most helpful tool in getting clean, readable papers from students is the peer editing session. Most students are better editors of someone else's paper than proofreaders of their own, so having students exchange papers and look for flaws helps them find many more glitches than they'll find on their own.

View More about Student Peer Review

Try a Time-Saving Shortcut

If you feel compelled to mark grammatical and stylistic flaws, work out a shorthand for yourself and give students a handout explaining your marks. Most teachers can get by with one symbol for a sentence that gets derailed or confused, another for faulty punctuation of all sorts, and a third for inaccurate words (spelling or meaning). Save your time and energy for commenting on substance rather than form.

Sample Policies on Grading Grammar versus Content

Outdoor Resources 1XX (excerpts)

(Although we don't recommend assigning points for errors (because then you have to mark and count them all), this teacher was clear about expectations.)

Your paper should contain from 1,500 to 2,000 words, or about five to seven pages. The paper must be typewritten, double spaced, and bound. Neatness is essential.

A Check List of Points to Consider:

I. Mechanics

Neatness. Is your report clean, neatly organized, with a look of professional pride about it?

Spelling. Two points will be deducted for each misspelled word.

Grammar and punctuation. Five points will be deducted for each sentence which uses improper grammar or punctuation.

Outline. Did you follow the course outline?

Form. Is your paper in the proper form?

Bibliography. Are the references properly cited?

Binding. Use a cover binding with a secure clasp.

II. Content . . . .

Use a grading sheet

Grading comment sheets or checksheets give teachers and students two advantages over free-form grading:

• Grading sheets of some sort assure that teachers will give students feedback about all the major criteria they set out on the assignment sheet. Even if you decide to use a simple checksheet that ranks students' performance on each criterion on a 1-10 scale, students will be able to see quickly where their strengths and weaknesses are as writers for this assignment.
• Grading sheets, particularly checksheets, typically save teachers time. Even composition teachers don't comment exhaustively about each criterion for each assignment; so, too, disciplinary teachers should be aware that they can comment at some length on just one or two points (typically the major strength and the major weakness) and then rely on the checksheet to fill in for less crucial areas of the paper. If students are concerned about getting more feedback than the checksheet provides, you can encourage them to come to your office hours or send you an e-mail query.

Resource: Sample Grading Sheets

Four sample grading sheets are provided:

• Introductory Composition
• Science Project

Sample Grading Sheet

Composition 1xx Grading Sheet

Grade for essay: ___________

Revision Instructions:

Sample Report Evaluation

Name: _________________

Subject: _________________

__ total points

DETAILED REPORT EVALUATION

Title page:

Table of contents:

Bibliography:

Information page:

Oral presentation:

Sample Evaluation of Written Report

Evaluation of Written Report

Sample Science Project Checksheet

Science Project checksheet

GENERAL 50 POINTS

1. Correct form (15)

Reference list (3)

Citation of sources(2)

Mechanics (order, table of contents, list of tables, list of figures, cover) (5)

2. Composition skills (10)

Spelling (5)

Grammar (5)

3. Log book used to record experimental data, ideas, etc. (10)

4. Abstract (10)

5. Acknowledgments (5)

TOTAL GENERAL: _________

EXHIBIT 50 EXTRA CREDIT POINTS

1. Summarized project well (30)

Problem and hypothesis easy to understand (5)

Experimental method clearly stated (10)

Results summarized in graphs/tables (10)

Conclusion presented (5)

2. Eye appeal (10)

Neat lettering (3)

Pleasing placement of parts (2)

Good use of color (3)

Sturdiness (2)

3. Creativity (10)

TOTAL EXHIBIT POINTS: _______

TOTAL PROJECT: ______

Resource: Sample grading criteria

General Grading Criteria: Composition 1xx

Kate Kiefer, Donna LeCourt, Stephen Reid, & Jean Wyrick. (2018). Commenting on Student Writing. The WAC Clearinghouse. Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/teaching/guides/commenting/. Originally developed for Writing@CSU (https://writing.colostate.edu).

Pennington Publishing Blog

• Grammar/Mechanics
• Literacy Centers
• Spelling/Vocabulary
• Study Skills
• Uncategorized

Google Classroom Comment Bank and e-Comments

For years, teachers have been looking for ways to streamline the grading and annotation of student essays, stories, and reports. And now, add slide presentations, photographs, videos, and more! Teachers want to assign more of this work, but more student work means more grading time. Teachers also want to provide quality writing feedback to help students improve their work, but again this takes time.

Options: Keep reading! or Watch the video .

Enter Google. Google’s investment in education has been a gradual and sometimes frustrating evolution. The comments feature added into Google docs and slides in 2014 was a prime reason why teachers started using Google docs and Google Drive for student writing submissions. And now, with the 2018 update of Google Classroom and the additions of a comment bank and the beta version of a rubric creator, teachers finally have the beginnings of tools that will both improve the efficiency of their workflow and improve writing feedback to students.

With these steps, Google has put other learning management systems on notice that the company is in education for the long haul. As of this writing, the number of Google Classroom users (both teachers and students) has passed 40,000,000. Much like what Jobs and Wozniak accomplished with their free Apple IIe computer to every school in California in 1982, Google’s free Google Suite for Educators, including Google Classroom, has largely cornered the educational market. The bottom line for teachers? Don’t fight; give in to Google.

However, the problem for teachers is that Google is a tech (and advertising) company, and its product leads and developers are techies, not teachers. Google does listen to what teachers say, and much of the improvement in Google Classroom has been credited to teacher suggestions. Hence, revisions tend to be piecemeal, not comprehensive. What Google has done is to permit Chrome extensions, which integrate seamlessly with Google Classroom.

e-Comments Menu

Enter e-Comments.  Teachers can significantly improve the efficiency and quality of the Google Classroom comment bank by adding the e-Comments Chrome Extension . Which features make e-Comments significantly better than the Google Comment Bank?

• While the Google Comment Bank (GCB) has no canned comments (teachers have to type in their own), e-Comments (e-C) has hundreds of customizable comments from which to choose at four grade levels: Grades 3–6, 6–9, 9–12, and College/Workplace.  Why re-invent the wheel?
• The GCB permits minimal formatting for adding comments, while e-C provides full formatting for any comments you choose to add and save. Plus, e-C allows teachers to insert speech-to-text, audio, and video comments or record the screen and save to separate folders to keep your Google Drive uncluttered. Your comments should  stand out  if you want students to read them.
• The GCB comments are stored in the order in which you added them and so are in random order, but the e-C comments are neatly organized into 11 categories , making the comments much easier to choose. Writing comment categories just make sense.
• To access the GCB comments, teachers have to scroll up and down the GCB or enter a hashtag # followed by a key word to bring up the desired comment. Once a teacher adds in more than a dozen comments, it often takes several tries or additional key words to find the desired comment.  Frustrating and time-consuming! To access e-C, teachers simply click the comment button once on the movable and editable e-Comments Menu. Unlike GCB, teachers can see all of their comment choices before inserting a comment with just one click . It’s easy to add and save your own comments to the menu, edit the canned comments, create or re-name writing comment categories, hide or rearrange the categories. You can also copy and paste or drag and drop comments into any webpage which accepts text!
• The GCB provides only one comment bank. Clearly, all your comments for a story are not applicable for an essay or a multi-media project. Plus, many teachers would like to have different comments for different students, classes, and assignments. With e-C, teachers can easily switch among the comment levels to differentiate their annotations. Add a remedial comment for X, but an advanced comment for Y. Teachers can add and save their own comment banks with e-C for different classes and assignments.  GCB provides a one size fits all approach; e-C permits far more flexible options to meet the needs of students and their teachers.
• Clearly, once teachers insert all their comments into the GCB, they will save time compared to red-inking a stack of papers. As detailed above and in side-by-side timings, e-C will save significantly more time than using the GCB while providing students comments that identify, explain, and show how to revise. If all you want to do is error mark, GCB will do nicely; if you want your students to learn from your comments, e-C is for you. Plus, e-C provides the Common Core-aligned comments that you will want to copy and paste into your Google Classroom rubrics and Grading Tool comments .  Add your free 10-day trial of the e-Comments Chrome Extension today! You can both save time and provide better writing feedback with Google Classroom.

Grammar/Mechanics annotations , e-comments , Google Assignments , Google Classroom , Google Classroom tips , Google Comment Bank , Google Suite for Education , writing comments , writing feedback

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eMarking Assistant

Helping teachers assess, grade, & provide feedback on student assignments using microsoft word, academic writing comment bank for improving academic writing.

eMarking Assistant toolbar can quickly provide feedback and improve academic writing skills

The following comment bank can be loaded into eMarking Assistant to help you provide feedback on academic writing and thus improve academic writing skills. When you have loaded it in to eMarking Assistant you can easily insert the comments when you are grading

• comment bank containing academic writing feedback based on the common problems in Academic Writing

This academic writing feedback comment bank will help you quickly provide feedback on academic writing.

The comment bank can be imported into eMarking Assistant which provides a convenient way of inserting these comments when providing feedback on academic writing. There is one row for each comment with the following columns:

• the comment name  which should be less than 31 characters made up of a category, then a “-“, and then the specific comment e.g. pagenumbering-position
• the body of the comment which could include anything you can insert into a Word document e.g. formatted text, links, lists of points, images, tables, sounds etc.

A free 30 day trial and video demonstrations of eMarking Assistant is available from http://eMarkingAssistant.com .

Comments you can use when grading academic and providing academic writing feedback which is an effective way to improve academic writing skills

One thought on “ academic writing comment bank for improving academic writing ”.

These are really great tips for academic writing services.

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Mark A. McCutcheon

Grading comments for essays on literature.

• composition
• centre for language and literature

The Essay as a Whole

The thesis comes out clearly

The thesis needs to be more clearly stated

Superior argument: extraordinary synthesis of analytic ideas & command of course material

Very good argument, showing good comprehension and engagement with course material

The thesis needs to be strengthened

The thesis needs to be more closely related to its supporting points and/or textual evidence

The essay does not address its chosen topic, but deals partially or entirely with another concern

2. Organization and coherence

The organization of the essay is clear

The essay needs to be more clearly organized

The essay is organized more according to the plot of the text(s) it discusses than according to the analytic points that would best support the thesis

The essay makes some viable points, but the points are presented randomly at times; the essay needs more structure for its argument

3. Paragraphs

Each paragraph is unified around a clear main point

Some paragraphs include details or discussion unrelated to their main points

Paragraphing needs work (as a rule of thumb, think of PIE: each paragraph in a critical essay needs a Point, an Illustration, and an Explanation).

4. Transitions

The transitions work well between paragraphs

Edit for more effective transitions between paragraphs

5. Supporting arguments

Thesis is well supported by argument and analysis

Supporting arguments need further evidence from the text(s)

Supporting points are too general and need to become more concrete

Supporting arguments need more elaboration and/or evidence to better defend their claims

Supporting discussion give more plot summary than is necessary, crowding out the substance of the argument

Supporting discussion is almost completely plot summary

Supporting analysis needs to consider textual details and literary composition more fully. That is, the arguments that comprise an essay in literary criticism should talk about the writing in the text -- not so much what a text says, but how it says it. (For more on this point, see Prof. Jack Lynch's explanation of close reading .)

Supporting discussions contain many details that need connection to analytic points

[For comparative essays]

The grounds of comparison between texts are clear

The grounds of comparison between texts need to be clearer

The essay discusses too many texts for an assignment of its scope and word count (essays of comparison and contrast should stick to two or at most three texts)

6. Introduction

The introduction fits the body of the essay

The essay needs a clearer introduction

The essay’s introduction could open with finer focus on the text(s) under discussion

7. Conclusion

The conclusion is effective

The conclusion repeats the introduction without varying wording enough

The conclusion could better close the argument with an “open question” for your reader

Sentence by Sentence

  1. Wordiness :

Sentences are clear and well worded

Edit sentences for excess wordiness

2. Credibility :

The thesis demonstrates unusually excellent independent thinking

The thesis is credible and makes a reasonable claim

The thesis is implausible /

The thesis makes an implausible supporting argument; see

The essay misreads some textual evidence; see

The essay contains factual errors; see

The essay makes hasty, sweeping, or otherwise insupportable generalizations; see

The essay suggests a need for closer engagement with (and greater comprehension of) course material

3. Grammar :

Edit for run-on sentences (statements needing more than one sentence)

Edit for sentence fragments (statements less than a full sentence)?

Edit for subject-verb disagreements

Edit for subject-modifier disagreements

Edit to correct parallel constructions in sentences

Edit to place modifiers as close as possible to the words they modify

4. Punctuation :

Edit for recurring punctuation errors in comma use

Edit for recurring punctuation errors in semicolon use

Edit for recurring punctuation errors in colon use

Edit for recurring punctuation errors in quotation-mark use

5. Spelling :

The essay needs closer proofreading

Edit for recurring spelling errors, e.g.:

6. Handling and accuracy of quotations :

Quotations are punctuated correctly

Edit to punctuate quotations correctly; please refer to MLA citation format: http://www2.athabascau.ca/services/write-site/mla-documentation-guide.php

 Quotations are integrated effectively into the prose

Edit to integrate quotations more effectively and less awkwardly into the prose

Check accuracy of quotations

Edit quotations to conform to MLA citation format: http://www2.athabascau.ca/services/write-site/mla-documentation-guide.php

The essay quotes extensively but needs more supporting commentary. Try to quote more selectively and discuss specifically what you want your reader to see in a quotation

The arguments would be stronger with more quotation of textual evidence and/or examples

The essay is well substantiated with judicious examples and/or textual evidence

The essay makes strong connections between examples/evidence and analytic ideas

The essay makes good use of examples and/or textual evidence

7. Word choice :

Some awkward wording

Some unclear choice of words

Some wording is unnecessarily complicated

Good use of critical terms for literary study

Unclear use of critical terms for literary study

Essay could benefit from use of critical terms for literary study, e.g.

8. Sentence style :

Essay is persuasively written and eloquent

Sentence structures are varied in length and structure

Sentence structures are repetitive; edit to vary wording

Edit long / complicated sentences for concision and clarity

The essay has a distracting number of writing errors: e.g. spelling, grammar, punctuation. P lease contact the AU Write Site for coaching and feedback on academic writing: http://www2.athabascau.ca/services/write-site/index.php

Adapted from:

Rooke, Constance. The Clear Path: A Guide to Writing English Essays . 2nd ed. Toronto: Nelson, 2000.

Shepard, Alan. English 3120: Shakespearean Receptions . Undergraduate lecture syllabus, School of English and Theatre Studies, U of Guelph, 2003.

See also the English 255 Marking Scheme , which outlines grading criteria with which the above comments are consistent, but is more generally applicable to writing across the curriculum.

Short link for this page:  http://is.gd/VBrmY2

• Mark A. McCutcheon @mccutcheon

probably not, as it happens. just one of the first things i made in the landing. now public.

• Donna Clare @dclare

Thanks Mark.

this is a great resource for those instructors who are just starting out.

Can I share it?

Donna Clare

Academic Coordinator

FHD - NP program

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