How I grade ISE/M 5600 Leadership Essays (parody)

NOTE: this document is an attempt at humor after a long day. There is a serious version of the same basic topic on my blog.

After a string of either failing, falling, low, or lower grades, We thought it might be helpful to offer a peek behind the curtains. This is how we, at the great and powerful Oz really grade Leadership Essays.

When the paper comes in, the FIRST thing we do is flip a coin, you can check the blockchain. Heads, we run it through Grammerly. As a graduate student at SANS.EDU you have access to Grammerly; think about using it, (it even checkz spellin). It is the last item on the rubric, we do that to trick you into thinking it is not important. But if the truth be told, if your writing is sloppy, that impacts several other dimensions of the assignment such as time, height and weight. Crisp and clear are too keys two victory.  If the paper scores 95 or higher on Grammerly, I usually don't take a break, I dive right in and fill in the rubric without reading it.

If the paper scores below 90 on Grammarly, I tend to stop and pour a mug of cold beer; this one is going to take a while. Marginal papers require actual work on the part of the instructor. That is a bad situation for both you, the student and the economy, please avoid it.

A final word on writing quality. Several of the rubric items require the reader/grader to understand what the author intended. It would help if you actually intend something.

The assignment asks for a single aspect of transitional leadership. A rehash of what transitional leadership is probably detracts from your message. We have all been through re-organizations, job creation, abolishment and economic restatements. Try to break new ground instead of repeating the fundamentals.

Your grader probably won't look at the literature research, or, references. The key to winning is quantity. If you have thirty ill-chosen, vaguely related references you can expect a high score, because they don't know. One or two references is, however, a losing proposition; this isn't a book report. There is nothing wrong with using printed literature, your grader may not have access to that, consider at least a few Internet references that can be validated in the unlikely event they check.

Most graders are fairly neutral about style, 8.0 is fairly neutral and that is what you should expect to receive. If it is extraordinary, they may go higher, if it is painful too read, they may score lower, but they are not movie critics, hence, the neutral score on style. That said, HINT, when the rubric mentions transitional sentences at multiple score levels, put a few in! The key is to repeat the same word in the last sentence of one section, then use it again in the next. Consider, putting these repeated words in bold for ease of grading, as well as to make grading easier.

Finally, your graders are routing for you. We want you to succeed. We get a dollar bonus if a paper we nominate as an exemplar is approved as a nominated exemplar and posted on the nominated exemplar section of the web page.