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Assessing Contribution Strengths and Development Areas: A Rubric
Contribution Categories
Structure and Stakes
| Well-Developed
(Ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The author clarifies the broader significance of the information presented in the piece.
- The piece communicates information in a cohesive manner: where appropriate, the piece includes transition statements that convey the connections between related ideas.
- The piece clearly connects to the broader goals of this critical edition as described at the beginning of this text. (In brief, the piece fosters other readers’ efforts to gain additional historical knowledge about the long nineteenth century, to reflect on the similarities and differences between 19th-century reading contexts and their own reading contexts, and/or to reflect on the social and economic factors that shaped readers’ encounters with Victorian literature.)
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| Opportunities for Development
(May be ready for inclusion, but revisions recommended.) |
- The piece would benefit from more focused introduction statements or additional transition sentences to tie the separate points in paragraphs together.
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| Requires Further Development
(Not yet ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- Organization issues may distract the reader from the piece’s central points. (Such issues might include abrupt transitions or confusing presentation of information.)
- The piece presents multiple different events or “takeaway points” that are disconnected from one another to a degree that may be disorienting or confusing for outside readers.
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Comprehensive Support for Historical Claims
| Well-Developed
(Ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The author supports each of their historical claims using primary and/or secondary sources.
- The piece provides appropriate citations for all claims drawn from other authors.
- A small proportion of cited sources may discuss the Victorian period broadly (rather than including more precise chronological information,) but the writer has not relied on these sources to support claims about the conditions specific to the mid-1800s.
- To the extent that the piece introduces historical information not otherwise communicated in this critical edition, the author moves beyond summarizing secondary sources and into purposeful synthesis. In other words, the author draws from multiple other authors’ perspectives and offers connective commentary that a reader could not have gained merely by reading each of those cited sources separately.
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| Requires Further Development
(Not yet ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The piece cites sources that don’t include sufficient chronological distinctions to support the author’s specific claims about life during the mid-1800s.
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* See the “Using Primary and Secondary Sources For Your Research” section of this project for additional guidance on appropriate sources.
Relevance, Trustworthiness, and Appropriate Use of Sources
| Well-Developed
(Ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The piece provides appropriate citations for all claims drawn from other authors.
- The piece provides a sufficient range of citations to allow an interested reader to learn more about each of the historical claims the author makes.
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| Requires Further Development
(Not yet ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- Some secondary sources don’t include traceable and/or reliable citations of their own.
- The piece lacks an appropriate range of citations to support its claims.
- The piece fails to grant credit to its sources.
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Clarity
| Well-Developed
(Ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The author uses vocabulary that is appropriate to a general audience that includes college students and people reading this volume outside of an academic context.
- The piece does not shift tone and tense without evident reason.
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| Opportunities for Development
(May be ready for inclusion, but revisions recommended.) |
- Some inconsistencies in vocabulary or abrupt shifts in tone and tense may be slightly distracting for a reader.
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| Requires Further Development
(Not yet ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- The piece contains a number of misapplied terms or distractingly long sentences that may negatively affect a reader’s understanding.
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Polishing
| Well-Developed |
- Minimal grammatical inconsistencies or typos.
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| Opportunities for Development
(May be ready for inclusion, but revisions recommended.) |
- Some grammatical or proofreading errors, but these aren’t likely to distract a reader or affect the meaning they take away from the essay.
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| Requires Further Development
(Not yet ready for inclusion in the text.) |
- Grammatical errors that are likely to substantially affect a reader’s ability to understand the piece’s content.
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