In the past few hours I've read both the best student paper I've seen this semester and the worst.
The terrific paper opens with a zippy sentence that ignites fireworks in my mind. The bad paper begins with a vague generalization.
The terrific paper approaches the topic in an unexpected and exciting way. The bad paper restates the same tired opinions that bored me when I first encountered them in student writing twenty years ago.
The terrific paper takes the assignment as a starting point and exceeds all expectations. The bad paper fulfills the bare minimum and then just sputters out.
The terrific paper relies on clear reasoning and information from reliable sources to make its points. The bad paper chases its own tail without ever really achieving anything except the required word count.
The terrific paper presents an original argument that advances the scholarly conversation on the topic. The bad paper was copied directly from a web site without attribution.
Despite these vast differences, these two papers have one important thing in common: they're both really easy to grade. If every paper resembled one of these extremes, I'd have that pile of papers finished in no time.
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