Marking Criteria

Prior to starting your written work read through the marking criteria for your assessment item. This will help you understand what you need to include in your assessment and how to achieve the marks being awarded. The following are some tips for you to use when reading through the marking criteria:
What you need to do
Firstly, identify what the criteria is asking you to do in each section. Look for key words or phrases that give clues on the assessment requirements. For example, if you're asked to "Write three paragraphs in your introduction to introduce the topic, outline the background research, and provide hypotheses" you can take an educated guess that you will need a paragraph for each of the specified requirements. By identifying the key words or phrases this will help you understand what you need to write in your assessment.
Refer to course materials
Once you know what you need to do, refer to the lecture and tutorial content that covered this material. Look for specific instructions or examples relating to the topic and use these to develop your essay or report content. Sometimes tutorials will have step-by-step instructions on how to do certain sections of your assessment so don't forget to check this learning content!
Check section weightings
Check if there are weightings or specific marks given for the sections of the marking criteria. This will guide you on the importance of each section of the assessment and will indicate how much content you might want to include. For instance, if you are asked to write three individual hypotheses and this section is worth 4.5 marks, you can estimate that each hypothesis will be awarded 1.5 marks. This gives you the clue that you will need to write more than one sentence to give enough information to be awarded 4.5 marks. You were asked to write three individual, meaning 'separate', hypotheses so you may choose to write three sentences to meet this sections requirements. However, if all three hypotheses were worth 1.5 marks and you were asked to give a statement of the hypotheses, this section will not need as much detail. Evidently, identify how many marks sections are awarded and use this to understand 'what' and 'how much' content you will need to write.
Imagine you're the marker
Remember that your marker is using the marking criteria to award you marks. When writing your assessment content think "how can I best write using the given material to get marks outlined in the marking criteria?". The assessment marker can only give you marks based upon what you provide and not 'what you were trying to do'. Therefore, imagine you're the marker when doing your assessment and check that you would award yourself marks based upon what you have written.
Double check
When you finish your work check through the criteria again ensuring you have addressed all major points. If you are uncertain at all about criteria please check with the convenor or the person marking your assessment.