An A-B paper will:

  • clearly and concisely summarize the argument (elucidating its main claim, reasons, organizational pattern, and other relevant parts)

  • clearly state the article's medium and genre

  • analyze the ethical, logical, and emotional appeals used in the argument

  • use clear explanation to show how the rhetorical appeals operate

  • carefully characterize the style of the essay (syntax and diction)

  • be developed with specific evidence and amass considerable details from the essay

  • follow an effective organizational pattern which is appropriate for the audience and has a logical progression

  • include paragraphs which are coherent, unified, and effectively developed 

  • contain a variety of skillfully constructed sentences

  • promote clarity and effectiveness with standard usage, mechanics, and spelling; and a precise and ample vocabulary

 A C paper will:

  • summarize the argument, but leave out a few parts (elucidating its main claim, reasons, organizational pattern, and other relevant parts)

  • state the article's medium and genre, but incompletely

  • analyze the ethical, logical, and emotional appeals used in the argument, but omit one or two important appeals

  • use explanation to show how the rhetorical appeals operate, but have limited explanation

  • characterize the style of the essay but in a limited way (syntax and diction)

  • be developed with with some specific evidence, but exclude some central pieces

  • follow an organizational pattern which is appropriate for the audience and has a somewhat logical progression

  • include paragraphs which are sometimes incoherent

  • contain sentences which are not always grammatically incorrect

  • might contain a couple of major errors

  • contain sentences with inconsistent use of standard usage, mechanics, spelling

 A D-F paper will

  • fail to summarize the argument clearly and concisely  (elucidating its main claim, reasons, organizational pattern, and other relevant parts)

  • not state the article's medium and genre

  • provide an incomplete  analysis of the ethical, logical, and emotional appeals used in the argument

  • provide a shallow explanation of how the rhetorical appeals operate

  • mis-characterize the style of the essay (syntax and diction)

  • use little or no specific evidence to support the analysis

  • follow a confusing organizational pattern

  • include many paragraphs which are incoherent

  • contain sentences which are often grammatically incorrect

  • contain many major errors

  • contain sentences with very inconsistent use of standard usage, mechanics, spelling