WRITING RUBRIC | PURPOSE AND AUDIENCEScore: | PURPOSE AND AUDIENCEScore: | DEVELOPMENTScore: | LANGUAGEScore: | A | Addresses purpose effectively, uses assignment to explore topic’s intrinsic interest, shows full understanding of issues, engages audience, establishes credibility, uses headings, format and citation in APA style (where relevant) effectively. | Focuses consistently on clearly expressed central idea, uses paragraph structure, and transition guide reader effectively. | Explores ideas vigorously, supports points fully using a balance of subjectivity and objective evidence, reasons effectively making useful distinctions. | Employs words with fluency, develops concise standard English sentences, balances a variety of sentence structures effectively. | B | Addresses purpose effectively, uses assignment to explore topic’s intrinsic interest, shows full understanding of issues, engages audience, establishes credibility, uses headings, format and citation in APA style (where relevant) effectively. | Central idea is clear, paragraph structure is adequate, some problems with consistency, logic or transitions. | Supports most ideas with effective examples and details, finds suitable balance between references to personal and external evidence, makes key distinctions. | Word forms are correct, sentence structure is effective, applies standard English grammar and mechanics. | C | Waivers in purpose, incompletely addresses assigned topics or directions, shows more need to examine issues, style varies, and visual presentation is ragged | Loose focus on central idea, contains some repetition and digression, structure needs work | Presents ideas in general terms, support for ideas is inconsistent or unsuitably personal or distant, some distinctions need clarifications, reasoning unclear. | Word forms and sentence structures are adequate to convey basic meaning, errors cause noticeable distraction. | D | Purpose unclear, failure to address topic or directions, weak group of issues, inappropriate style, careless or messy visual presentation | Does not focus on central idea, contains many repetitions and digressions, very weak structure. | Most ideas unsupported, confusion between personal and external evidence, unclear use of distinctions or levels of generality | Word use is weak, sentence structures are uneven, errors are very distracting. | F | Purpose unclear, does not address topic or directions, does not address issues, inappropriate style, careless or messy visual presentation | No central idea, no clear logic or focus, many repetitions or digressions, lack of structure | Ideas are unsupported, confusion between personal and external evidence, no distinctions between levels of generality, | Word use is unclear, sentence structures inadequate for clarity, errors seriously distracting. |