Evaluation criteria:

It is the ways and means by which your coursework will be evaluated and given a score (marks/grade)

There are two types of Evaluation criteria.

It is either the allocation of the percentage of marks to each element/segment/section/part of a coursework (or) 
It’s just a scale representing the quality expected in relation to the marks awarded. 

The former type of assessment criteria is simply called as the MARK ALLOCATION or ALLOCATION OF MARKS and the later is called as ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Please note: The examples below are just a representation of how the evaluation criteria could be and it definitely varies with different courseworks, evaluators and academic institutions. 

Example for Mark allocation: 

Segment/section/part/element % of marks allotted
Title 5%
Abstract 5%
Introduction 20%
Methodology 15%
Results 15%
Discussion 25%
Conclusion 5%
References 10%
Total marks 100%

Remember: The first column varies depending upon the type of coursework. No matter whatever the segments of your coursework is you will definitely have a marks allocation criteria representing the marks allocated for each segment of yourcoursework.

Remember: Marks allocation may not be applicable for some types of coursework but in most cases, more than 90% of different types of coursework must have mark allocation criteria. In exceptional cases or as some academic institutions prefer to give you Assessment criteria but that doesn’t stop you from asking them for Allocation of marks for your Coursework.

Rule: There is no rule that an evaluator or your course leader must provide you the Marks allocation criteria for your coursework, but it is YOUR RIGHT TO DEMAND mark allocation criteria (if that applies to your type of coursework) as a student for all your courseworks and your evaluator(s) or course leader(s) cannot deny it.

Assessment criteria is actually a overall scale by which your coursework will be evaluated.

Example for Assessment criteria:

Assessment Criteria @ @Marks in % @Grade
Exceeding the guidelines and provided with very high quality 
of writing. 80-100 A+


Very good understanding of the issues and there is very good 
evidence of understanding and critical evaluation of the topic 70-79 A


Good understanding of the issues and there is some evidence 
of understanding and critical evaluation of the topic 60-69 B


Need to understand better the issues and there is considerable 
evidence of understanding and critical evaluation of the topic 50-59 C


Little understanding of the issues and considerable evidence of 
understanding and critical evaluation of the topic 40-49 D


Poor or no understanding of the issues and little or no 
evidence on any of the critical evaluation < 40 E


No matter how the evaluators evaluate your coursework, make sure you know how they do it and write your coursework accordingly to maximise your chance of getting very high marks.

Remember: If the evaluation criteria given to you for your coursework are not clear, ask your course leader and be clear in understanding the evaluation criteria. By understanding the evaluation criteria very well, you come very close to write a very high marks demanding Coursework.

If you find this article useful, you may also like my book How to write a Coursework? 

Please note: An article on “Hidden Evaluation Criteria” is written in the book.

Click here to buy the book http://www.HowToWriteACoursework.com/buy_now.html 

Happy writing
Arun Rajan