Sample Comments

Sample 1: Cryptic and Scant Marginal Comments

Minimal marks such as checks, underlines, and isolated adjectives (“good,” etc.) tend not to be very helpful because students often do not understand to what they refer (a phrase? a word? an idea?) or their full significance (good in what respect?).

Sample 2: Excessive and Confusing Marginal Comments

Excessive marginal comments can be demoralizing and confusing. More importantly, however, such excessive commentary makes it difficult for students to distinguish important issues (a problem with the thesis, for example) from trivial issues (a clunky turn of phrase, for instance). Marginal comments should reserved for relatively important issues.

Sample 3: Helpful Marginal Comments

Good marginal comments point to a few key issues and articulate those issues explicitly enough to be helpful.

Sample 4: Scant and Unclear End Comment

Short comments convey very little about what aspects of the paper are working and what aspects are not. What does it mean to give the music a “nice treatment?” What does “specificity” mean in this context and why would more of it be better? (More specificity is not always good.)

Sample 5: Scant and Hostile End Comment

The end comment above suffers from the same defects as the first one, but is also hostile. Comments — even on weak papers — should offer students some encouragement.

Sample 6: Detailed But Confusing End Comment

This comment is much more and detailed and substantive than the first two, but is poorly organized. In particular, the comment mixes important and less important issues in a confusing way. Note, for instance, that the third paragraph begins by talking about style but in the middle shifts to what appears to be a fundamental objection to the student’s main claim. It is preferable to address major issues first and minor issues later or not at all, since the student needs to have a clear sense of the hierarchy of issues in the paper.

Sample 7: A Well Organized, Detailed, and Clear End Comment.

The last end comment is successful because it (1) conveys a clear hierarchy of concerns, with important issues treated first and at length while minor issues are treated briefly and later; (2) is respectful in tone and offers some encouragement; (3) addresses a few important issues in detail rather than many issues briefly; and (4) it names the elements of the paper (“evidence,” “structure,” etc.).