rubric to grade research paper

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

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 can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. 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: Analyze the assignment

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

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

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

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed 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 cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. 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
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• 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 whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

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

Step 7: Create your rubric

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 8: Pilot-test your rubric

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

• Teacher assistants

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.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . 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.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

	Above Average (4)	Sufficient (3)	Developing (2)	Needs improvement (1)
(Thesis supported by relevant information and ideas	The central purpose of the student work is clear and supporting ideas always are always well-focused. Details are relevant, enrich the work.	The central purpose of the student work is clear and ideas are almost always focused in a way that supports the thesis. Relevant details illustrate the author’s ideas.	The central purpose of the student work is identified. Ideas are mostly focused in a way that supports the thesis.	The purpose of the student work is not well-defined. A number of central ideas do not support the thesis. Thoughts appear disconnected.
(Sequencing of elements/ ideas)	Information and ideas are presented in a logical sequence which flows naturally and is engaging to the audience.	Information and ideas are presented in a logical sequence which is followed by the reader with little or no difficulty.	Information and ideas are presented in an order that the audience can mostly follow.	Information and ideas are poorly sequenced. The audience has difficulty following the thread of thought.
(Correctness of grammar and spelling)	Minimal to no distracting errors in grammar and spelling.	The readability of the work is only slightly interrupted by spelling and/or grammatical errors.	Grammatical and/or spelling errors distract from the work.	The readability of the work is seriously hampered by spelling and/or grammatical errors.

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper

The audience is able to easily identify the central message of the work and is engaged by the paper’s clear focus and relevant details. Information is presented logically and naturally. There are minimal to no distracting errors in grammar and spelling. : The audience is easily able to identify the focus of the student work which is supported by relevant ideas and supporting details. Information is presented in a logical manner that is easily followed. The readability of the work is only slightly interrupted by errors. : The audience can identify the central purpose of the student work without little difficulty and supporting ideas are present and clear. The information is presented in an orderly fashion that can be followed with little difficulty. Grammatical and spelling errors distract from the work. : The audience cannot clearly or easily identify the central ideas or purpose of the student work. Information is presented in a disorganized fashion causing the audience to have difficulty following the author’s ideas. The readability of the work is seriously hampered by errors.

Single-Point Rubric

Advanced (evidence of exceeding standards)	Criteria described a proficient level	Concerns (things that need work)
	Criteria #1: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #2: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #3: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
	Criteria #4: Description reflecting achievement of proficient level of performance
90-100 points	80-90 points	<80 points

More examples:

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• 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.

Center for Teaching Innovation

Resource library.

• AACU VALUE Rubrics

Using rubrics

A rubric is a type of scoring guide that assesses and articulates specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics can be used for a variety of assignments: research papers, group projects, portfolios, and presentations.  

Why use rubrics? 

Rubrics help instructors: 

• Assess assignments consistently from student-to-student. 
• Save time in grading, both short-term and long-term. 
• Give timely, effective feedback and promote student learning in a sustainable way. 
• Clarify expectations and components of an assignment for both students and course teaching assistants (TAs). 
• Refine teaching methods by evaluating rubric results. 

Rubrics help students: 

• Understand expectations and components of an assignment. 
• Become more aware of their learning process and progress. 
• Improve work through timely and detailed feedback. 

Considerations for using rubrics 

When developing rubrics consider the following:

• Although it takes time to build a rubric, time will be saved in the long run as grading and providing feedback on student work will become more streamlined.  
• A rubric can be a fillable pdf that can easily be emailed to students. 
• They can be used for oral presentations. 
• They are a great tool to evaluate teamwork and individual contribution to group tasks. 
• Rubrics facilitate peer-review by setting evaluation standards. Have students use the rubric to provide peer assessment on various drafts. 
• Students can use them for self-assessment to improve personal performance and learning. Encourage students to use the rubrics to assess their own work. 
• Motivate students to improve their work by using rubric feedback to resubmit their work incorporating the feedback. 

Getting Started with Rubrics 

• Start small by creating one rubric for one assignment in a semester.  
• Ask colleagues if they have developed rubrics for similar assignments or adapt rubrics that are available online. For example, the  AACU has rubrics  for topics such as written and oral communication, critical thinking, and creative thinking. RubiStar helps you to develop your rubric based on templates.  
• Examine an assignment for your course. Outline the elements or critical attributes to be evaluated (these attributes must be objectively measurable). 
• Create an evaluative range for performance quality under each element; for instance, “excellent,” “good,” “unsatisfactory.” 
• Avoid using subjective or vague criteria such as “interesting” or “creative.” Instead, outline objective indicators that would fall under these categories. 
• The criteria must clearly differentiate one performance level from another. 
• Assign a numerical scale to each level. 
• Give a draft of the rubric to your colleagues and/or TAs for feedback. 
• Train students to use your rubric and solicit feedback. This will help you judge whether the rubric is clear to them and will identify any weaknesses. 
• Rework the rubric based on the feedback. 

• Basics for GSIs
• Advancing Your Skills

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:

	The student clearly understands how to solve the problem. Minor mistakes and careless errors can appear insofar as they do not indicate a conceptual misunderstanding.
	The student understands the main concepts and problem-solving techniques, but has some minor yet non-trivial gaps in their reasoning.
	The student has partially understood the problem. The student is not completely lost, but requires tutoring in some of the basic concepts. The student may have started out correctly, but gone on a tangent or not finished the problem.
	The student has a poor understanding of the problem. The student may have gone in a not-entirely-wrong but unproductive direction, or attempted to solve the problem using pattern matching or by rote.
	The student did not understand the problem. They may have written some appropriate formulas or diagrams, but nothing further. Or they may have done something entirely wrong.
	The student wrote nothing or almost nothing.

[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.

	Student decomposes the velocity (a vector quantity) into its vertical component
	Student realizes that the motion should be decomposed, but does not arrive at the correct expression for
	No attempt at decomposing the 2D motion into its vertical component.
	Student successfully translates the physical question (the highest point of the ball) to an equation that can be used to help solve the motion ( ).
	Student identifies the maximum height condition with minor mistakes.
	Incorrect or missing identification of maximum height condition.
	Applies the kinematic equations to yield a correct expression for the height in terms of the given variables. Solution uses the fact that the vertical motion has a constant downward acceleration due to gravity. The sequence of steps clearly demonstrates the thought process. Most likely, the solution includes solving for the time it takes to reach the top and then uses that time to see how far up the ball traveled.
	Mostly correct application with minor error (e.g. algebraic mistakes or incorporating extraneous equations).
	Equations include relevant parameters from the problem, but the student does not isolate relevant variables being solved for (such as time or distance).
	Some kinematics formulas are written down but they are not connected with the information in the problem.
	No attempt.
	Correct numerical answer with appropriate units.
	Mostly correct answer but with a few minor errors. Still physically sensible answer (e.g. units and numerical values are reasonable).
	No attempt or physically unreasonable answer (e.g. a negative maximum height or reporting the height in units of seconds).

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

5	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is clearly stated and defensible.
4	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is defensible, but it is not clearly stated.
3	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity but is not defensible using the evidence available.
2	Argument is presented, but it does not pertain to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity.
1	Social factors and educational opportunity are discussed, but no argument is presented.

Three-Point Scale

	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is clearly stated and defensible.
	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity but may not be clear or sufficiently narrow in scope.
	Social factors and educational opportunity are discussed, but no argument is presented.

Simplified Three-Point Scale, numbers replaced with descriptive terms

Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is clearly stated and defensible

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.

	The paper is driven by a clearly stated, defensible argument about the relationship between social factors and educational opportunity. Sufficient data is used to defend the argument, and the data is accurately interpreted to identify each school’s position within a larger social structure. Personal educational experiences are examined thoughtfully and critically to identify significance of external social factors and support the main argument. Paper reflects solid understanding of the major themes of the course, using course readings to accurately define sociological concepts and to place the argument within a broader discussion of the relationship between social status and individual opportunity. Paper is clearly organized (with an introduction, transition sentences to connect major ideas, and conclusion) and has few or no grammar or spelling errors. Scholarly ideas are cited correctly using the ASA style guide.
	The paper is driven by a defensible argument about the relationship between social factors and public school quality, but it may not be stated as clearly and consistently throughout the essay as in an “A” paper. The argument is defended using sufficient data, reflection on personal experiences, and course readings, but the use of this evidence does not always demonstrate a clear understanding of how to locate the school or community within a larger class structure, how social factors influence personal experience, or the broader significance of course concepts. Essay is clearly organized, but might benefit from more careful attention to transitional sentences. Scholarly ideas are cited accurately, using the ASA style sheet, and the writing is polished, with few grammar or spelling errors.
	The paper contains an argument about the relationship between social factors and public school quality, but the argument may not be defensible using the evidence available. Data, course readings, and personal experiences are used to defend the argument, but in a perfunctory way, without demonstrating an understanding of how social factors are identified or how they shape personal experience. Scholarly ideas are cited accurately, using the ASA style sheet. Essay may have either significant organizational or proofreading errors, but not both.
	The paper does not have an argument, or is missing a major component of the evidence requested (data, course readings, or personal experiences). Alternatively, or in addition, the paper suffers from significant organizational and proofreading errors. Scholarly ideas are cited, but without following ASA guidelines.
	The paper does not provide an argument and contains only one component of the evidence requested, if any. The paper suffers from significant organizational and proofreading errors. If scholarly ideas are not cited, paper receives an automatic “F.”

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.

	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is clearly stated and defensible.
	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity and is defensible, but it is not clearly stated.
	Argument pertains to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity but is not defensible using the evidence available.
	Argument is presented, but it does not pertain to relationship between social factors and educational opportunity.
	Social factors and educational opportunity are discussed, but no argument is presented.
	The data is accurately interpreted to identify each school’s position within a larger social structure, and sufficient data is used to defend the main argument.
	The data is accurately interpreted to identify each school’s position within a larger social structure, and data is used to defend the main argument, but it might not be sufficient.
	Data is used to defend the main argument, but it is not accurately interpreted to identify each school’s position within a larger social structure, and it might not be sufficient.
	Data is used to defend the main argument, but it is insufficient, and no effort is made to identify the school’s position within a larger social structure.
	Data is provided, but it is not used to defend the main argument.
	Personal educational experiences are examined thoughtfully and critically to identify significance of external social factors and support the main argument.
	Personal educational experiences are examined thoughtfully and critically to identify significance of external social factors, but relation to the main argument may not be clear.
	Personal educational experiences are examined, but not in a way that reflects understanding of the external factors shaping individual opportunity. Relation to the main argument also may not be clear.
	Personal educational experiences are discussed, but not in a way that reflects understanding of the external factors shaping individual opportunity. No effort is made to relate experiences back to the main argument.
	Personal educational experiences are mentioned, but in a perfunctory way.
	Demonstrates solid understanding of the major themes of the course, using course readings to accurately define sociological concepts and to place the argument within a broader discussion of the relationship between social status and individual opportunity.
	Uses course readings to define sociological concepts and place the argument within a broader framework, but does not always demonstrate solid understanding of the major themes.
	Uses course readings to place the argument within a broader framework, but sociological concepts are poorly defined or not defined at all. The data is not all accurately interpreted to identify each school’s position within a larger social structure, and it might not be sufficient.
	Course readings are used, but paper does not place the argument within a broader framework or define sociological concepts.
	Course readings are only mentioned, with no clear understanding of the relationship between the paper and course themes.
	Clear organization and natural “flow” (with an introduction, transition sentences to connect major ideas, and conclusion) with few or no grammar or spelling errors. Scholarly ideas are cited correctly using the ASA style guide.
	Clear organization (introduction, transition sentences to connect major ideas, and conclusion), but writing might not always be fluid, and might contain some grammar or spelling errors. Scholarly ideas are cited correctly using the ASA style guide.
	Organization unclear or the paper is marred by significant grammar or spelling errors (but not both). Scholarly ideas are cited correctly using the ASA style guide.
	Organization unclear and the paper is marred by significant grammar and spelling errors. Scholarly ideas are cited correctly using the ASA style guide.
	Effort to cite is made, but the scholarly ideas are not cited correctly. (Automatic “F” if ideas are not cited at all.)

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

The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Designing grading rubrics.

• Teaching Resources
• Course Design
• Feedback on Student Learning
• Grading Criteria and Rubrics

Why use rubrics? Rubrics help instructors grade and provide feedback on assessments that have more than one correct answer in an efficient and equitable way. They facilitate transparency in grading, as well as increase consistency in scoring.

When given alongside an assignment, students can use rubrics to gain understanding about the purpose of an assignment, to provide peer feedback, or to engage in self-assessment. Multiple graders or reviewers produce more consistent results when they have been trained in using the rubric and have been provided with exemplars (for reviews of the research see Jonsson & Svingby, 2007; Reddy & Andrade, 2010).

Three Elements of a Rubric

A rubric involves three elements: 1) the criteria for assessing the product or performance, 2) a range of quality levels, and 3) a scoring strategy. There is enormous flexibility for instructors to construct rubrics that reflect their teaching perspective within these three parameters. 

Criteria define the distinct elements of expert or competent performance of the tasks central to the assignment. As the number of criteria increases, so does the amount of time required to review assignments. Too few criteria can lead to a rubric that does not effectively assess the range of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to complete the task assigned. Generally, 4 to 6 criteria assess the breadth of competencies that are most essential to an assignment. 

A single criterion can be used to create a holistic rubric with very general descriptions. Holistic rubrics do not provide targeted feedback and research suggests they are less consistently used. Holistic rubrics work well to speed grading for low stakes activities that only need very general feedback (e.g., discussion forum posts or responses). For more significant assignments, an analytic rubric with multiple criteria is more useful for reviewers and students. Effectively selecting the most important criteria is the first step to designing effective analytic rubrics.

Once the most essential criteria for competently completing the assignment have been identified, different quality levels need to be identified. Selecting the number of quality levels is a critical decision. While a greater number of quality levels allows for finer distinctions, more levels increase the time required to develop the rubric and to review assignments. In addition, research has shown that as the number of quality levels increases, consistency across graders or reviewers decreases. Considering the ultimate grade distinctions that will be made in the course can help determine the appropriate levels of quality for significant assignments.

The labeling of quality levels requires careful reflection. In learning contexts, instructors typically distinguish levels of competence, mastery, or expertise. This framing emphasizes a developmental teaching perspective and communicates a growth mindset. Instructors should beware of quality descriptors that demoralize students (e.g., incompetent, barely adequate, almost competent).

The most equitable rubrics create a detailed table describing the key features for each criteria at each quality level. Criteria are listed along the left-most column (often according to hierarchy of importance or process order) and quality levels are arranged across the top row of the table (either from low to high or high to low). Each of the remaining table cells is filled with a description of key features that can be observed for the specific criteria at that quality level. These often focus on key factors that represent bottlenecks in student learning or critical steps to increased levels of competence.

Rubrics are flexible tools and instructors use a range of strategies to score student work using rubrics including:

• Setting weights for each criterion, and single scores for each quality level. This approach speeds grading and minimizes discretion that might be a source of bias.  Many digital tools support this strategy.
• Weighting criteria and providing a range of scores for each quality level. This approach supports instructors interested in making more fine-grained distinctions.
• Focusing on the overall combination of quality levels across criteria to assign a grade. This is a simplified grading structure that focuses on the overall grade and holistic judgment of the instructor or grader. For larger course enrollments, this strategy increases the risk of inconsistent or biased grading.
• For drafts and formative assessments, focusing on providing students feedback with the rubric and simply assigning a complete or incomplete grade can be an efficient and effective strategy

Suggestions for Creating a Rubric

Consider what, exactly, you want students to learn from the assignment. Write this down; it will guide the creation of criteria for your rubric.

Decide how you want to grade students. What elements of the assignment do you want to give them feedback on? This means determining the criteria associated with the task. To determine the criteria, think again about the goals of the assignment. What do you want students to accomplish? What do you want them to learn? Keep these criteria descriptions brief. Also, try to have an even, rather than an odd, number of criteria. This prevents the middle criterion from becoming a catch-all, allowing for more nuance in grading.

Decide whether you will use a letter grade, percentages, points, a rating scale, or some other scoring method in your rubric. How will you label them? With numbers or descriptive labels? 

Make sure the descriptors follow a logical progression. That is, descriptors indicating poor performance should be distinctly different from descriptors indicating high performance. And there should be consistency within the descriptors, meaning they should focus on particular attributes that carry through all criteria. 

Rubrics offer a more objective means of assessing student work, but that doesn’t mean they should assume a negative tone or offer an overly pointed critique of the learner. Try to refer to the assignment rather than the student when developing criteria. Avoid overly subjective language and use active voice where appropriate.

Test your rubrics with a variety of scores for each criteria and see how significantly an outlier in one criterion will impact the overall grade. Consider whether adjustments to the weighting of criteria or the way points are allocated would more accurately reflect the appropriate grade.

Asking a colleague to review the rubric in advance is one of the best ways to ensure that your expectations are clear. You can ask colleagues to focus on specific elements of the rubric or to provide overall feedback.

Rubric Tools

Canvas rubrics, resources and works cited.

Rubrics for Assessment from Northern Illinois University

Types of Rubrics from DePaul Teaching Commons

Types of Rubrics: Holistic and Analytic from Queen’s University

Know Your Terms: Holistic. Analytic. And Single-Point Rubrics

Jonsson, A., & Svingby, G. (2007). The use of scoring rubrics: Reliability, validity and educational consequences.  Educational Research Review , 2(2), 130–144.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2007.05.002

Reddy, Y. M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education.  Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 35(4), 435–448.  https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930902862859

Additionally, Dannelle D. Stevens & Antonia J. Levi,  An Introduction to Rubrics  (Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2005), is available as an online Brown Library resource and in the Sheridan Center’s library.

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iRubric: 6th grade Research project Rubric

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