Now and then, students ask me how to get their Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) issue essays graded. Of course, the best way is to get them graded from an expert, but if you can’t find someone with the specific skill set, then an alternative would be to self-grade them. In this post, I will discuss how one can self-grade their GRE Issue essays.
AWA score is used by graduate schools to evaluate your writing and analytical skills. Two separate trainers read these essays, and they score each piece based on a few factors. But how do you improve your writing if you aren’t a good writer and cannot identify places that need improvement? To make your life easy, I will share with you three aspects of issue essay writing that count towards your score. These aspects are ‘Ideas & Examples,’ ‘Structure and Paragraphing,’ and ‘Grammar and Word Usage.’
In this Article
Ideas & Examples
You know that in an issue essay, you will have to create your argument on a topic. The most critical aspect is to provide relevant and convincing ideas that support your side of the story. Moreover, if you back those ideas with great examples, you will gain a lot of points. Although ETS does not share its grading criteria, in my experience for every relevant idea and a strong case to back it, you will get 1 to 1.5 points. So if you write on three ideas with examples, you will quickly go up to 4 or 4.5 points.
Organization and Paragraphing
Giving a great idea backed by a solid example is the most crucial aspect of an issue essay. However, if you do not sustain a well-focused discussion and have improper paragraphing with no introduction or conclusion, you will lose a few points.
If there is no flow from one sentence to next or from one paragraph to the next, or if you haven’t used structure words like ‘Moreover,’ ‘Nevertheless,’ ‘Therefore,’ ‘Hence’ etc. followed by no variation in sentence length, then your write up becomes very dull and clumsy to read. Make sure that your essay is smooth and flowing with proper paragraphing. I recommend a separate paragraph for each idea (and its example) and different paragraphs for the introduction and conclusion. In my opinion, a good introduction, conclusion, and ideas (with examples) in separate paragraphs will fetch you one additional point.
Grammar and Word Usage
Although the focus of an issue essay is to create a compelling argument that is well structured, you will lose marks if your essay is full of incorrect grammar, spellings, or word usage. In my experience, 8-10 such errors are acceptable. For more mistakes, the reader will penalize you because then the essay becomes too hard to read – with the reader pausing every second to grasp your error-filled message. With no grammar and spell checker available, you must spend some time, in the end, to make sure that your essay does not have such errors. A few mistakes are unavoidable, and the GRE will not deduct marks for those – nevertheless, ensure that the mistakes are not many.
Summary
3 Ideas backed with good Examples = 4 points
5 Paragraphs (1 for each intro, conclusion, and 1 for each of the ideas and examples) = 1 point
Little to none grammar or word usage mistakes = 1 point
Total = 6 points 🙂
Issue Essay Grading Schema
For a grade of 5-6:
For a grade of 3.5-4.5:
For a grade of 1-3:
