Lessons from 1000 Blue Books

In my time as a T.A. at Penn I've graded a lot of blue books, ... a lot ... of blue books. Over a thousand of 'em. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I taught a number of courses that were outside the scope of my "advanced training." In other words, over the semester I was reading the material alongside my students and then I would evaluate them come test time. Since I wasn't an expert on much of the material, I had to expend a significant amount of energy when grading. This effort helped me pick up on some truths that can be helpful for anyone writing these kinds of exams (where you are asked to identify terms and write timed essay responses) in the social sciences, or in other contexts.

And before I start, just know that as your teaching assistant, I want you to succeed. Especially when there are other TAs, your performance reflects well on us, so do whatever you can to help me help you.

1) Be legible. This sounds obvious, but do what you need to do: write on just one side of a page, slow down, use every other line, again -- slow down. Just make it easier to read. As your grader, if I can read it quicker it helps me keep up with your line of thought. If I have to read slowly because I can't read your handwriting, I forget what you had written earlier. (*Sidenote: it hurts to give an exam with great handwriting a bad grade, just think about that).

2) Write your name. These are the two most important words you'll write. (Or student ID# or whatever the directions specify. You don't want your exam getting lost).

3) It's good to be right. (Can you believe this insight is free?)

4) It's worse to be wrong. Following up on the previous point. If you're not sure of something and hope it may be right, be very careful. If your grader spots something patently wrong they will take off points. If you don't write something that is incorrect, you hold onto those points. So by trying to overshoot your level of preparation, you can actually penalize yourself.

5) Start strong. If you're writing an essay, get your best insight out early. When I'm grading I tend to slot an essay into a very good/good/not good bucket pretty early and then see how the remainder of the essay changes my mind (for better or worse). Sometimes it can change significantly, but the key is that you want to start in the very good category, so state your thesis at the top and then support it!

6) Argue. You can take entire courses on how to do this (and should!), but to be brief: state your position, support it with evidence, and then downplay competing accounts. A very good way to do this is to create a "straw man," a weak incantation of an opposing argument that you can later dismantle. Hey, it's how the game works.

7) Answer the question. You spent the whole weekend studying for this exam -- and you know LOTS OF STUFF! That's great (and part of the whole purpose your teaching staff is giving you an exam). However, cramming as much of that stuff as you can into a blue book is not the way to get a good grade. Answer the question (as in, make sure your thesis addresses the topic of the question) as best you can, and then move on. The extra stuff is distracting, or worse (see point 4). (Also, make sure to answer any sub-questions. It may break up your writing flow, but your TAs have rubrics that address each part. Again -- I want you do well -- help me help you!).

...and my last suggestion is that if you're going to write a blog post designed to help students, you should probably publish it before their last final exam. Sorry guys.