essay rubrics in science

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Examples of Rubric Creation

Creating a rubric takes time and requires thought and experimentation. Here you can see the steps used to create two kinds of rubric: one for problems in a physics exam for a small, upper-division physics course, and another for an essay assignment in a large, lower-division sociology course.

Physics Problems

In STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), assignments tend to be analytical and problem-based. Holistic rubrics can be an efficient, consistent, and fair way to grade a problem set. An analytical rubric often gives a more clear picture of what a student should direct their future learning efforts on. Since holistic rubrics try to label overall understanding, they can lead to more regrade requests when compared to analytical rubric with more explicit criteria. When starting to grade a problem, it is important to think about the relevant conceptual ingredients in the solution. Then look at a sample of student work to get a feel for student mistakes. Decide what rubric you will use (e.g., holistic or analytic, and how many points). Apply the holistic rubric by marking comments and sorting the students’ assignments into stacks (e.g., five stacks if using a five-point scale). Finally, check the stacks for consistency and mark the scores. The following is a sample homework problem from a UC Berkeley Physics Department undergraduate course in mechanics.

Homework Problem

Learning objective.

Solve for position and speed along a projectile’s trajectory.

Desired Traits: Conceptual Elements Needed for the Solution

• Decompose motion into vertical and horizontal axes.
• Identify that the maximum height occurs when the vertical velocity is 0.
• Apply kinematics equation with g as the acceleration to solve for the time and height.
• Evaluate the numerical expression.

A note on analytic rubrics: If you decide you feel more comfortable grading with an analytic rubric, you can assign a point value to each concept. The drawback to this method is that it can sometimes unfairly penalize a student who has a good understanding of the problem but makes a lot of minor errors. Because the analytic method tends to have many more parts, the method can take quite a bit more time to apply. In the end, your analytic rubric should give results that agree with the common-sense assessment of how well the student understood the problem. This sense is well captured by the holistic method.

Holistic Rubric

A holistic rubric, closely based on a rubric by Bruce Birkett and Andrew Elby:

[a] This policy especially makes sense on exam problems, for which students are under time pressure and are more likely to make harmless algebraic mistakes. It would also be reasonable to have stricter standards for homework problems.

Analytic Rubric

The following is an analytic rubric that takes the desired traits of the solution and assigns point values to each of the components. Note that the relative point values should reflect the importance in the overall problem. For example, the steps of the problem solving should be worth more than the final numerical value of the solution. This rubric also provides clarity for where students are lacking in their current understanding of the problem.

Try to avoid penalizing multiple times for the same mistake by choosing your evaluation criteria to be related to distinct learning outcomes. In designing your rubric, you can decide how finely to evaluate each component. Having more possible point values on your rubric can give more detailed feedback on a student’s performance, though it typically takes more time for the grader to assess.

Of course, problems can, and often do, feature the use of multiple learning outcomes in tandem. When a mistake could be assigned to multiple criteria, it is advisable to check that the overall problem grade is reasonable with the student’s mastery of the problem. Not having to decide how particular mistakes should be deducted from the analytic rubric is one advantage of the holistic rubric. When designing problems, it can be very beneficial for students not to have problems with several subparts that rely on prior answers. These tend to disproportionately skew the grades of students who miss an ingredient early on. When possible, consider making independent problems for testing different learning outcomes.

Sociology Research Paper

An introductory-level, large-lecture course is a difficult setting for managing a student research assignment. With the assistance of an instructional support team that included a GSI teaching consultant and a UC Berkeley librarian [b] , sociology lecturer Mary Kelsey developed the following assignment:

This was a lengthy and complex assignment worth a substantial portion of the course grade. Since the class was very large, the instructor wanted to minimize the effort it would take her GSIs to grade the papers in a manner consistent with the assignment’s learning objectives. For these reasons Dr. Kelsey and the instructional team gave a lot of forethought to crafting a detailed grading rubric.

Desired Traits

• Use and interpretation of data
• Reflection on personal experiences
• Application of course readings and materials
• Organization, writing, and mechanics

For this assignment, the instructional team decided to grade each trait individually because there seemed to be too many independent variables to grade holistically. They could have used a five-point scale, a three-point scale, or a descriptive analytic scale. The choice depended on the complexity of the assignment and the kind of information they wanted to convey to students about their work.

Below are three of the analytic rubrics they considered for the Argument trait and a holistic rubric for all the traits together. Lastly you will find the entire analytic rubric, for all five desired traits, that was finally used for the assignment. Which would you choose, and why?

Five-Point Scale

Three-point scale, simplified three-point scale, numbers replaced with descriptive terms.

For some assignments, you may choose to use a holistic rubric, or one scale for the whole assignment. This type of rubric is particularly useful when the variables you want to assess just cannot be usefully separated. We chose not to use a holistic rubric for this assignment because we wanted to be able to grade each trait separately, but we’ve completed a holistic version here for comparative purposes.

Final Analytic Rubric

This is the rubric the instructor finally decided to use. It rates five major traits, each on a five-point scale. This allowed for fine but clear distinctions in evaluating the students’ final papers.

[b] These materials were developed during UC Berkeley’s 2005–2006 Mellon Library/Faculty Fellowship for Undergraduate Research program. M embers of the instructional team who worked with Lecturer Kelsey in developing the grading rubric included Susan H askell-Khan, a GSI Center teaching consultant and doctoral candidate in history, and Sarah McDaniel, a teaching librarian with the Doe/Moffitt Libraries.

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Science Rubrics

Exemplars science material includes standards-based rubrics that define what work meets a standard, and allows teachers (and students) to distinguish between different levels of performance.

Our science rubrics have four levels of performance: Novice , Apprentice , Practitioner (meets the standard), and Expert .

Exemplars uses two types of rubrics:

• Standards-Based Assessment Rubrics are used by teachers to assess student work in science. (Exemplars science material includes both a general science rubric as well as task-specific rubrics with each investigation.)
• Student Rubrics are used by learners in peer- and self-assessment.

Assessment Rubrics

Standards-based science rubric.

This rubric is based on science standards from the National Research Council and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

K–2 Science Continuum

This continuum was developed by an Exemplars workshop leader and task writer, Tracy Lavallee. It provides a framework for assessing the scientific thinking of young students.

Student Rubrics

Seed rubric.

This rubric is appropriate for use with younger children. It shows how a seed develops, from being planted to becoming a flowering plant. Each growth level represents a different level of performance.

What I Need to Do

While not exactly a rubric, this guide assists students in demonstrating what they have done to meet each criterion in the rubric. The student is asked in each criterion to describe what they need to do and the evidence of what they did.

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Short essay question rubric

Sample grading rubric an instructor can use to assess students’ work on short essay questions.

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Whenever we give feedback, it inevitably reflects our priorities and expectations about the assignment. In other words, we're using a rubric to choose which elements (e.g., right/wrong answer, work shown, thesis analysis, style, etc.) receive more or less feedback and what counts as a "good thesis" or a "less good thesis." When we evaluate student work, that is, we always have a rubric. The question is how consciously we’re applying it, whether we’re transparent with students about what it is, whether it’s aligned with what students are learning in our course, and whether we’re applying it consistently. The more we’re doing all of the following, the more consistent and equitable our feedback and grading will be:

Being conscious of your rubric ideally means having one written out, with explicit criteria and concrete features that describe more/less successful versions of each criterion. If you don't have a rubric written out, you can use this assignment prompt decoder for TFs & TAs to determine which elements and criteria should be the focus of your rubric.

Being transparent with students about your rubric means sharing it with them ahead of time and making sure they understand it. This assignment prompt decoder for students is designed to facilitate this discussion between students and instructors.

Aligning your rubric with your course means articulating the relationship between “this” assignment and the ones that scaffold up and build from it, which ideally involves giving students the chance to practice different elements of the assignment and get formative feedback before they’re asked to submit material that will be graded. For more ideas and advice on how this looks, see the " Formative Assignments " page at Gen Ed Writes.

Applying your rubric consistently means using a stable vocabulary when making your comments and keeping your feedback focused on the criteria in your rubric.

How to Build a Rubric

Rubrics and assignment prompts are two sides of a coin. If you’ve already created a prompt, you should have all of the information you need to make a rubric. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way, and that itself turns out to be an advantage of making rubrics: it’s a great way to test whether your prompt is in fact communicating to students everything they need to know about the assignment they’ll be doing.

So what do students need to know? In general, assignment prompts boil down to a small number of common elements :

• Evidence and Analysis
• Style and Conventions
• Specific Guidelines
• Advice on Process

If an assignment prompt is clearly addressing each of these elements, then students know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and when/how/for whom they’re doing it. From the standpoint of a rubric, we can see how these elements correspond to the criteria for feedback:

All of these criteria can be weighed and given feedback, and they’re all things that students can be taught and given opportunities to practice. That makes them good criteria for a rubric, and that in turn is why they belong in every assignment prompt.

Which leaves “purpose” and “advice on process.” These elements are, in a sense, the heart and engine of any assignment, but their role in a rubric will differ from assignment to assignment. Here are a couple of ways to think about each.

On the one hand, “purpose” is the rationale for how the other elements are working in an assignment, and so feedback on them adds up to feedback on the skills students are learning vis-a-vis the overall purpose. In that sense, separately grading whether students have achieved an assignment’s “purpose” can be tricky.

On the other hand, metacognitive components such as journals or cover letters or artist statements are a great way for students to tie work on their assignment to the broader (often future-oriented) reasons why they’ve been doing the assignment. Making this kind of component a small part of the overall grade, e.g., 5% and/or part of “specific guidelines,” can allow it to be a nudge toward a meaningful self-reflection for students on what they’ve been learning and how it might build toward other assignments or experiences.

Advice on process

As with “purpose,” “advice on process” often amounts to helping students break down an assignment into the elements they’ll get feedback on. In that sense, feedback on those steps is often more informal or aimed at giving students practice with skills or components that will be parts of the bigger assignment.

For those reasons, though, the kind of feedback we give students on smaller steps has its own (even if ungraded) rubric. For example, if a prompt asks students to  propose a research question as part of the bigger project, they might get feedback on whether it can be answered by evidence, or whether it has a feasible scope, or who the audience for its findings might be. All of those criteria, in turn, could—and ideally would—later be part of the rubric for the graded project itself. Or perhaps students are submitting earlier, smaller components of an assignment for separate grades; or are expected to submit separate components all together at the end as a portfolio, perhaps together with a cover letter or artist statement .

Using Rubrics Effectively

In the same way that rubrics can facilitate the design phase of assignment, they can also facilitate the teaching and feedback phases, including of course grading. Here are a few ways this can work in a course:

Discuss the rubric ahead of time with your teaching team. Getting on the same page about what students will be doing and how different parts of the assignment fit together is, in effect, laying out what needs to happen in class and in section, both in terms of what students need to learn and practice, and how the coming days or weeks should be sequenced.

Share the rubric with your students ahead of time. For the same reason it's ideal for course heads to discuss rubrics with their teaching team, it’s ideal for the teaching team to discuss the rubric with students. Not only does the rubric lay out the different skills students will learn during an assignment and which skills are more or less important for that assignment,  it means that the formative feedback they get along the way is more legible as getting practice on elements of the “bigger assignment.” To be sure, this can’t always happen. Rubrics aren’t always up and running at the beginning of an assignment, and sometimes they emerge more inductively during the feedback and grading process, as instructors take stock of what students have actually submitted. In both cases, later is better than never—there’s no need to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Circulating a rubric at the time you return student work can still be a valuable tool to help students see the relationship between the learning objectives and goals of the assignment and the feedback and grade they’ve received.

Discuss the rubric with your teaching team during the grading process. If your assignment has a rubric, it’s important to make sure that everyone who will be grading is able to use the rubric consistently. Most rubrics aren’t exhaustive—see the note above on rubrics that are “too specific”—and a great way to see how different graders are handling “real-life” scenarios for an assignment is to have the entire team grade a few samples (including examples that seem more representative of an “A” or a “B”) and compare everyone’s approaches. We suggest scheduling a grade-norming session for your teaching staff.

• Designing Your Course
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• Consistency and Equity in Grading
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• Assessing Non-Traditional Assignments
• Beyond “the Grade”: Alternative Approaches to Assessment
• Getting Feedback
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Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence

Nicole Messier, CATE Instructional Designer June 28th, 2022

WHAT? Heading link Copy link

Rubrics usually consist of a table, grid, or matrix.

Rubrics are criterion-referenced grading tools that describe qualitative differences in student performance for evaluating and scoring assessments. Criterion-referenced grading refers to students being evaluated based on their performance against a set of criteria. Whereas norm-referenced grading refers to students being assessed through the comparison of student performances.

Rubrics usually consist of a table, grid, or matrix that contain information on how students’ learning and performance will be measured. Rubrics can be designed for a specific assessment. For example, a rubric can be used to grade a written assignment in Week 1 of a course. Or rubrics can be designed for a general purpose, like the grading of all the discussion posts or journal entries in an entire course.

Elements of a Rubric Heading link Copy link

Elements of a rubric.

Most rubrics will contain the following elements:

• Grading criteria
• Performance levels
• Weight and scoring
• Description of grading criteria

These elements along with the number of rows or columns will vary based on the type of rubric you chose to design. Please see the Types of Rubrics section below for more information and examples of these elements in different types of rubrics.

Performance Levels Heading link Copy link

Grading criteria heading link copy link, grading criteria.

Grading criteria refer to what students will do (performance) and what instructors will measure and score. Grading criteria should have a direct alignment with the learning objectives. This alignment will improve the validity and reliability of the assessment (see the WHY section of this teaching guide for more information on improving validity and reliability). There are two main types of grading criteria: concrete and abstract grading criteria.

Concrete Grading Criteria

Concrete grading criteria are criteria that can be viewed and assessed with less interpretation and subjectivity. Examples include:

• Content knowledge or declarative knowledge (about a topic or learning objective)
• Procedural knowledge (knowledge about how to do a task or action)
• Conditional knowledge (knowledge about why or when to do an action)
• Art composition
• Argument with justification or defense
• Accuracy or correctness
• Information literacy (supporting ideas with research and creating new information from research)
• Writing mechanics (spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization)

For example, you might develop a rubric or checklist for weekly math assignments that includes grading criteria for procedural knowledge (showing work), conditional knowledge (explaining why they used a formula or operation), and accuracy (correctness of answer).

Abstract Grading Criteria 

Abstract grading criteria are grading criteria that are interpreted and are considered more subjective than concrete grading criteria. Examples include:

• Critical thinking
• Problem-solving skills
• Decision-making or reasoning skills
• Communication or expression of ideas
• Development of new ideas
• Organization or cohesion of writing

For example, you might develop a rubric for a piece of art that includes concrete grading criteria for procedural knowledge (demonstration of specific technique), composition of the piece, as well as abstract grading criteria for creativity and decision-making skills.

It is important to note that abstract grading criteria can be difficult for students to know what the expectations are and how to demonstrate those expectations. Abstract grading criteria can be described in a rubric to help students understand the expectations.

Performance Levels

Rubric performance levels are usually labeled with a column heading that can be a numeric point value, percentage, letter grade, or heading title. For example:

• 100% – A level of performance could use any of the following terms as a heading: Exemplary, outstanding, distinguished, exceptional, excellent, expert, etc.
• 80% – B level of performance could use any of the following terms as a heading: Proficient, above average, accomplished, etc.
• 70% – C level of performance could use any of the following terms as a heading: Satisfactory, competent, average, acceptable, etc.
• 60% – D level of performance could use any of the following terms as a heading: Developing, emerging, approaching, novice, etc.
• 50% – F level of performance could use any of the following terms as a heading: Beginning, rudimentary, needs revision, no evidence, etc.

The above terms can be used as headings for your rubric columns or as adjectives to describe grading criteria at that performance level. It is recommended to utilize the same column headings for all the rubrics developed for a specific course. For example, if you select “Outstanding” for an A level of performance column heading then you should utilize the same column heading for the A level of performance in all your rubrics.

Descriptions of Grading Criteria

Rubrics contain descriptions of grading criteria. These descriptions should be aligned to the learning objectives being assessed and will support students’ understanding of the assessment expectations. For example, you have the learning objective: Synthesize information and ideas from multiple texts and sources. You label the grading criteria as “Information Literacy” and you describe the grading criteria in an analytic rubric at five performance levels as follows:

• 100% – A level – Outstanding synthesis of information and ideas from multiple credible sources with exceptional cohesion of information presented.
• 80% – B level – Concise synthesis of information and ideas from multiple credible sources with cohesion of information presented.
• 70% – C level – Adequate synthesis of information and ideas from multiple credible courses.
• 60% – D level – Attempted synthesis of information and ideas and/or missing multiple or credible sources.
• 50% – F level – Submission did not demonstrate synthesis of information or ideas, missing multiple and/or credible sources, please revise and resubmit.

See the HOW section of this teaching guide to learn tips for writing criteria descriptions.

Types of Rubrics Heading link Copy link

Types of rubrics.

There are several types of rubrics to choose from based on what you want to measure, how much feedback you want to provide, and how you want to assess performance, including:

• Single-point rubric
• Analytic rubric
• Holistic rubric

Single-Point Rubric Heading link Copy link

Single-point rubric.

Single-point rubrics are used to measure learning based on one level of performance for the grading criteria and provide an opportunity for discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of students performance. The single-point rubric has only one column describing a passing level of performance and rows for each grading criterion.

The instructor grades each criterion as either “does not meet the criterion,” “meets the criterion,” or “exceeds the criterion.” And the instructor provides individualized feedback on any criterion that is graded as “does not meet the criterion” or “exceeds the criterion” for students to understand their scores.

Weight and Scoring of Single-Point Rubrics Heading link Copy link

Weight and scoring of single-point rubrics.

Single-point rubrics will have a total number of points or a percentage for the assessment. And each grading criteria in a single-point rubric will have a point or percentage value. Typically, the “meets the criterion” column will be awarded the total points or an A or B value. For example, the assessment is worth 25 points and contains three criteria.

The total points need to be distributed to each of the criteria (criterion I is worth 5 points, criterion II is worth 10 points, and criterion III is worth 10 points). Students who meet all three criteria will be awarded 25 points.

When should I use a single-point rubric?

• Small class sizes (under 25 students)
• Involves less time to develop
• Requires more time to grade and score because students need more personalized feedback to understand their performance and score
• Supports conversations about performance
• Can be used for formative and summative assessments
• Appropriate for on-campus or hybrid course modalities
• If using video or audio feedback, it can be adapted for online course modalities
• Best suited for a single user (one instructor)

Grading the Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich with a Single-Point Rubric Heading link Copy link

Grading the making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a single-point rubric, analytic rubric heading link copy link, analytic rubric.

Analytic rubrics are used to evaluate grading criteria separately to provide students with detailed feedback on their performance. The analytic rubric typically has three to five columns to describe performance levels and rows for each grading criterion to be described separately. The instructor grades each criterion at varying levels of performance, and students can read the description to understand their performance and scores.

Weight and Scoring of an Analytic Rubric

Analytic rubrics will have a total number of points or a percentage for the assessment. And each grading criteria will have a point or percentage value. For example, the assessment is worth 25 points and contains three criteria. The total points need to be distributed to each of the criteria (criterion I is worth 5 points, criterion II is worth 10 points, and criterion III is worth 10 points). Next, the grading criteria points are broken down further by performance level in an analytic rubric.

• Criterion I is worth 5 points – the highest level is worth 5 points (100%), the next level is worth 4 points (80%), and the last level is worth 3 points (60%).
• Criterion II is worth 10 points – the highest level is worth 10 points (100%), the next level is worth 8 points (80%), and the last level is worth 6 points (60%).
• Criterion III is worth 10 points – the highest level is worth 10 points, the next level is worth 8 points (80%), and the last level is worth 6 points (60%).

When should I use an analytic rubric?

• All class sizes
• Involves more time to develop
• Requires less time to grade and score (if the scorer is familiar with the rubric)
• Provides more descriptive feedback in a formative assessment to help students improve performance
• Appropriate for any course modality
• Should be used in online asynchronous course modalities to support student understanding of expectations
• Utilized by multiple instructors and/or TAs

Grading the Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich with An Analytic Rubric Heading link Copy link

Grading the making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an analytic rubric, holistic rubric heading link copy link, holistic rubric.

Holistic rubrics are used to evaluate overall competence or ability when grading criteria can’t be separated, or when you want a holistic view of student progress. The holistic rubric typically has around three to five columns to describe performance levels and one row for all the criteria to be described together. The instructor grades the entire assessment at one level of performance and provides the student with individualized feedback identifying what criteria caused their performance to be scored at that level.

Holistic Rubrics Heading link Copy link

Weight and scoring of a holistic rubric.

In a holistic rubric, the grading criteria are not broken down and the weighting occurs in the performance levels. For example, the assessment is worth 25 points and contains five levels of performance (the highest level is worth 25 points (100%), the next level is worth 20 points (80%), the third level is worth 15 points (60%), and the fourth level is worth 10 points (40%), and the last level is worth 9 or less points (0 to 39%).

When should I use a holistic rubric?

• Best suited for summative assessments to measure overall competence or quality of students’ work.

Grading the Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich with a Holistic Rubric Heading link Copy link

Grading the making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a holistic rubric, checklist heading link copy link.

Checklists are used to measure criteria that have a correct answer or evidence of correctness or completion (e.g., math, engineering, programming, etc.). The checklist has two columns for performance levels and rows for each grading criterion. Checklist columns are typically labeled with “Yes or No” or “Correct or Incorrect.”

Checklists Heading link Copy link

Weight and scoring for checklists.

Checklists will have a total number of points or a percentage for the assessment. And each grading criteria in a checklist will have a point or percentage value.

For example, the assessment is worth 25 points and contains three criteria. The total points need to be distributed to each of the criteria (criterion I is worth 5 points, criterion II is worth 10 points, and criterion III is worth 10 points).

When should I use a checklist?

• Involves less time to develop and grade
• Provides a breakdown of grading criteria
• Used for “Yes or No” or “Correct or Incorrect” performance levels
• Best suited for criteria where there is a correct answer or evidence of correctness or completion: math, engineering, programming, etc.

Grading the Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich with a Checklist Heading link Copy link

Grading the making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a checklist, additional text heading link copy link.

See the HOW section of this teaching guide to learn more about designing rubrics and review examples of rubric types.

WHY? Heading link Copy link

Impact of rubric use.

Research has shown that the use of rubrics has a positive impact on instruction and learning for students and instructors.

Rubrics impact student performance and learning positively (Abdel-Magid, 2020; Hazels, 2020; Nkhoma, 2020) by:

• Informing students of the expectations for an assignment, including explaining the grading criteria, alignment to learning objectives, and how to meet the performance standards.
• Improving student motivation, self-efficacy, engagement, and satisfaction.
• Promoting self-regulation of learning (time and effort) to reach instructors’ expectations.
• Influencing students’ cognitive and metacognitive performance in the assessment, including the ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in their performance.
• Providing qualitative feedback to support students’ future learning and performance.

Rubrics also impact instructors’ grading, scoring, and assessment practices positively (Abdel-Magid, 2020; Hazels, 2020; Nkhoma, 2020) by:

• Providing improved alignment of instructions, expectations, and grading practices, as well as clarity and transparency of the course learning objectives. The rubric design process provides instructors with opportunities to reflect and review the course and learning objectives’ alignment to the assessments and grading criteria.
• Reducing grading time and overall faculty workload by utilizing the clickable rubrics built in the Blackboard LMS. This reduced workload will allow for more planning of formative assessment and practice opportunities with feedback to improve student outcomes.
• Improving the consistency, accuracy, and objectivity of grading and scoring will help to prevent or reduce bias in grading by making judgments based on students’ actual performance of the grading criteria. And this consistency, accuracy, and objectivity can potentially reduce students’ questions and arguments about grading, scoring, and fairness.
• Collecting reliable and valid data for decision-making and continuous quality improvements (see the next section for information on validity and reliability). The consistent use of rubrics will collect data on student performance based on grading criteria aligned to the course and learning objectives for the course.

Improving Validity and Reliability of Assessments Heading link Copy link

Improving validity and reliability of assessments.

Research has shown that the validity and reliability of assessments can be improved through the development and utilization of rubrics.

The validity of an assessment can be described as how well the assessment measures what it was designed to measure. This type of validity is often called face validity or logical validity; in other words, the assessment appears to do what it claims to do (based on face value).

Rubric design improves the alignment of the course and learning objectives with the assessment, and this helps increase the validity of the assessments (Jescovitch, et.al, 2019). Rubric development also improves the alignment of cognitive levels or complexity of the assessment with the course and learning objectives, again improving the validity. Also, the validity of an assessment can be improved by avoiding construct underrepresentation and construct-irrelevant variance through the designing of a rubric.

Construct Underrepresentation Heading link Copy link

Construct underrepresentation and construct-irrelevant variance.

Construct underrepresentation refers to when an assessment is too narrow and doesn’t include elements of the construct (course or learning objective). The data collected will not have face, content, or construct validity because the assessment omitted aspects (e.g., the assessment doesn’t capture key aspects of the learning objective it was designed to measure). Content validity refers to how well an assessment measures all facets of an item, and how well it represents or gauges the entire domain (e.g., how well the assessment measures the entirety of the learning objectives). Construct validity refers to how well the assessment collects evidence to support interpretations, appropriateness of inferences, and what the data reflects (e.g., does the data collected allow you to make sound decisions about current instruction or continuous quality improvements).

For example, the evaluation of a piece of art might exclude the composition of the artwork or the grading of an oral presentation might miss the communication of the content (Lin, 2020). The rubric design process helps to ensure that no elements are missing, and all aspects of the construct are being evaluated to improve content and construct validity.

Construct-irrelevant variance refers to when an assessment contains excess or uncontrollable variables that distort the data collected (e.g., the assessment contains grading criteria that are not aligned to the task or learning objectives, or assesses skills and knowledge not taught in the course).

For example, an assessment for an oral presentation has grading criteria for costumes or props. This grading criterion isn’t aligned to the assessment and might cause an assessment bias , a grading criterion that unfairly penalizes students because of personal characteristics (Lin, 2020). In the case of the costume or props criteria, more affluent students could afford better costumes or props and may receive a better grade. This bias would cause an unfairness in grading, and data collected wouldn’t have face, content, or construct validity.

It is essential to review your rubrics to ensure that your grading will be focused on the construct (learning objectives) and that it isn’t missing any elements of the construct or adding any excessive or uncontrollable variables that might distort data or cause an assessment bias.

Reliability of Assessments Heading link Copy link

The reliability of an assessment can be described as how well the evaluation and measurement of student performance are consistent and repeatable.

In other words, the consistency of grading and scoring practices from student to student and term to term will influence the reliability of data collected. Rubrics can improve the internal consistency reliability and rater reliability of an assessment.

Internal Consistency Reliability Heading link Copy link

Internal consistency reliability and rater reliability.

Internal consistency reliability refers to the interrelatedness of the assessment items and the accuracy of what is measured (e.g., assessments that are directly aligned to the learning objectives would have questions that measure the same construct). Rubric development can enhance the internal consistency reliability of an assessment through the analysis and alignment of learning objectives.

Rater reliability can be described in two sub-categories: intra-rater reliability and inter-rater reliability. Intra-rater reliability refers to how an instructor might grade and score differently based on external circumstances (e.g., one day the instructor is healthy and feeling good and the next day the instructor has a migraine while grading).

Inter-rater reliability refers to how two different instructors might grade and score differently based on what they value (e.g., one instructor might score the organization and technical language in a paper with more weight than another instructor who scores formatting and mechanics with more weight).

Rubric utilization can provide consistent grading criteria that can be repeated under different conditions improving intra-rater reliability (sick instructor) and inter-rater reliability (multiple instructors or TAs). It is important to note that there can still be discrepancies and inconsistencies among multiple instructors or TAs while utilizing a rubric. Please review the HOW section of this teaching guide to learn ways to reduce grading and scoring discrepancies and inconsistencies in order to improve inter-rater reliability.

HOW? Heading link Copy link

Selecting the right rubric type for your assessment (and course) is the first step in rubric design. After you decide what type of rubric you want to design, you will need to determine how you will design the rubric.

As an instructor, you can design a rubric, or you can co-construct a rubric. See the below sections for steps on either designing a rubric or co-constructing a rubric with your students.

Instructor Rubric Design Heading link Copy link

Instructor rubric design.

The following steps will support you as you design a rubric:

• Title the rubric using the title of the assessment you want to grade and score.
• Identify the grading criteria that you want to measure. Remember your grading criteria should be directly aligned to the course and learning objectives.
• Determine how the grading criteria should be assessed: holistically, separately, with a yes/no, etc.
• Single-point rubric – has one column describing a passing performance (typically an A value) and rows for each grading criterion.
• Analytic rubric – has between three to five columns to describe performance levels and rows for each grading criterion separately.
• Holistic rubric – has between three to five columns to describe performance levels but with only one row as the criteria are described together.
• Checklist – has two columns (for yes and no) and rows for each grading criterion.
• Describe the grading criteria (please see Writing Criteria Descriptions below for more information).
• Assign points or percentages for each grading criterion (single-point rubric, analytic rubric, or checklist).
• Describe levels of performance for each criterion and assign points or percentages for each level of performance (analytic rubric or holistic rubric).
• Review your rubric for mutually exclusive language for levels of performance and student-centered language to ensure student understanding of expectations.
• Utilize the rubric tool in Blackboard to build a clickable rubric for grading and a viewable rubric for students.
• Implement the rubric (without making changes) for the entire term. Reflect on the use of the rubric and identify areas of improvement to make adjustments to criteria, descriptions, or weight for the next term.

For more information on building rubrics in your course site visit the Blackboard Grading and Assessments page on the CATE website to view the Getting Started with Rubrics section.

Co-Constructing Rubrics with Students

You can co-construct rubrics with students by first sharing a work sample with them. This work sample could be an exemplar (exemplary work sample) or could be an average work sample (B performance level).

The following steps will support you as you co-construct an analytic rubric with your students:

• Share the course and learning objectives that will be measured by the rubric with students.
• Share the exemplar (exemplary work sample) or average work sample with students.
• Break students into groups either synchronously or asynchronously (using a collaborative tool like Jamboard , Google slides, Padlet , Trello , etc.) and ask them to identify what the potential grading criteria might be.
• Bring students back together and remove any redundancies in the grading criteria.
• Once you have the grading criteria, you can choose to continue the rubric development with your students or without them.
• If you choose to continue with students, then ask students to determine the weight of each criterion for the assessment.
• Next, you can break students into groups and have each group describe a different grading criterion at a set number of performance levels (e.g., A, B, C, D).
• Collect all the descriptions and create one analytic rubric from each group’s descriptions.
• Ask students to review, check for mutually exclusive language, and discuss any changes needed as a class.

Tips for Writing Criteria Descriptions Heading link Copy link

Tips for writing criteria descriptions.

You will need to describe the grading criteria, regardless of the type of rubric or checklist you select. Consider the following tips for writing descriptions of the grading criteria.

No Duplication of Criteria

Criterion descriptions should not contain duplication of criteria within the description; in other words, you should not have two grading criteria that assess the same attribute or element (e.g., critical thinking or formatting, etc.). Each criterion should be specific without duplications in grading.

For example, you have created a checklist that has one criterion for showing work and another criterion for the correct answer. The correct answer criterion should only assess the correctness of the final answer, not the demonstration of the correct problem-solving in the work; this element should be assessed in the showing work criterion.

Mutually Exclusive Language

Adjectives and adverbs can be used to help describe the grading criteria at different performance levels but should be mutually exclusive. Mutually exclusive language means that an adjective used to describe the performance at the highest level shouldn’t be used to describe the performance at the next level. For example, you have used the adjective “thorough” to describe the level of details provided at the exemplary level. So, you should not use the same adjective to describe the proficient level of performance or the subsequent level.

Please note that the following list is not all-encompassing and should be viewed as a starting point for describing grading criteria.

• 100% – A level of performance could be described with any of the following terms: Exemplary, outstanding, distinguished, exceptional, well-developed, excellent, comprehensive, thorough, robust, expert, extensive, etc.
• 80% –  B level of performance could be described with any of the following terms: Proficient, above average, accurate, complete, skillful, accomplished, clear, concise, consistent, etc.
• 70% – C level of performance could be described with any of the following terms: Satisfactory, competent, average, adequate, reasonable, acceptable, basic, sufficient, etc.
• 60% – D level of performance could be described with any of the following terms: Developing, attempted, emerging, approaching, novice, partial, etc.
• 50% – F level of performance could be described with any of the following terms: Beginning, rudimentary, rarely, seldom, needs revision, no evidence, etc.

It is important to be consistent with the use of adjectives when developing a rubric or checklist. This consistency will help support student understanding of expectations as well as improve inter-rater reliability if more than one instructor or TA is utilizing the rubric for grading and scoring.

Tangible, Supportive, and Qualitative Terms

As you begin describing criteria, make sure to focus on the tangible items that can be more objectively measured. For example, if there is a grading criterion for the overall quality of the work, avoid adding subjective elements like “effort.” A student who has not developed the skills yet to perform highly on the assessment might have put in a lot of effort but may have still performed poorly.

Try to use supportive language when describing criteria that help instill a growth mindset in students. And try to avoid negative language that may demotivate students. For example, instead of describing a criterion as “lacking” an element, use the word “missing, developing, or beginning.” Also, consider using terminology like “attempted” at the C or D level; this helps recognize students’ efforts.

Lastly, when describing the grading criteria focus on the quality of the work. Utilize descriptions that help highlight the work’s quality and focus less on quantifying the students’ work. For example, if you have a grading criterion for the mechanics of writing, you can describe it without counting errors in a paper.

• The Exemplary level of performance could be described as “professional language used in a 2-page report with minimal to no errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.”
• The Proficient level of performance could be described as “professional language used in a 2-page report with minor errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization (e.g., misplaced punctuation, homophone errors – to, too, two).”
• The Satisfactory level of performance could be described as “professional language used in a 2-page report with errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization (e.g., capitalization errors, missing punctuation, grammar, etc.) but still able to understand the point of view.”
• The Developing level of performance could be described as “attempted professional language in a 2-page report with numerous errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization that distract and cause unreadability.”

Start with the Highest Performance Level

If creating an analytic rubric or a holistic rubric, it is recommended to start with the description for the highest level of performance (exemplary level). This level would typically receive an A percentage or point value.

Once you describe the highest level of performance then you can focus on the next level and then the next level, etc. Once you have described all the criteria for the rubric, make sure to check that you are not duplicating criteria and have mutually exclusive language.

Using Exemplars with Rubrics Heading link Copy link

Using exemplars with rubrics.

Just as you can use an exemplar (exemplary work sample) to co-construct a rubric with your students; you can also use exemplars with your instructor-designed rubrics. These exemplars help to improve student understanding of the rubric and increase the inter-rater reliability of rubrics when multiple graders are using them (see the WHY section of this guide for more information on reliability).

Not all students will understand the criterion descriptions in your rubric, so by providing an exemplar students can compare the descriptions in the rubric with the work sample. Providing an exemplar will also help other instructors or TAs to understand what the rubric descriptions mean, which will, in turn, improve their consistency in grading and scoring and will positively influence the inter-rater reliability of the assessment.

Tips for Using Exemplars

• Exemplars can be former students’ work (with permission), published work (with permission), or instructor work.
• Present features of the exemplar during a class session and deconstruct the rubric using the exemplar to illustrate what the rubric descriptions mean.
• Think of exemplars as a guide for students to know how to start. Students will understand the expectations of the structure, style, layout, content, etc.
• Have students use the exemplar and rubric to self-assess their own work. Students will develop the ability to analyze their work to determine strengths and weaknesses and the ability to know how to make it better.

Guiding Questions for Rubrics Heading link Copy link

Guiding questions for rubrics.

Consider the following questions to improve the validity and reliability of the assessment as you develop and review your rubrics (Lin, 2020):

• Does the rubric measure the learning objective(s) adequately?
• Does the rubric include aspects that are irrelevant to the learning objective(s) and/or task?
• Do the descriptions for grading criteria contain tangible, supportive, and qualitative terms?
• Does the rubric include any aspects that could potentially reflect assessment biases?
• Are the grading criteria distinct from one another and use mutually exclusive language?
• Are the grading criteria weighted appropriately?
• Are the levels of performance weighted appropriately?
• Is the rubric paired with an exemplar (exemplary work sample) to support students and multiple instructors’ understanding of expectations?

EXAMPLES AND TEMPLATES Heading link Copy link

Single-point rubrics.

• Single-Point Rubric Template
• Single-Point Rubric for Music Performance
• Single-Point Rubric for an Authentic Assessment

Analytic Rubrics

• Analytic Rubric Template
• Analytic Rubric for a Presentation
• Analytic Rubric for Art
• Analytic Rubric for Group Work

Holistic Rubrics

• Holistic Rubric Template
• Holistic Rubric for Written Assignment
• Holistic Rubric for Discussion Participation
• Holistic Rubric for Essay Response
• Checklist Template
• Checklist for Computer Programming Assignment
• Checklist for a Math Assignment
• Checklist for a Science Report

CITING THIS GUIDE Heading link Copy link

Citing this guide.

Messier, N. (2022). “Rubrics.” Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence at the University of Illinois Chicago. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://teaching.uic.edu/resources/teaching-guides/assessment-grading-practices/rubrics/

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Heading link Copy link

Articles, websites, and videos.

Eberly Center. (n.d.). Grading and performance rubrics. Carnegie Mellon University.

Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, analytic, and single-point rubrics. Cult of Pedagogy

Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d.). Creating and using rubrics. Yale University.

Teaching Commons. (n.d.). Rubrics. DePaul University.

REFERENCES Heading link Copy link

Abdel-Magid, T., Abdel-Magid, I. (2020). Grading of an assessment rubric. 10.13140/RG.2.2.16717.38887.

Al-Ghazo, A., Ta’amneh, I. (2021). Evaluation and grading of students’ writing: Holistic and analytic scoring rubrics. Journal for the Study of English Linguistics. 9. 77. 10.5296/jsel.v9i1.19060.

Al-Salmani, F., Thacker, B. (2021). Rubric for assessing thinking skills in free-response exam problems. Physical Review Physics Education Research. 17. 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010135.

Hazels, T., Schutte, K., McVay, S. (2020). Case study in using integrated rubrics in assessment. Journal of Education and Culture Studies. 4. p81. Doi: 10.22158/jecs.v4n3p81. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/jecs.v4n3p81

Jescovitch, L., Scott, E., Cerchiara, J., Doherty, J., Wenderoth, M., Merrill, J., Urban-Lurain, M., Haudek, K. (2019). Deconstruction of holistic rubrics into analytic rubrics for large-scale assessments of students’ reasoning of complex science concepts.  

Lin, R. (2020). Rubrics for scoring, interpretations and decision-making. 10.4324/9780429022081-5.

Nkhoma, C., Nkhoma, M., Thomas, S., Le, N. (2020). The role of rubrics in learning and implementation of authentic assessment: A literature review. 237-276. 10.28945/4606.

Smyth, P., To, J., Carless, D. (2020). The interplay between exemplars and rubrics.

Tomas, C., Whitt, E., Lavelle-Hill, R., Severn, K. (2019). Modeling holistic marks with analytic rubrics.

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• J Undergrad Neurosci Educ
• v.15(1); Fall 2016

Using Rubrics as a Scientific Writing Instructional Method in Early Stage Undergraduate Neuroscience Study

Erin b.d. clabough.

1 Biology Department, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943

2 Biology Department, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA 23005

Seth W. Clabough

3 Communication Center/English Department, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA 23005

Associated Data

Scientific writing is an important communication and learning tool in neuroscience, yet it is a skill not adequately cultivated in introductory undergraduate science courses. Proficient, confident scientific writers are produced by providing specific knowledge about the writing process, combined with a clear student understanding about how to think about writing (also known as metacognition). We developed a rubric for evaluating scientific papers and assessed different methods of using the rubric in inquiry-based introductory biology classrooms. Students were either 1) given the rubric alone, 2) given the rubric, but also required to visit a biology subject tutor for paper assistance, or 3) asked to self-grade paper components using the rubric. Students who were required to use a peer tutor had more negative attitudes towards scientific writing, while students who used the rubric alone reported more confidence in their science writing skills by the conclusion of the semester. Overall, students rated the use of an example paper or grading rubric as the most effective ways of teaching scientific writing, while rating peer review as ineffective. Our paper describes a concrete, simple method of infusing scientific writing into inquiry-based science classes, and provides clear avenues to enhance communication and scientific writing skills in entry-level classes through the use of a rubric or example paper, with the goal of producing students capable of performing at a higher level in upper level neuroscience classes and independent research.

Introductory biology courses frequently serve as the foundational course for undergraduates interested in pursuing neuroscience as a career. It is therefore important that neuroscience professors remain aware of the sweeping revisions to undergraduate biology education that continue to be implemented ( Woodin et al., 2009 ; Labov et al., 2010 ; Goldey et al ., 2012 ). Recommendations for these changes are summarized in The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) publication Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action, which provides a blueprint for massive change in the way that students are introduced to biology ( AAAS, 2009 ). This new perspective encourages a focus on learning and applying the scientific method to a real and present problem that needs to be solved, whereas factual content is deemphasized.

Scientific writing competence is a crucial part of neuroscience education, and is a skill that is partly about process, partly about providing evidence, and lastly about constructing a careful argument. Requiring students to both catalog and reflect on their own work by constructing research papers allows students to experience yet another facet of a scientist’s job description.

As our undergraduate biology classes move away from facts and towards process, we are left with the very real opportunity to teach future neuroscientists how to write up the experiments that they have constructed and run in our classes. As a result, introductory biology classrooms provide an ideal environment for science writing instruction that can serve as the foundation for the writing students will do in upper level neuroscience courses.

Writing as a Teaching Tool

Undergraduate neuroscience faculty should note that writing about science has more benefits than simply honing communication skills or reflecting on information. Previous research shows that the incorporation of writing elements into laboratory content enhances students’ critical thinking abilities ( Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007 ). Obviously, learning-to-write strategies have been embraced by educators for many years, but writing-to-learn strategies are not as commonly used in the fields of math and science, primarily due to a lack of awareness by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educators about how writing can actually cause learning to occur. In particular, assignments that require the writer to articulate a reasoned argument are a particularly effective way to use writing-to-learn. Advocates of writing-to-learn strategies promote the merging of interpretative methods and rubrics (used so often in the humanities) with the hypothesis testing and experimental design that typically occurs in STEM fields to create a type of hybrid research paradigm ( Reynolds et al., 2012 ), and a more holistic approach.

Making Scientific Writing Competence Part of the Introductory Biology Curriculum

The nature of scientific writing is different from traditional essay or persuasive writing, so providing specialized science writing instruction as early as possible in a young scientist’s career is valuable even at institutions that mandate first year writing competence with a required core curriculum. If general undergraduate biology courses teach students the elements of good scientific writing and how to properly format a paper, future neuroscience students are much better prepared to tackle more difficult scientific content in upper-level courses, and are better able to communicate what they find in their own research. In addition, teaching science writing in a way that appeals to young scientists may help with attrition rates for majors.

Teaching students to proficiently write all sections of a scientific paper also teaches students about the different forms of communication that are essential to both scientists and to engaged citizens ( Bennett, 2008 ). For example, the content of an abstract is similar to a news brief or could serve as a summary to inform a potential research student about what has been happening in the lab. The content of an introduction section justifies the scientific work, which is a key element in a successful grant proposal. Writing a thoughtful discussion shows that the researcher has selected the next logical experiment based on the results. Crafting a discussion that considers how the project fits into the global science community is particularly important for the introductory biology student who is taking the course just to fulfill their lab requirement, and may never sit in another science class again.

What is the Best Way to Teach Scientific Writing?

Given the importance of effective science communication ( Brownell et al., 2013a ), it is surprising that more resources and effort are not channeled toward teaching scientific writing to undergraduate students. There are multiple views on the most effective way to teach writing in a science classroom ( Bennett, 2008 ; Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ; Reynolds et al., 2012 ). Working in teams is a recommended strategy ( Singh and Mayer, 2014 ) and many methods incorporate classmate peer review to evaluate student writing ( Woodget, 2003 ; Prichard, 2005 ; Blair et al., 2007 ; Hartberg et al., 2008 ). Writing instructional methods that target scientific subjects have a history of success—for example, weaving elements of writing throughout a Neuroimmunology class ( Brownell et al., 2013b ), asking Neurobiology/Cell Biology students to write NSF-style grants ( Itagaki, 2013 ) or using a calibrated peer-review writing-to-learn process in Neuroscience classes ( Prichard, 2005 ).

Methods that emphasize understanding primary scientific literature typically focus on thesis writing ( Reynolds and Thompson, 2011 ), the reading and discussion of landmark published peer-reviewed journal articles as an example of the correct way to write up scientific results ( Hoskins et al., 2011 ; Segura-Totten and Dalman, 2013 ), or require students to actually write or submit their own articles to a peer-reviewed journal to experience the peer-review process first-hand ( Jones et al., 2011 ). These methods typically work well to teach writing to upperclassmen, but may prove unwieldy for use in the general curriculum or for entry-level scientists. Use of a specific paper construction method can effectively help novice writers include required elements and get to a finished project ( O’Connor and Holmquist, 2009 ), but more detailed expectations for content and style will be required for students in an introductory course.

Unfortunately for many undergraduate science writers, the first real attempt at scientific writing often happens during the undergraduate thesis, typically written as a senior, and students are commonly left to learn scientific writing on their own ( O’Connor and Holmquist, 2009 ). It only seems reasonable that teachers should prepare their students to write an effective, culminating thesis well before the capstone coursework and research commences. Previous work showed that integrating science writing into an undergraduate psychology course over a year-long period resulted in improved student writing ability ( Holstein et al., 2015 ). So how can underclassmen be taught scientific writing within a single semester?

Use of Rubrics to Teach Scientific Writing

The use of rubrics in STEM fields is not a new idea, and a grading rubric serves several simultaneously useful functions. First, it clearly communicates assignment requirements and sets uniform standards for student success, while eliminating unintentional bias in the faculty grading process. Next, it can be extremely useful in finding areas that the students still need help on and targeting future instruction accordingly. The rubric can also serve as a tool to create a more effective peer review process, if the instructor chooses to use it in this way. And lastly, the rubric sharpens the teacher’s ideas about what he/she is looking for before the material is taught, possibly making for more effective instruction. A detailed outline can facilitate the writing process ( Frey, 2003 ), and a detailed rubric may function in a similar manner, as it provides a scaffold to write the entire paper.

Previous research shows that rubrics can augment students’ ability to use medical terminology correctly ( Rawson et al., 2005 ) and can improve students’ ability to critically evaluate scientific studies ( Dawn et al., 2011 ). Use of a grading rubric has proven a reliable way to evaluate lab reports in large university settings using graduate teaching assistants across numerous sub-disciplines ( Timmerman et al., 2010 ).

Informal assessment during previous semesters running a inquiry-based classroom revealed that some students with no previous active learning experiences can struggle with the lack of a textbook, the idea that process can be more important than content, and what they perceive as a lack of concrete items to memorize (personal observation, E. Clabough). In response to student feedback, rubrics were developed to provide very concrete methods of grading and assessment for items like oral presentations, lab notebooks, and writing assignments.

When presented with new material, the learning brain seeks out patterns as it processes information. Because a rubric provides structure and pattern to this process, it not only assists students with organizational strategies, but also reflects the way the brain actually learns ( Willis, 2010 ). Use of carefully designed rubrics can increase executive functioning in students, including skills such as organizing, prioritizing, analyzing, comparing/contrasting, and goal setting ( Carter, 2000 ). Requiring students to use the rubrics to make decisions about the material while self-grading may further tap into executive functions during the learning process.

Peer Tutoring to Enhance Science Writing Competence

Peer tutoring places a peer in the role of instructor in a one-on-one setting with a fellow student. The role of the peer tutor is to elucidate concepts, to provide individualized instruction, and to allow the tutee to practice manipulating the subject matter. Numerous studies have established the link between this form of tutoring and improved academic performance for tutees, which is measurable in a variety of subjects including reading, math, social studies and science ( Utley and Monweet, 1997 ; Greenwood et al., 1992 ; Bowman-Perrott et al., 2013 ). The effectiveness of using peer tutoring to teach science writing to undergraduates has been under-examined, and to our knowledge, this is the first study to combine this approach with the use of a grading rubric.

The current experiment explored different ways to teach scientific writing to undergraduate students by incorporating a detailed grading rubric into established inquiry-based undergraduate biology classrooms over the course of a semester. All students were provided with scientific writing rubrics, though some students received additional peer tutoring. We did not directly measure instructional success, but the quality of scientific papers was assessed as a routine part of the course and compared against the attitudes that students had towards science writing in general. Student attitudes about the effectiveness of different ways to teach writing were also measured.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Course design.

Randolph-Macon College (R-MC) is a small liberal arts college that converted their introductory biology classes into an inquiry-based learning format in 2010. Two semesters of the module-based Integrative Biology are offered and students may take them in any order. The current experiment was performed in these Integrative Biology (BIOL122) classrooms, which were run as a combination lecture/lab course broken into three separate instructional modules over the course of a semester. Short 20–30 minute lectures were interspersed with experiment brainstorming, experiment execution, hands-on class activities, statistics, and paper writing exercises. The three-hour courses met twice weekly throughout the semester, and were taught by the same professor (E. Clabough). Undergraduate students were primarily freshman and sophomores and the course was open to both biology majors and non-majors.

Students were expected to design, perform, and analyze their own experiments in groups using the provided module organisms. Students were broken into small groups of 3–4 students to work as lab teams. Individual papers were written at the conclusion of each of the three modules. Module 1 explored the molecular biology of energy in mouse mitochondrial isolates. Students assessed if a redox dye could substitute for the enzymes within the mitochondrial membrane, and used a colorimeter to assess whether or not an electron was successfully passed to cytochrome C in the preparations. Module 2 centered on genetics using commercially available alcohol dehydrogenase Drosophila mutants. Students used an inebriometer to measure the susceptibility of an AHD mutant/wild type flies to ethanol vapors. Module 3 looked at vertebrate development using a zebrafish fetal alcohol paradigm. Students exposed developing embryos to various ethanol concentrations and measured response variables of their own choosing, including body size, heartbeat and behavioral measures.

Scientific Writing Experimental Conditions

Scientific writing was taught in chunks to the students as the course progressed ( Table 1 ). Each student was expected to individually write a lab paper at the conclusion of each module in order to communicate that module’s experiments. The Module 1 paper consisted of the title page, methods, results, and references. The Module 2 paper consisted of the title page, introduction, methods and results, discussion, and references. The Module 3 paper was formatted as an entire article, complete with title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and references. Some paper elements, particularly at the beginning of the semester, went through several rough drafts before the final module paper was due.

Timetable for teaching scientific writing. Scientific writing content, format, rubrics, and assignments were introduced using a specific timeline throughout the module-based Integrative Biology course. Three separate scientific papers were assigned based on class experimental results. The rubric had eight distinct components that were utilized as needed throughout the semester. Each rubric component was handed out at the time the students were assigned that particular element of the paper. A summary rubric was also handed out before each final paper.

Sections were randomized to one of three experimental conditions—Rubric Only, Rubric + Tutor or Self-Grade Rubric—using a random number generator. Each condition centered on a different use of the same grading rubric for scientific writing. Since it is not practical to withhold a rubric from one section of a multi-section course, all sections had access to the exact same rubric. The first group (n=16) served as a Rubric Only control group. Individual paper element rubrics were handed out to students when each element was introduced during class, and the instructor went over each rubric in detail for all classes. Students were told to consult the rubrics before turning in their drafts or final papers. In addition, a rubric summarizing the upcoming paper requirements (see Supplementary Material ) was handed out approximately a week before each module paper was due.

The second group, Rubric + Tutor (n=14), received the rubrics and peer tutoring. This group was given rubrics, but was also required to use tutoring services at least one time for each module paper (three times over the course of the semester). Due to the specific formatting and content requirements of a scientific paper, participants were tutored by biology subject tutors rather than the writing center tutors. The three biology tutors were upper-class biology majors, nominated by faculty, and employed by the academic center at R-MC. These tutors demonstrated outstanding competence in their courses of study and had undergone a tutoring training program that is nationally certified by the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA). In addition, the biology subject tutors had all taken Integrative Biology at R-MC.

Biology subject tutors (2 female and 1 male) had designated weekly hours for drop-ins or appointments, generally in the evenings. At the beginning of the semester, the instructor met with the biology subject tutors and informed them of the experiment, provided them with the grading rubrics and paper due dates, and asked for a log of upcoming student sessions. Ongoing contact was kept between the instructor and the subject tutors throughout the semester.

The third group, Self-Grade rubric (n=14), received the same grading rubrics, but used them in a different way. They were given the relevant rubrics, but instead of having the instructor go over the rubrics, this group was asked to make decisions about whether or not their own assignments fell in line with the rubric requirements during class. Students were asked to grade their own drafts, as well as other students’ drafts throughout the semester. For this peer-review, each student used the rubric to grade two other students’ drafts during class and immediately communicated the grading results one-on-one with the writer.

Many students in this study had previously taken the first semester of Integrative Biology (86% of the students in the Rubric Only section, 92% of the Rubric + Tutor group, and 40% of the Self-Grade Rubric section). These students had exposure to and practice with scientific writing, since students in both semesters are required to write scientific papers, so this difference may alter interpretation of between groups differences. Students enrolled in the Rubric Only section reported an average self-reported estimated GPA of 2.69 and the class was composed of 84% freshman. Students in the Rubric + Tutoring section were also mostly freshman (92%), who reported an average GPA of 2.83, while the Self-Grade rubric section contained more upperclassmen (60% freshman), and self-reported an average GPA of 2.46. GPA was not statistically different between groups.

Scientific Writing Evaluation Rubrics and Tutors

Rubrics were designed using a point system for each required paper element (to total approximately 70% of the overall score), and overall paper writing style/format was weighted as approximately 30% of the overall paper grade (see Supplementary Material ). All students were encouraged to use the biology subject tutors as a valuable college resource, although it was only compulsory for students in the Rubric + Tutor group to visit the tutors.

Scientific Writing Attitudes and Perceived Competence Assessment

At the beginning of the semester, all students completed a Likert-based questionnaire ( Likert, 1932 ) which explored their attitudes towards writing in science, as well as how relevant they felt effective writing is to good science. The questionnaire also collected information about how students personally assessed their own competence in writing overall, as well as in science writing, and their perceptions about the effectiveness of different ways to teach scientific writing. The same questionnaires were given again to students during the final week of classes (see Supplementary Material ).

Data Analysis

The writing attitude and perceived competence questionnaire was examined for meaningful change between and within groups to look for differences in the assessment of scientific writing importance or in writer confidence. The mean and SEM were calculated for each Likert style question. After ensuring that the data met the requirements to use a parametric statistic (data were normally distributed, groups had equal variance, there were at least five levels to the ordinal scale, and there were no extreme scores), data were analyzed using ANOVA, followed by t-tests for pairwise comparisons. One pre-assessment question had high variance as measured by standard error, so the Kruskal-Wallis test was used in that instance. The responses were anonymous within each group, so it was not possible to track changes within individual students, but t-tests were also performed to detect differences in each group between the first and last weeks of class.

Although writing performance was not the primary objective of the study, the rubric was used to grade the scientific reports to determine a paper score for each of the three module papers as a part of the course. Papers for all experimental groups were mixed together for grading by the class instructor, though the instructor was not blind to their identity. Because each module paper required that students demonstrate competency writing new parts of a scientific paper, overall paper scores were calculated across the semester. Papers were worth more points as the semester progressed and more paper sections were added (Paper 1: 50 points, Paper 2: 60 points, Paper 3: 100 points). Differences between groups in overall paper scores were collected (total points accumulated over the three papers) and analyzed using an ANOVA.

Biology Subject Tutor Use

In the Rubric + Tutor group, 78.6% of the students visited the tutors an average of 2.3 times per student. Tutoring hours and services were advertised to the students as a valuable paper writing resource, but just 20% of the Self–Grade Rubric class and none of the Rubric Only class visited the tutors at some point during the semester. During the current study semester, a total of 19 students visited the biology subject tutors a total of 44 times campus-wide. This reflects an increase from the semester prior to the current study, when just 10 students utilized the tutors a total of 23 times.

Scientific Writing Rubric Use

Reliability between raters was calculated based on a randomly sampling of student papers scored by two independent raters with disparate education backgrounds (one rater had earned a Ph.D. in science and the other rater had an English Ph.D.). Reliability for overall paper scores was found to be high (r = 0.8644, ICC; Table 2 ).

Rubric Reliability. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated to determine rubric reliability. Seven final papers were randomly selected to be scored by two independent raters. The ICC provides a measure of agreement or concordance between the raters, where the value 1 represents perfect agreement, whereas 0 represents no agreement. ICC values were calculated for the individual paper elements, as well as for the overall paper. ICC was interpreted as follows: 0–0.2 indicates poor agreement, 0.3–0.4 indicates fair agreement, 0.5–0.6 indicates moderate agreement 0.7–0.8 indicates strong agreement, and 0.8–1.0 indicates near perfect agreement.

The rubrics worked very well as a grading tool for the instructor, consuming about 10–15 minutes to grade an individual paper. One student paper was inadvertently shuffled to the bottom of the pile and unknowingly re-graded. Remarkably, he received the same 87.5% score on the second grading attempt as he did during the first grading session. Use of the rubric made it easier to have conversations with individual students about their papers if there was a grade inquiry, and eliminated the need to write large amounts of comments on each paper. Biology subject tutors reported that they used the rubrics during the tutoring sessions, but felt that they concentrated primarily on grammar and sentence structure with students.

Student Writing Performance

Although writing performance was not the primary focus of this study, no significant difference was found between the Rubric Only group, the Rubric + Tutor group and the Self-Grade Rubric group in overall paper writing scores, calculated as all by adding all the scientific writing points over the semester (by ANOVA; p = 0.096), nor was there a difference in the final paper scores (by ANOVA; p = 0.068).

Attitude Change within Groups

No changes were seen in each group between pre and post assessment answers on the Scientific Writing Attitudes questionnaire, except one significant difference was found for the statement “I am good at writing in general but not good at science writing.” Significantly more students in the Rubric Only group disagreed with this statement at the end of the semester compared to the beginning of the semester (by t-test; p = 0.0431; pre-mean = 3.14 ± 0.275 and post-mean= 2.375 ± 0.24, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree) ( Figure 1 ).

Significantly more students in the Rubric Only group disagreed with the statement “I am good at writing in general but not good at science writing” at the end of the semester compared to the beginning (by t-test; p = 0.0431; pre-mean = 3.14 ± 0.275 and post-mean= 2.375 ± 0.24). No other group displayed a significant difference pre-course vs. post-course. Data depicts student responses on the Likert questionnaire, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree.

Attitude Differences between Rubric Groups

Significant differences between the groups were detected in the post-questionnaire answers for several of the writing attitude and perceived competence questions. The Rubric + Tutor group held significantly more negative attitudes towards scientific writing on several questions. On average, more students in the Rubric + Tutor group agreed with the post-statement “Scientific writing is boring” (by ANOVA; p = 0.016; mean of Rubric-Only group 2.25 ± 0.28; mean of Rubric + Tutor group 3.36 ± 0.27; mean of Self-Grade Rubric group 2.43 ± 0.27) ( Figure 2 ). This difference was not detected during the pre-assessment (by ANOVA, p = 0.46).

More students in the Rubric + Tutor group agreed with the post-statement “Scientific writing is boring.” Data depicts student responses on the Likert questionnaire administered at the conclusion of the semester, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree (by ANOVA; p = 0.016; mean of Rubric Only group 2.25 ± SEM 0.28; mean of Rubric + Tutor group 3.36 ± 0.27; mean of Self-Grade rubric group 2.43 ± 0.27).

On average, more students in the Rubric + Tutor group agreed with the post-statement “I feel like scientific writing is confusing” (by ANOVA; p=0.021; mean of Rubric-Only group 2.69 ± 0.30; mean of Rubric + Tutor group 3.71 ± 0.29; mean of Self-Grade Rubric 2.71 ± 0.24) ( Figure 3 ). This difference was not detected during the pre-assessment (by ANOVA, p = 0.96).

More students in the Rubric + Tutor group agreed with the post-statement “I feel like scientific writing is confusing.” Data depicts student responses on the Likert questionnaire administered at the conclusion of the semester, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree (by ANOVA; p=0.021; mean of Rubric Only group 2.69 ± SEM 0.30; mean of Rubric + Tutoring group 3.71 ± 0.29; mean of Self-Grade rubric 2.71 ± 0.24).

Significantly more students in the Rubric + Tutor group also agreed with the post-statement “I would enjoy science more if I didn’t have to write up the results” (by ANOVA; p=0.037; mean of the Rubric Only group 2.63, ± 0.29; mean of Rubric + Tutor group 3.6, SEM .29; mean of Self-Grade Rubric group 2.69, SEM 0.33) ( Figure 4 ). This difference was not detected during the pre-assessment (by ANOVA, p = 0.79).

More students in the Rubric + Tutor group agreed with the post-statement “I would enjoy science more if I didn’t have to write up the results.” Data depicts student responses on the Likert questionnaire administered at the conclusion of the semester, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree (by ANOVA; p=0.037; mean of the Rubric Only group 2.63 ± 0.29; mean of Rubric + Tutor group 3.6 ±.029; mean of Self-Grade Rubric group 2.69 ± 0.33).

Student Perception of Teaching Tools

The questionnaire also assessed how biology students judged the effectiveness of teaching tools to write more effectively. Students agreed or disagreed with the effectiveness of six methods commonly used to teach writing: working on drafts one-on-one with someone, modeling a paper after an example paper, watching someone else construct a paper from scratch, looking at a detailed grading rubric, participating in small group writing workshops, and listening about to how to place the experimental elements into the paper during a lecture. No significant differences were found in each group’s pre- vs. post- semester assessment responses.

When the post-semester assessment responses from all classes were pooled together (n= 44), we found that students perceived the effectiveness of scientific writing teaching methods very differently (by ANOVA; p <0.0001; using an example paper 4.17 ± 0.12; using a detailed rubric 3.98 ± 0.16; listening to a lecture about constructing science papers 3.8 ± 0.99; one-on-one assistance 3.78 ± 0.4; participating in small group workshops 3.63 ± 0.2; or watching someone else construct a paper from scratch 3.24 ± 0.17; data shown are means ± SEM, where 1 is strongly disagree with effectiveness and 5 is strongly agree) ( Figure 5 ).

Post-semester assessment showed that students thought the most effective ways to teach scientific writing were 1) using an example paper or 2) using a detailed rubric. Students though that 1) watching someone else construct a paper from scratch or 2) participating in small group writing workshops were the least effective ways to teach scientific writing (by ANOVA; p <0.0001; using an example paper 4.17 ± 0.12; using a detailed rubric 3.98 ± 0.16; listening to a lecture about constructing science papers 3.8 ± 0.99; one-on-one assistance 3.78 ± 0.4; participating in small group workshops 3.63 ± 0.2; or watching someone else construct a paper from scratch 3.24 ± 0.17; n = 44). Data depicts the means ± SEM of student responses on the Likert questionnaire administered at the conclusion of the semester, where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree.

Students rated using an example paper as significantly more effective than listening to a lecture about how to place experimental design elements into a paper (by t-test; p < 0.01), more effective than one-on-one assistance on paper drafts (by t-test, p = 0.02), more effective than participating in small group workshops (by t-test, p < 0.0001), and more effective than watching someone construct a paper from scratch (by t-test, p < 0.0001).

Students rated the use of a rubric as significantly more effective than watching someone construct a paper from scratch (p < 0.001), and more effective than participating in small group workshops (p < 0.0001).

Students also rated participating in small group workshops as less effective than one-on-one assistance on paper drafts (p = 0.02), and less effective than listening to a lecture about paper construction (p = 0.05). In fact, students rated participating in small group workshops as significantly less effective than nearly every other method.

Mean final course grades were not significantly different between the classes, nor were course or instructor evaluations scores different. The mean class grade for the Rubric Only section was 85.9%, the mean evaluation score for course structure was 4.0 (out of 5), and the mean instructor effectiveness evaluation score was 4.43 (out of 5). The mean class grade for the Rubric + Tutor section was 83.7%, the mean evaluation score for course structure scores was 4.25 (out of 5), and the mean instructor effectiveness evaluation score was 4.33 (out of 5). The mean class grade for the Self-Grade rubric section was 77.9%, the mean evaluation score for course structure scores was 4.07 (out of 5), and the mean instructor effectiveness evaluation score was 4.27 (out of 5).

Scientific writing falls underneath the umbrella of “Ability to Communicate and Collaborate with Other Disciplines,” as one of six core competencies in undergraduate biology education ( AAAS, 2009 ). Scientific writing is a skill that can be applied to the discipline of biological practice, and is also a key measure of biological literacy. AAAS focus groups involving 231 undergraduates reported that students request more opportunities to develop communication skills, such as writing assignments in class or specific seminars on scientific writing ( AAAS, 2009 ). In 2004, approximately 51% of undergraduate educators that attended past American Society for Microbiology Conferences for Undergraduate Educators (ASMCUE) reported that they introduced more group learning and writing components after attending an ASMCUE conference targeting biology education reform ( AAAS, 2009 ).

Additionally, as we noted in the introduction, scientific writing is an important part of undergraduate neuroscience education because it provides students with an opportunity to utilize writing-to-learn strategies to promote the merging of interpretative methods and rubrics with the hypothesis testing and experimental design that typically occurs in STEM fields to create a type of hybrid research paradigm ( Reynolds et al., 2012 ) and a more holistic approach.

As a growing number of schools embrace CURE curriculums, instructors will increasingly need to deal with the problem of how to have their students effectively communicate the results of the experiments they do. Scientific writing is the natural extension of a complete scientific project, and requires students to think clearly about process, argument, and making evidence-based conclusions. These competencies are linked to life-long skills, including critical thinking, and perhaps executive functioning.

Undergraduate students in our biology classes believe that the most effective ways to teach scientific writing are by providing an example paper, a rubric, or by effective lectures. Interestingly, these are all very “hands-off” approaches to learning, indicating that either the students crave more structure in this type of inquiry-based learning course, or that the students’ past experiences with one-on-one tutoring or small group based writing workshops were not ideal. It would be interesting to see if these types of attitudes persist in a more traditional lecture classroom format.

Peer Tutoring

Despite boosted confidence, the group of students who were required to use a peer tutor felt that scientific writing was boring and less enjoyable than students who were not required to visit a tutor. Peer tutoring, particularly in writing, has a long history of improved paper performance, with mostly positive subjective feedback from students. Certainly a student’s experience with a peer tutor may revolve around both the tutor’s willingness to help and competency in the subject matter, but even with a willing and competent tutor, students may be unhappy with what they perceive as an extra assignment (visiting the tutor). Previous studies show an added benefit of self-reported enhanced writing ability in the tutors ( Topping, 1996 ; Roscoe and Chi, 2007 ), a finding that was also reflected in the current study in informal post-experiment feedback from our tutors.

Tutoring services are a staple offering of most colleges and universities, but the training can be relatively general in nature. Tutoring centers can consider developing working relationships between individual science departments and their own subject tutors. Departmental faculty members can take a more active role in the tutoring by offering tutor training sessions, instruct the tutors about specific desirable ways to support students, and possibly follow up with their own assessments to track tutor outcomes.

Rubrics, Example Papers, and Effective Lectures

We find that undergraduate students in our inquiry-based biology classrooms believe that rubric use is a very effective way to teach science writing. As such, we propose that undergraduate neuroscience faculty consider that the use of rubrics may better fit the needs of beginning science students (and future students interested in upper level neuroscience courses) better than more commonly used peer review instructional methods. In particular, rubrics are a logical fit for use in inquiry-based writing instruction, since they provide needed structure, they clearly communicate standards for success in the classroom, and students think they are effective teaching tools. Yet rubrics remain an important tool for all disciplines at all college levels.

Most professors have rubrics that they use to assist with their own grading, but many do not share these rubrics with their students during the writing process. This is similar to withholding the driver’s manual from a Driver’s Ed student as they learn to drive by observation or by practicing driving around the parking lot. Use of the rubric may give the students an element of control otherwise missing from an assignment. Prior research shows that learners who are not in a power position demonstrate poor task performance, but do better when they are in control over their own learning ( Dickinson, 1995 ; Smith et al., 2008 ). Although we did not directly compare the use of a rubric with non-rubric use, perhaps the perception of control during learning is valuable, as more rigorous use of the rubric allows the student to essentially pre-determine what grade he or she will receive on each paper.

Nothing is wrong with teaching students the way they want to be taught. However, more research needs to be done to compare teaching methods. Students stated that a preference for “effective lectures” to teach scientific writing, but characteristics of these “effective lectures” need to be further elucidated. Exposing groups of students to various types of lecture styles and then administering a subsequent writing assessment would allow evaluation of both writing performance and allow students weigh in with their perceptions of what makes an “effective lecture.” Studies comparing use of example papers, very specific rubrics, and effective lectures would be helpful, as well as combinations of the three elements. It would also be helpful to track the specific responses of those students who go to focus their studies on neuroscience to see whether their views deviate from or adhere to the findings for the group as a whole.

Despite the frequent use of peer review or tutoring that is commonly used in writing workshops and with classroom paper rough drafts, we did not find that peer review boosted student perception of writing competence. Students prefer to hold the keys to classroom success in their hands—a printed out rubric or model paper is, in their eyes, more valuable than listening to or talking about writing.

Supplementary Information

Acknowledgments.

The authors would like to thank members of the Randolph-Macon Department of Biology, including Jim Foster, Charles Gowan, Grace Lim-Fong, Melanie Gubbels-Bupp, and Ryan Woodcock for sharing their Integrative Biology vision, as well as the Higgins Academic Center, Josh Albert, Megan Jackson, and Alyssa Warren for tutoring support.

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Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

Instructors have many tasks to perform during the semester, including grading assignments and assessments. Feedback on performance is a critical factor in helping students improve and succeed. Grading rubrics can provide more consistent feedback for students and create efficiency for the instructor/grader.

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work, including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations. Rubrics are helpful for instructors because they can help them communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly and efficiently. Finally, rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

• Workshop Recording (Fall 2022)
• Workshop Registration

Step 1: Define the Purpose

The first step in the rubric-creation process is to define the purpose of the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the assignment?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks?  
• Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?  
• What are the learning objectives for the assignment?  
• What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment?
• What would an excellent assignment look like?
• How would you describe an acceptable assignment?  
• How would you describe an assignment that falls below expectations?
• What kind of feedback do you want to give students for their work?
• Do you want/need to give them a grade? If so, do you want to give them a single overall grade or detailed feedback based on a variety of criteria?
• Do you want to give students specific feedback that will help them improve their future work?

Step 2: Decide What Kind of Rubric You Will Use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric consists of a single scale with all the criteria to be included in the evaluation (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) being considered together. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score (usually on a 1-4 or 1-6 point scale) based on an overall judgment of the student’s work. The rater matches an entire piece of student work to a single description on the scale.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Place an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save time by minimizing the number of decisions to be made
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Do not provide specific feedback for improvement
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Criteria cannot be weighted

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for an assignment listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row, often using numbers and/or descriptive tags. The cells within the center of the rubric may be left blank or may contain descriptions of what the specified criteria look like for each level of performance. When scoring with an analytic rubric, each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the rubrics are well defined
• May limit personalized feedback to help students improve

Single-Point Rubric . Similar to an analytic/descriptive rubric in that it breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria. The detailed performance descriptors are only for the level of proficiency. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• More likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments
• Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3: Define the Criteria

Ask yourself: What knowledge and skills are required for the assignment/assessment? Make a list of these, group and label them, and eliminate any that are not critical.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Review the learning objectives for the course; use the assignment prompt, existing grading checklists, peer response sheets, comments on previous work, past examples of student work, etc.
• Try describing A/B/C work.
• Consider “sentence starters” with verbs describing student performance from Bloom’s Taxonomy  or other terms to indicate various levels of performance, i.e., presence to absence, complete to incomplete, many to some to none, major to minor, consistent to inconsistent, always to usually to sometimes to rarely
• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider how you will weigh them in relation to each other

Step 4: Design the Rating Scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• Will you use numbers or descriptive labels for these levels?
• If you choose descriptive labels, what labels are most appropriate? Will you assign a number to those labels?
• In what order will you list these levels — from lowest to highest or vice versa?

Step 5: Write Descriptions for Each Level of the Rating Scale

Create statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric. For an analytic rubric, do this for each particular criterion of the rubric. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Start with the top/exemplary work category –what does it look like when a student has achieved excellence in each category? Then look at the “bottom” category –what does it look like when students have not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then add the categories in between.

Also, take into consideration that well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 6: Create your Rubric

• Develop the criteria, rating scale, and descriptions for each level of the rating scale into a rubric
• Include the assignment at the top of the rubric, space permitting  
• For reading and grading ease, limit the rubric to a single page, if possible
• Consider the effectiveness of your rubric and revise accordingly
• Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 7: Pilot-test your Rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher Assistants

Also, try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Use Parallel Language . Make sure that the language from column to column is similar and that syntax and wording correspond. Of course, the words will change for each section or assignment, as will the expectations, but in terms of readability, make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa. In addition, if you have an indicator described in one category, it will need to be described in the next category, whether it is about “having included” or “not having included” something. This is all about clarity and transparency to students.
• Use Student-Friendly Language . If students can’t understand the rubric, it will not be useful for guiding instruction, reflection, and assessment. If you want students to engage in using the rubric, they have to understand it. Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Use the Rubric with Your Students . You have to use the rubric with the students. It means nothing to them if you don’t. For students to find the rubric useful in terms of their learning, they must see a reason for using it. Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Don’t Use Too Many Columns . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.
• Common Rubrics and Templates are Awesome . Avoid rubric fatigue, as in creating rubrics to the point where you just can’t do it anymore. This can be done with common rubrics that students see across multiple classroom activities and through creating templates that you can alter slightly as needed. Design those templates for learning targets or similar performance tasks in your classroom. It’s easy to change these types of rubrics later. Figure out your common practices and create a single rubric your team can use.
• Rely on Descriptive Language. The most effective descriptions are those that use specific descriptions. This means avoiding words like “good” and “excellent.” At the same time, don’t rely on numbers, such as a number of resources, as your crutch. Instead of saying, “find excellent sources” or “use three sources,” focus your rubric language on the quality use of whatever sources students find and on the best possible way of aligning that data to the work. It isn’t about the number of sources, and “excellent” is too vague for students. Be specific and descriptive.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
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• DELTA – Rubrics: Making Assignments Easier for You and Your Students (2/1/2022)
• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics. Retrieved from http://resources.depaul.edu/teaching-commons/teaching-guides/feedback-grading/rubrics/Pages/default.aspx
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics. Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics. Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from    http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec96/vol54/num04/Understanding-Rubrics.aspx
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/designing-using-rubrics-andrew-miller
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1628-3_3

Sample Essay Rubric for Elementary Teachers

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An essay rubric is a way teachers assess students' essay writing by using specific criteria to grade assignments. Essay rubrics save teachers time because all of the criteria are listed and organized into one convenient paper. If used effectively, rubrics can help improve students' writing .

How to Use an Essay Rubric

• The best way to use an essay rubric is to give the rubric to the students before they begin their writing assignment. Review each criterion with the students and give them specific examples of what you want so they will know what is expected of them.
• Next, assign students to write the essay, reminding them of the criteria and your expectations for the assignment.
• Once students complete the essay have them first score their own essay using the rubric, and then switch with a partner. (This peer-editing process is a quick and reliable way to see how well the student did on their assignment. It's also good practice to learn criticism and become a more efficient writer.)
• Once peer-editing is complete, have students hand in their essay's. Now it is your turn to evaluate the assignment according to the criteria on the rubric. Make sure to offer students examples if they did not meet the criteria listed.

Informal Essay Rubric

Formal essay rubric.

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15 Helpful Scoring Rubric Examples for All Grades and Subjects

In the end, they actually make grading easier.

When it comes to student assessment and evaluation, there are a lot of methods to consider. In some cases, testing is the best way to assess a student’s knowledge, and the answers are either right or wrong. But often, assessing a student’s performance is much less clear-cut. In these situations, a scoring rubric is often the way to go, especially if you’re using standards-based grading . Here’s what you need to know about this useful tool, along with lots of rubric examples to get you started.

What is a scoring rubric?

In the United States, a rubric is a guide that lays out the performance expectations for an assignment. It helps students understand what’s required of them, and guides teachers through the evaluation process. (Note that in other countries, the term “rubric” may instead refer to the set of instructions at the beginning of an exam. To avoid confusion, some people use the term “scoring rubric” instead.)

A rubric generally has three parts:

• Performance criteria: These are the various aspects on which the assignment will be evaluated. They should align with the desired learning outcomes for the assignment.
• Rating scale: This could be a number system (often 1 to 4) or words like “exceeds expectations, meets expectations, below expectations,” etc.
• Indicators: These describe the qualities needed to earn a specific rating for each of the performance criteria. The level of detail may vary depending on the assignment and the purpose of the rubric itself.

Rubrics take more time to develop up front, but they help ensure more consistent assessment, especially when the skills being assessed are more subjective. A well-developed rubric can actually save teachers a lot of time when it comes to grading. What’s more, sharing your scoring rubric with students in advance often helps improve performance . This way, students have a clear picture of what’s expected of them and what they need to do to achieve a specific grade or performance rating.

Learn more about why and how to use a rubric here.

Types of Rubric

There are three basic rubric categories, each with its own purpose.

Holistic Rubric

Source: Cambrian College

This type of rubric combines all the scoring criteria in a single scale. They’re quick to create and use, but they have drawbacks. If a student’s work spans different levels, it can be difficult to decide which score to assign. They also make it harder to provide feedback on specific aspects.

Traditional letter grades are a type of holistic rubric. So are the popular “hamburger rubric” and “ cupcake rubric ” examples. Learn more about holistic rubrics here.

Analytic Rubric

Source: University of Nebraska

Analytic rubrics are much more complex and generally take a great deal more time up front to design. They include specific details of the expected learning outcomes, and descriptions of what criteria are required to meet various performance ratings in each. Each rating is assigned a point value, and the total number of points earned determines the overall grade for the assignment.

Though they’re more time-intensive to create, analytic rubrics actually save time while grading. Teachers can simply circle or highlight any relevant phrases in each rating, and add a comment or two if needed. They also help ensure consistency in grading, and make it much easier for students to understand what’s expected of them.

Learn more about analytic rubrics here.

Developmental Rubric

Source: Deb’s Data Digest

A developmental rubric is a type of analytic rubric, but it’s used to assess progress along the way rather than determining a final score on an assignment. The details in these rubrics help students understand their achievements, as well as highlight the specific skills they still need to improve.

Developmental rubrics are essentially a subset of analytic rubrics. They leave off the point values, though, and focus instead on giving feedback using the criteria and indicators of performance.

Learn how to use developmental rubrics here.

Ready to create your own rubrics? Find general tips on designing rubrics here. Then, check out these examples across all grades and subjects to inspire you.

Elementary School Rubric Examples

These elementary school rubric examples come from real teachers who use them with their students. Adapt them to fit your needs and grade level.

Reading Fluency Rubric

You can use this one as an analytic rubric by counting up points to earn a final score, or just to provide developmental feedback. There’s a second rubric page available specifically to assess prosody (reading with expression).

Learn more: Teacher Thrive

Reading Comprehension Rubric

The nice thing about this rubric is that you can use it at any grade level, for any text. If you like this style, you can get a reading fluency rubric here too.

Learn more: Pawprints Resource Center

Written Response Rubric

Rubrics aren’t just for huge projects. They can also help kids work on very specific skills, like this one for improving written responses on assessments.

Learn more: Dianna Radcliffe: Teaching Upper Elementary and More

Interactive Notebook Rubric

If you use interactive notebooks as a learning tool , this rubric can help kids stay on track and meet your expectations.

Learn more: Classroom Nook

Project Rubric

Use this simple rubric as it is, or tweak it to include more specific indicators for the project you have in mind.

Learn more: Tales of a Title One Teacher

Behavior Rubric

Developmental rubrics are perfect for assessing behavior and helping students identify opportunities for improvement. Send these home regularly to keep parents in the loop.

Learn more: Teachers.net Gazette

Middle School Rubric Examples

In middle school, use rubrics to offer detailed feedback on projects, presentations, and more. Be sure to share them with students in advance, and encourage them to use them as they work so they’ll know if they’re meeting expectations.

Argumentative Writing Rubric

Argumentative writing is a part of language arts, social studies, science, and more. That makes this rubric especially useful.

Learn more: Dr. Caitlyn Tucker

Role-Play Rubric

Role-plays can be really useful when teaching social and critical thinking skills, but it’s hard to assess them. Try a rubric like this one to evaluate and provide useful feedback.

Learn more: A Question of Influence

Art Project Rubric

Art is one of those subjects where grading can feel very subjective. Bring some objectivity to the process with a rubric like this.

Source: Art Ed Guru

Diorama Project Rubric

You can use diorama projects in almost any subject, and they’re a great chance to encourage creativity. Simplify the grading process and help kids know how to make their projects shine with this scoring rubric.

Learn more: Historyourstory.com

Oral Presentation Rubric

Rubrics are terrific for grading presentations, since you can include a variety of skills and other criteria. Consider letting students use a rubric like this to offer peer feedback too.

Learn more: Bright Hub Education

High School Rubric Examples

In high school, it’s important to include your grading rubrics when you give assignments like presentations, research projects, or essays. Kids who go on to college will definitely encounter rubrics, so helping them become familiar with them now will help in the future.

Presentation Rubric

Analyze a student’s presentation both for content and communication skills with a rubric like this one. If needed, create a separate one for content knowledge with even more criteria and indicators.

Learn more: Michael A. Pena Jr.

Debate Rubric

Debate is a valuable learning tool that encourages critical thinking and oral communication skills. This rubric can help you assess those skills objectively.

Learn more: Education World

Project-Based Learning Rubric

Implementing project-based learning can be time-intensive, but the payoffs are worth it. Try this rubric to make student expectations clear and end-of-project assessment easier.

Learn more: Free Technology for Teachers

100-Point Essay Rubric

Need an easy way to convert a scoring rubric to a letter grade? This example for essay writing earns students a final score out of 100 points.

Learn more: Learn for Your Life

Drama Performance Rubric

If you’re unsure how to grade a student’s participation and performance in drama class, consider this example. It offers lots of objective criteria and indicators to evaluate.

Learn more: Chase March

How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Come share your thoughts and exchange ideas in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, 25 of the best alternative assessment ideas ..

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What’s Wrong With Peer Review?

A series of high-profile retractions has raised questions about the process used by scientific and medical journals to decide which studies are worthy of publication..

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The latest in a series of high-profile retractions of research papers has people asking: What’s wrong with peer review?

Scientific and medical journals use the peer-review process to decide which studies are worthy of publication. But a string of questionable or allegedly fabricated research has made it into print. The problems were exposed only when outside researchers scrutinized the work and performed a job that many believe is the responsibility of the journals: They checked the data.

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• 06 November 2023

How big is science’s fake-paper problem?

• Richard Van Noorden

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Software will help publishers to detect fake articles produced by paper mills. Credit: Getty

The scientific literature is polluted with fake manuscripts churned out by paper mills — businesses that sell bogus work and authorships to researchers who need journal publications for their CVs. But just how large is this paper-mill problem?

An unpublished analysis shared with Nature suggests that over the past two decades, more than 400,000 research articles have been published that show strong textual similarities to known studies produced by paper mills. Around 70,000 of these were published last year alone (see ‘The paper-mill problem’). The analysis estimates that 1.5–2% of all scientific papers published in 2022 closely resemble paper-mill works. Among biology and medicine papers, the rate rises to 3%.

Source: Adam Day, unpublished estimates

Without individual investigations, it is impossible to know whether all of these papers are in fact products of paper mills. But the proportion — a few per cent — is a reasonable conservative estimate, says Adam Day, director of scholarly data-services company Clear Skies in London, who conducted the analysis using machine-learning software he developed called the Papermill Alarm . In September, a cross-publisher initiative called the STM Integrity Hub, which aims to help publishers combat fraudulent science, licensed a version of Day’s software for its set of tools to detect potentially fabricated manuscripts.

AI intensifies fight against ‘paper mills’ that churn out fake research

Paper-mill studies are produced in large batches at speed, and they often follow specific templates, with the occasional word or image swapped. Day set his software to analyse the titles and abstracts of more than 48 million papers published since 2000, as listed in OpenAlex, a giant open index of research papers that launched last year , and to flag manuscripts with text that very closely matched known paper-mill works. These include both retracted articles and suspected paper-mill products spotted by research-integrity sleuths such as Elisabeth Bik , in California, and David Bimler (also known by the pseudonym Smut Clyde) , in New Zealand.

Bimler says that Day’s “stylistic-similarity approach is the best we have at the moment” for estimating the prevalence of paper-mill studies, but he and others caution that it might inadvertently catch genuine papers that paper mills have copied, or cases in which authors have fitted real data into a template-style article. Day, however, says that he tried to keep false positives “close to zero” by validating the findings against test sets of papers that were known to be genuine, or fake. “There had to be a big signal for a paper to be flagged,” he says.

Day also examined a smaller subset of 2.85 million works published in 2022 for which a subject area was recorded in the OpenAlex database. Around 2.2% of these resembled paper-mill studies, but the rate varied depending on the subject (see ‘Subject breakdown’).

According to Bik, Day’s estimate, “although staggeringly high, is not impossible”. But she says that it’s not possible to evaluate Day’s work without seeing full details of his methods and examples — a concern echoed by cancer researcher and integrity sleuth Jennifer Byrne , at the University of Sydney in Australia. “Sadly, I find these estimates to be plausible,” Byrne adds.

Day, who regularly blogs about his work, says he aims to release more information at a later date, but adds that his desire to prevent competitors reverse-engineering his software, or fraudsters working around it, limits what he shares publicly. Sensitive information is shared privately with fraud investigators, he says.

Paper-mill detector put to the test in push to stamp out fake science

Overall, he sees his estimate as a lower bound, because it will miss paper mills that avoid known templates. The analysis indicates that paper mills aren’t spread evenly across journals, but instead cluster at particular titles. Day says that he won’t reveal publicly which publishers seem to be most badly affected, because he thinks it could be harmful to do so.

A June 2022 report by the Committee on Publication Ethics , based in Eastleigh, UK, said that for most journals, 2% of submitted papers are likely to have come from paper mills, and the figure could be higher than 40% for some. The report was based on private data submitted by six publishers, and it didn’t say how the estimates were made or what proportion of paper-mill manuscripts went on to be published.

Spotting paper mills

In the past few years, publishers have stepped up their efforts to combat paper mills, says Joris Van Rossum, director of research integrity at STM who led development of the STM Integrity Hub, with a focus on tools (including Day’s software) to help detect fraudulent submitted manuscripts. They now have multiple ways to screen for them. Bik, Byrne and others have pointed out many red flags, and the STM Integrity Hub has said that it now has more than 70 signals .

Text that follows a common template is only one sign. Others include suspicious e-mail addresses that don’t correspond to any of a paper’s authors; e-mail addresses from hospitals in China (because the issue is known to be so prevalent there); identical charts that claim to represent different experiments; telltale turns of phrase that indicate efforts to avoid plagiarism detection ; citations of other paper-mill studies; and duplicate submissions across journals. Day and those involved in the STM Integrity Hub will not reveal all of the signals that they use, to avoid alerting fraudsters.

‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers

In May, Bernhard Sabel, a neuropsychologist at Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany, posted a preprint suggesting that any paper with an author who was affiliated with a hospital and gave a non-academic e-mail address should be flagged as a possible paper-mill publication. Sabel estimated that 20–30% of papers in medicine and neuroscience in 2020 were possible paper-mill products, but dropped this to 11% in a revised preprint in October. He also acknowledged that his method would flag false positives, which many researchers criticized .

Whatever the scale of the problem, it seems clear that it has overwhelmed publishers’ systems. The world’s largest database of retractions, compiled by the website Retraction Watch, records fewer than 3,000 retractions related to paper-mill activity, out of a total of 44,000. That is an undercount, says the site’s co-founder Ivan Oransky, because database maintainers are still entering thousands of retractions, and some publishers avoid the term ‘paper mill’ in retraction notices.

Those retraction numbers are “only a small fraction of the lowest estimates we have for the scale of the problem at this stage”, says Day. “Paper-mill producers must feel pretty safe.”

Nature 623 , 466-467 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03464-x

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Call for Papers: Conflict & Change PhD Workshop 2024, 11th-12th March

20 November 2023

PhD students from across the world are invited to apply for our annual workshop on all issues related to peace, conflict and beyond. Limited travel and accommodation funding is available.

Deadline for abstracts: 8th December

The world is in crisis: The long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has again turned violent, generating devastating consequences for Israeli and Palestinian civilians and worries about wider regional instability. In Iran, the mobilisation of youth and women against the theocratic regime raises new questions on the methods, effectiveness and consequences of resistance against repression. The full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine continues to undermine some of the longest established norms in international politics, including the norm of territorial integrity. The involvement of external actors in most of these conflicts further complicates the situation, driving longer and more severe armed confrontations. These emerging and escalating crises take place against the backdrop of pressing issues such as climate change, inducing ever new reasons for governance crises, displacement, and conflict around the world. The need for scientific efforts to explain and understand these and other long-lasting protracted crises could not be greater.

The  Conflict & Change annual workshop for PhD and doctoral students across the UK and Europe  provides a platform for a discussion of these and similar issues, bringing together insights from various disciplines on the causes, consequences, and solutions to conflict and unrest.

The workshop focuses on the work of early career researchers, provides an opportunity to receive feedback from senior academics from the Conflict & Change research cluster at UCL, and fosters a strong community engaged in cutting-edge research. The workshop will be held on  11th-12th March, 2024 . Supported and hosted by the Conflict & Change research cluster at the UCL Department of Political Science, the workshop brings together doctoral students from various disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond, such as political science, economics, sociology, geography, and computer science.  Papers on all issues related to peace and conflict, contentious politics, mobilisation, human rights, and migration are welcome.

The two-day workshop will take place in London at UCL’s Bloomsbury campus and will feature research presentations and discussions, a keynote speech, a workshop dinner, possibilities to engage with policy-makers/practitioners, and additional opportunities to socialize. 

Limited funding for travel to London and accommodation are available and will be distributed to workshop participants after abstract acceptance.

Please submit an abstract (no more than 250 words) by 8th December   here . For questions and enquiries, please contact Ms. Yilin Su ( [email protected] )

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The Real Danger of Using Holocaust Analogies Right Now

A lmost immediately after the events of October 7th, Israeli leaders compared the day’s atrocities to those of the Holocaust. Speaking to other heads of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the Nova Festival to the 1941 massacre at Babi Yar and described Kibbutz children hiding in attics like Anne Frank. “We’re fighting Nazis,” declared former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in the wake of the attack which left 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped.

President Biden, for his part, echoed these themes. While in Tel Aviv the following week, he observed that, “[October 7th] became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” “The world watched then,” he added, “it knew, and the world did nothing. We will not stand by and do nothing again.”

As the conflict has raged on, other world leaders have flipped this comparison: Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed that Gaza resembles the Warsaw Ghetto, and Russian President Vladimir Putin likened the IDF’s ground invasion to Hitler’s siege of Leningrad.

Our discourse on social media hinges on similar—if heightened—appeals to Holocaust memory. Scores of posts compare the Palestinian territory to internment camps. This month, an NPR Instagram reel showed detained Gazans wearing numbered armbands administered by Israeli police. Immediately, a flood of commentators compared these to the arm tattoos of camp inmates. (“I wonder where I’ve seen that before…” reads the top comment.) At the same time, Jewish users on TikTok and Instagram challenge non-Jewish friends with the viral #WouldYouHideMe campaign, warning of another genocide.

We seem to be mired in a world with only one analogy. Godwin’s Law tells us that, on a long enough timeline, all internet debates end up with someone comparing their opponent to Hitler or the Nazis. Surely, we now need a corollary: every argument about injustice will eventually lead to someone comparing their side to the Holocaust.

Read More: It’s Not Easy to Be Jewish on American Campuses Today

There are reasons to resist this. The Holocaust is not the sole rubric for human suffering; Jewish history in particular has other, perhaps closer analogies to October 7th, including pogroms, with their wild, insurgent terror, as scholar Michael Berenbaum observed .

But this inflated Holocaust rhetoric is also not surprising. Trauma has a protected status in our debates, particularly among young adults. In the warped machinery of social media, where provocation begets fear, and where personalizing terrible news can have a cathartic valence, nothing hits harder than the worst thing ever. To put yourself in the Shoah is to claim an unchallengeable place in online argument. 

We should be skeptical of this, and even more skeptical when political leaders make these claims. Almost always, they’re used only to incite hatred and touch already raw nerves.

On the Palestinian side, we saw this in October from Turkish President Erdoğan. He rallied a crowd in Istanbul, declaring, “In the past they were massacring the Jewish people in the gas chambers… A similar mentality is being shown [by the IDF] in Gaza today.” This kind of talk does not humanize Palestinians – it instrumentalizes them as tokens. Their unique challenges disappear. There’s no reason why, if you were so inclined, you’d compare what’s happening in Gaza to the Holocaust instead of to the Rwandan, Armenian, or other genocide. Except for one important fact. This rhetoric grants the speaker an embedded defense: I can call the Jews the new Nazis, because I admit what the old Nazis did to the Jews. (That Erdoğan has previously downplayed the Holocaust should not be lost on us.)

Israeli leadership has not been careful with Holocaust comparisons, either. Take Israel’s envoy to the U.N., which, on October 30th, chose to don yellow Stars of David while speaking to the Security Council. This display may generate headlines, and perhaps sympathy, but it is not a proportionate historical comparison. The entire point of those yellow stars is that they were worn by people who couldn’t choose to take them on or off. Nor could they speak in their national assemblies, much less at the main forum for global relations.

To point this out is not antisemitic or anti-Israel. The opposite, in fact. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said as much last year, when he told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic , “I hate comparing, in any way, anything to the Holocaust… nothing today could be the Holocaust, because there is such a thing as the State of Israel, which is capable of defending itself.” If we believe in the protective promise of Israel, we must, to some degree, doubt the threat of another Shoah.

Yet some Israeli and Western policymakers want to have it both ways. Since Menachem Begin in particular, Israel’s leaders have engaged in what Thomas Friedman called the “Holocausting” of the Israeli psyche, using historical trauma to advance their agendas. The country, Friedman cautioned , was at risk of becoming “Yad Vashem with an air force”—a garrison state claiming “Never Again” as its battle cry. The two concepts are hardly unrelated. Holocaust memory—or mis-memory—can justify militarism at any scale.

This is the real danger of overusing such analogies. Holocaust comparisons are not just thought-terminating clichés: They are ideological weapons of mass distraction. By conjuring the rail tracks and smokestacks and their attendant horrors too often or in politicized moments, we don’t just disgrace the victims of the Shoah—their unique experience and heroism—we also chart a poor course for the future. 

In war, we talk a lot about proportionality: What is a reasonable, equitable military response to an event? If that event is the same as the worst thing that ever happened, what won’t we allow ourselves to do in return?

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