How is your MA paper marked?

We're in the middle of the end-of-year assessment period for university courses. This is a short post in answer to several questions I’ve received about the core requisites of an MA assignment.

All assignments submitted for marking in an MA programme are judged according to criteria which vary from university to university, but these are core criteria:

1. Organisation and Presentation. Ability to organise and present work clearly and to write accurately and coherently.

2. Accurate and appropriate handling of references and sources.

3. Awareness and Comprehension of key concepts and ideas. Command of the subject matter and understanding of key concepts and ideas. Awareness of relevant theories and research literature in the field and ability to relate these critically to the assignment topic.

4. Analysis and Critical/Professional Evaluation. Ability to analyse and evaluate relevant arguments and develop a critical commentary. Ability to show clearly the relationship between theory and practice.

4. Research (if research study conducted) Clarity and relevance of research questions, research methodology and data analysis. Recognition of limitations of study.

Note that the second criterion (accurate and appropriate handling of references and sources) is taken VERY seriously by most markers. Lots of markers go straight to the References section at the end and if it's a mess, they are predisposed to give the paper a low mark. It takes just a few hours to learn how to format in-text citations and the References section, yet many students fail to pay attention to this. You might well say - and I'd agree - that no paper should be marked down for poor citations & References, but just recognise that it's part of the game and take the trouble to do it properly.

In my opinion, the most important criteria are coherence and cohesion. No good paper lacks them; all bad papers demonstrate a failure to appreciate their importance. You simply cannot write well unless you appreciate the vital role which these two factors play. So: how do we define them?

* When something has coherence, it makes sense.

* When something has cohesion, it flows.

That’s it; it’s that simple. If a text is coherent, it develops a logically consistent argument; and if it’s cohesive it helps the reader follow that argument. When a text is coherent and cohesive it meets the minimum standards required of an academic text, and the obvious implication is that when an academic text fails to meet these basic requirements, it fails.

All papers submitted as part of an MA should have an argument. A paper should answer a question. It should develop a thesis. It should involve reasoning and evidence and include relevant examples and citations which support the reasoning; that’s the coherent bit. It should present the reasoning in a way that leads the reader through the argument step by step and signal each step; that’s the cohesive bit. Bad papers fail to do this. Typically, the literature review in bad papers reads like a list: Smith (1998) says this; Jones (2018) says that; Brown (2022) says the other. Good papers show how Smith was a pioneer, how Jones improved on that base, and how Brown made a further refinement.

First, articulate the question and give an overview. Next, state the thesis. Then review the literature. Then discuss your thesis with reference to the literature and argue your case. Then conclude. Once you have a draft, revise it, paying special attention to transitions—that is, checking to be sure that a reader will be able to follow the sequences of ideas within sentences, from sentence to sentence, from paragraph to paragraph, and from section to section.

As they say, I hope this helps.