Self-Assessment Worksheet for Written Assignments All assessments in the university are marked against criteria. This exercise aims to help you understand the general criteria that are found throughout the Faculty of Arts which your lecturers use to mark your work. To help you understand what each of the criteria means try answering the questions about your own assignment and click on the links which provide extra support. As well as the help provided here there are Faculty of Arts Writing Workshops available to all and designed to give subject specific help in a seminar environment with opportunities for one-to-one support.
1. Research Skills
a. Range of reference to primary and secondary material What sources did you use to get the information needed for your essay?
How did you find these sources?
How did you decide what to read?
b. Depth of engagement with primary and secondary material How did you demonstrate you understood the texts you used?
Did you make connections between the secondary texts you referred to?
Describe how you spent your research time. (e.g. how much time was spent looking for books, how much time reading and taking notes, how much time working out connections between the texts, how much time was spent working out your own thoughts about the primary texts) c. Initiative and independence in searching out and using relevant materials and resources Did you use any texts which were not on the reading list? If so how did you find out about these?
Did you look for journal articles in the library using relevant databases?
What have you learnt from the way you did research for this essay? And what would you do differently next time?
2. Intellectual Skills
a. Critical Ability What was the assignment question asking for?
Did you look consider all the possible complexities of the question? State below what some of the complexities were.
How did you demonstrate your critical engagement with the question? b. Conceptual Skills Did you define the key conceptual terms? If so, state how below.
Did you develop a working understanding of these concepts?
What did you use to help you define these terms?
c. Originality/creativity/freshness of ideas Which ideas did you find most useful from secondary reading?
How did you develop these ideas and demonstrate your own independent thinking? State below one or more ideas in your essay which you feel were original/creative/fresh.
Do you feel you have developed your own critical voice?
d. Ability to initiate and conduct an argument What was the main argument of your essay?
How did you build up your argument – list the main components below (you may find it helpful to give an imaginary title to each paragraph)
How did you go about constructing this argument? (did you do many drafts of the essay etc…again think in terms of how you decided what information/part of the argument would fit into each paragraph)
How many drafts did you do of the essay? e. Ability to select and organise material relevant to the question Are you happy you have used resources most relevant to the question?
How did you decide what material to use?
Did you make it clear why the material was relevant?
If you used quotations from secondary and primary material give an example from your work of an effective way to engage with a quotation from primary material and one from secondary material.
f. Ability to synthesize material of different kinds How did you connect your ideas? (give examples below)
How should an introduction and conclusion work? – try to sum up what role they played in your essay below.
3. Technical Skills
a. Grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation Did you proofread your work thoroughly before handing it in? If so describe below exactly what you did? (e.g. did you print it off and annotate, did you use Word’s spell and grammar check facilities, have you made a list of mistakes you usually make to check these specifically)
b. Appropriate range of vocabulary Are you happy you used a good range of vocabulary in this essay?
Did you come across any words in your reading you were not familiar with? If so note down with the meaning below Did you use any new words in your essay?
c. Accuracy and clarity of presentation Did you use the correct referencing system for your subject as stated in the school or departmental handbook guidelines for whom the assignment is being prepared?
Are you happy you know how to use it?
How did you keep track of the full references for your footnotes and the bibliography? – have you made a note of any texts you came across which you might want to use for another essay?
Did you follow the departmental guidelines about final presentation issues such as pagination, spacing and cover sheet? d. Appropriate range and control of style Are you writing in an academic way?
Have you proofread your work, thinking about your writing style and expression as well as the structure of the argument?
4. Reflecting upon and improving your work
a. Dealing with Feedback Did you do as well as you expected?
Do you understand why you received the mark you did?
What questions would you like to ask your tutor?
Are you going to take the opportunity to talk through your essay with your tutor?
What main issues from this essay can you work on for the next time?