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Automated Feedback | Choosing criteria as a student
Automated Feedback | Choosing criteria as a student
Updated over a week ago

Automated Feedback is a tool that helps you improve your academic writing products. While it offers more than 30 criteria in five overarching categories, not all are equally relevant all the time. In an Automated Feedback activity with student autonomy turned on, you can configure criteria on your own.This article will guide you through selecting the criteria to narrow down feedback to the most relevant ones for you.

There are two facets you can consider: the stage of your document, and your confidence in academic writing.

First: what is the stage of your document?

  • Early draft: Your first and second drafts of an assignment. In this stage, you focus on developing your academic voice, overall ideas, structure, and integrating different sources of information into your writing. You benefit from actionable feedback on in-text citations of tables and figures and basic usage of academic voice.

  • Complete draft: Your complete draft with most of your ideas and supporting evidence. In this stage, you should focus more closely on language, style, and expression to make sure your writing is clear, cohesive, and coherent. You benefit from actionable feedback on your writing’s adherence to formal academic writing conventions with a focus on clarity and cohesion, and the use of citations and references.

  • Final draft: Your final draft before submitting the assignment. This is the proofreading stage where you should pay close attention to details so that your final product is in its best state. You benefit from comprehensive and actionable feedback that includes annotations in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and references.

Document stage

Suggested criteria

Early draft:

we suggest to focus on getting feedback on academic voice

Active voice

Personal pronouns

Verb tense

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

Sentence length

Figure captions

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Table captions

Complete draft:

we suggest to focus on getting feedback on clarity and cohesion

Abbreviation introduction

Active voice

Formal writing style

  • Avoid contractions

  • Avoid starting a sentence with coordinating conjunctions

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Verb tense

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

Citation count of references

Citation style

  • Reference formatting

In-text citation of references

Reference content

Sections

Figure captions

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Table captions

Final draft:

we suggest to get feedback on everything to make sure your document is as good as it can be

Abbreviation introduction

Active voice

Formal writing style

  • Avoid contractions

  • Avoid starting a sentence with coordinating conjunctions

Grammar

Spelling

Punctuation

Verb tense

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

Citation style

  • Reference formatting

In-text citation of references

Reference content

Reference count

Required sections

Sentence length

Word count

Table of contents

Page numbers

Figure captions

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Table captions

Table count

Figure count

Then consider: How confident do you feel in English academic writing?

  • Not confident:You are a beginner in English academic writing and have completed only a few written assignments. You can form simple sentences to express your ideas and use some evidence to support your arguments. You benefit from actionable feedback on elements that are most relevant for expressing and connecting your ideas, including but not limited to the use of basic academic voice and the use of tables and figures.

  • Somewhat confident: You have some experience in English academic writing and feel comfortable writing most assignments. You can express your ideas effectively with a variety of linguistic devices and supporting evidence. You benefit from actionable feedback on common areas for improvement, such as the use of formal academic writing style, citations and references, and use of tables and figures.

  • Very confident: You have extensive experience in English academic writing and are effective in producing academic texts for different purposes. You benefit from proofreading your document to check for minor errors. You also benefit from actionable feedback on frequent minor errors in areas like active voice, punctuation, spelling, in-text citations, and citation style.

Document stage

Suggested criteria

Not confident:

we suggest to focus on getting feedback on most common errors

Abbreviation introduction

Active voice

Personal pronouns

Verb tense

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

Sections

Sentence length

Figure captions

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Table captions

Somewhat confident:

we suggest to focus on getting feedback on formal academic writing style

Abbreviation introduction

Active voice

Formal writing style

  • Avoid contractions

  • Avoid starting a sentence with coordinating conjunctions

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Spelling

Verb tense

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

Citation count of references

Citation style

  • Reference formatting

In-text citation of references

Reference count

Sentence length

Figure captions

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Table captions

Very confident:

we suggest to focus on getting feedback on frequent minor errors

Abbreviation introduction

Active voice

Formal writing style

  • Avoid contractions

  • Avoid starting a sentence with coordinating conjunctions

Grammar

Spelling

Punctuation

Citation style

  • Reference formatting

Vocabulary

  • Concise writing

  • Distinguish commonly confused words

  • Proper word combinations

In-text citation of references

Sentence length

Word count

Page numbers

In-text citation of figures

In-text citation of tables

Besides the suggested criteria, we also recommend that you play around in the tool with the filters and sorting options to find the most relevant criteria for you.

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