Semi Automatic Grader: Product Features

What Do I Get?

What you get with your purchase is a comprehensive grading environment, an entire battery of more than NINETY essay grading tools that automate common feedback and streamline a variety of assessment and markup tasks.

While the grading environment is turned "on" (Just click the "ON" button!), this is what the top of your Word screen will look like. When you click "OFF," (not pictured) things go back to normal.

Tool Buttons Speed your Grading!

Eight customizable rubrics (including a six-plus-one trait rubric) speed your assessment and help you avoid calculation errors.

Four search and flag tools automatically alert students to weak verb habits, overuse of the second person, contractions in a formal essay, or all three at once (all in a split second)!

And of course, using Microsoft Word's "Insert Comment" tool (seventh from the left, bottom row), you can write your own comment at any time. And for you keyboard fanatics, I've predefined just a couple of keyboard shortcuts.

Complete Features List

A reminder that the selected word should be two words, not one.

A reminder to never quadruple space in MLA.

A reminder to avoid abbreviations in academic writing.

Indicates improper use of an adjective when an adverb will do.

A reminder that summary is not analysis.

Antecedent unclear, with hyperlink.

Indicates an awkward sentence construction and suggests revision for brevity and clarity.

Notes problems on the works cited page and links to a video showing how to use Word to format and create a works cited page according to MLA guidelines.

How and when to use a block quote, with hyperlink.

Tells student to avoid caps lock on the Works Cited page, even when the original title used it.

A reminder of the MLA rules for use of in-text citation, with hyperlink.

Reminds students that the quote ends before the citation begins.

Used to mark a comma splice, with definition and hyperlink.

Much shorter feedback used to mark repeated CS errors.

Advises students to follow demonstrative pronouns -- this, that, these, those -- with a noun.

Explains the use of commas when attaching an introductory dependent clause, with hyperlink.

Requests that the student provide an example.

A reminder to use Times New Roman, size 12 or Calibri 11

Used to mark a sentence fragment, with definition and hyperlink.

Much shorter feedback used to mark repeated sentence fragment errors.

Explains how to use a hanging indent on the works cited page.

Explains the difference between "its" and "it's."

Indicates "dead wood" words that contribute only filler without meaning.

Lower case.

Indicates improper use of poetry or song lyrics.

Advises against language that implicates the essay's author rather than his or her ideas.

Notes repeated MLA format errors and links to a video showing how to format in Word according to MLA guidelines.

Marks a sentence which ends in a preposition.

Provides the comma rule when beginning a sentence with a prepositional phrase.

Explains the academic preference for the present tense when citing.

Indicates a pronoun agreement problem.

Indicates passive voice and discusses its intended use.

Offers suggestions for prefacing and integrating a direct quote.

Offers the MLA rules for the use of single quotes.

Marks and explains a Run-On sentence.

Much shorter feedback used to mark repeated sentence fragment errors.

Inserts a scalable image indicating that the rubric will appear on a subsequent page. I use this tool because some students don't scroll past their works cited page to notice there is now a rubric.

Flags a word or phrase that weakens or otherwise detracts from the assertiveness of writing.

Flags slang.

Flags a spelling or similar-but-wrong usage error.

Advises against "speech language" such as "First I will tell you about . . ."

Requests a needed citation.

Flags subject - verb agreement problems.

Flags the use of an incorrect verb tense.

Explains the difference between "that" and "who/whom", with hyperlink.

Explains the difference between then and than.

Explains the difference between there, their, and they're.

Flags a poor or missing thesis and articulates the key features required of a good thesis.

Explains that "they" is not a singular pronoun.

Advises students against referring to the essay itself.

Advises against quoting or otherwise decorating (font size, color, etc.) the essay title.

Explains the rules for underlining or quoting titles, with hyperlink.

Flags a weak or missing topic sentence, with hyperlink to more resources.

Flags a place where a transition is needed.

Notes that upper case should be used.

Indicates a weak vocabulary choice, with hyperlink.

Opens the word count toolbar.

Used to remind a student if you have banned general web-based sources for a given assignment.

Recommends against the use of the second person.

Reminds student of double-spacing rules.

Explains use of the colon.

Explains use of the semi-colon, with hyperlink.

Marks any sort of comma error, with a hyperlink to more information about comma use.

Notes the margin rules for MLA style.

Explains the use of the ellipses.

Explains comma use for items in a series.

Recommends elision.

Recommends beginning a new paragraph at the indicated point.

Notes that two selected words should be joined.

Notes that a paragraph should be indented .5".

Recommends that something should be inserted.

Recommends that the indicated items should be transposed, with hyperlink.

Flags something as unclear.

Offers detailed rules for using, captioning, and citing images in an academic essay.

Explains the MLA rules for when to write out numbers.

Advises against the informality of contractions.

Flags improper use of the apostrophe in an attempt to create the plural form of a word.

Indicates that a word should be possessive, with hyperlink.

Offers a link to the Dakota State University Online Writing Lab, where a number of resources are available to improve student writing.

Flags accidental plagiarism, with hyperlink.

Searches and highlights in the appropriate color, banned terms in the essay for all 3 of the following "offenses":

Searches and highlights in yellow uses of the second person in the essay.

Searches and highlights in green uses of contractions in the essay.

Searches and highlights in aqua uses of "Be" verbs in the essay.
(Personally, I never ban Be verbs, but I use this to indicate a habit that a student may have of almost never using dynamic verb choices.)

Advises against the informality of the dash in academic writing, but also offers the correct usage if it is warranted, with hyperlink.

Inserts a Microsoft Word-based rubric.

Inserts Rubric1

Inserts Rubric2

Inserts Rubric3

Inserts Rubric4

Inserts Rubric5

Inserts Six-Plus-One-Trait Rubric

Inserts Rubric7

Inserts Rubric8

Opens an empty comment balloon.

Opens an audio comment, which allows you to record your own voice in a comment balloon anchored to a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or entire page of a student's essay.

Opens the stylus tool (for Tablet PCs).

Highlights selected text.

View comments by reviewer; handy for reviewing peer reviewed drafts.

Open a new, blank Word document.

Open file.

Save file.

Save As file. I use this tool every time I mark up a draft, because I always add the word "FEEDBACK" to the filename provided by a student so he or she doesn't have to delete all my comments if he or she accidentally downloads my feedback file and replaces the original. Hence, "JohnnysComp1Essay.doc" becomes "Johnny'sComp1EssayFEEDBACK.doc".