Advice for Students Stuck at a 5 out of 6 in Criterion

(with no legitimate errors flagged)

Students can sometimes feel frustrated when they use Criterion to improve their writing.  

They may find that they “fixed” all of the flagged potential errors, having zero issues, and still are only getting a 4 or a 5.   

Remember, Criterion’s scoring is not only based upon what you did wrong, but also based upon what you did right.  It may be that you have no errors, but there isn't enough evidence of quality writing in your document such as good vocabulary, transitions, structure, and sentence complexity.

To help, here is some advice from students over the years that brought up their scores:

1.        When in Doubt, Use the Five Paragraph Essay Structure

a.        Paragraphs -- Intro, Body 1, Body 2, Body 3, Conclusion

b.        Transitions between paragraphs

c.        Thesis Statement at end of Intro Paragraph

d.        Topic Sentences at the top of each Body Paragraphs

e.        Concluding Statement at the top of the Concluding Paragraph

2.        Put More “Meat on the Bone”

a.        Elaborate your points.  Restate and expand your thoughts to make them more clear, more specific, and more directly stated.

b.        Prove Examples.  Connect the idea that you have and show it in practice.  Illustrate what you mean through an example that is thoroughly developed.

c.        Explanations – Explain your thinking.  Make sure that someone without any background in what you are talking about understands your point.

d.        Details – The more specific you can be, the more controlled your message is, the stronger it will be.  Add details to paint a very clear picture of what you are talking about.

e.        Connect the Dots between Ideas with Transitions.  It helps the reader to move from one concept to the other. 

3.        Give Your Word Choices an Extreme Make Over

a.        Ferret out easy, boring, every day words

                                                               i.      Example:  Instead of walk, use traipse.  Instead of ran, use sprinted.

b.        Replace them with more sophisticated, complex, and/or  interesting words

                                                               i.      Example:  Use Extra Curricular Activities instead of school sports and clubs

c.        Show off your word muscles!  Try to use expert words that apply to the subject

                                                               i.      Example:  Use Cardiac Arrest in place of Heart Attack

d.        (Hint:  Use a few of your Vocabulary Words)

e.        Don’t forget Transitional Words and Phrases!

                                                               i.      Secondly, Therefore, For example, As a result of, In addition to

4.        Fix Your Word Repetitions

a.        You don’t have to eliminate all of the repeated words, but just “thin the heard” to use less of the same words over and over

b.        Using a thesaurus can help, but be careful – the meaning may change for the worse! 

c.        Sometimes the issue is about where the word is positioned in the sentence.  If you move the repeated word around within its placement within a sentence a bit, that will help significantly.

d.        Especially avoid beginning sentences all the same way, “I would, I would…”

e.        Some mention of yourself in the intro and conclusion may be appropriate, depending upon the prompt.  But overall, shift the focus away from it being like a conversation (You, Me, I, Them) and toward focusing on the ideas.  In other words, take yourself and your “talkiness” out of the essay in order to concentrate on your ideas or points. 

5.        Vary Your Sentence Length

a.        If you tend to write long-winded, complicated, rambling run on sentences, break some of them up into smaller chunks.  Not all, but just some.

b.        If you tend to write only short, choppy sentences, combine some of them in order make more interesting, complex sentence patterns.

c.        Variety matters!  Make sure that your sentences don’t all sound the same.

6.        Check for Fluency   

a.        Read your essay out loud verbatim – word for word as is.  Sometimes we think that we wrote something that is different than what we actually wrote.  We sometimes “fill in the gaps” when reading aloud, but what we say isn’t necessarily what we wrote. 

b.        Better yet, use Kurzweil reader to have your essay read back to you.  You’ll be surprised by what you hear.

c.        Make sure that your sentences are complete and that the ideas aren’t muddled or confusing.

Remember, Criterion is only a machine.  All of the above suggestions will not only increase your score, but will also increase the quality of your writing plain and simple.  This advice applies to good writing outside of Criterion.