I have finished grading your revisions of Position Paper #1 (PP1). This (long!) message contains: * The grading rubric I used * Instructions on how to interpret the scoring on your paper, which I'll hand back in class on Wednesday * Statistics on the grades * Comments on the papers ======================================================================== PhilCS 4/584 Position Paper #1 Grading Rubric 16 Feb 10 ======================================================================== 1. Premise 1: Did you state clearly whether you agreed or disagreed with it? (Doesn't matter whether you agreed or didn't agree, only with whether you said so.) 3 pts = clearly stated whether you agreed or not 2 pts = not clearly stated but implied 1 pts = stated, but incorrect terminology 0 pts = did not clearly state whether you agreed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Did you give your reasons for your (dis)agreement? 3 = reasons given, clearly stated, & pertinent 2 = partial credit: I couldn't decide between 1 & 3 1 = reasons given, but not clearly stated or not pertinent 0 = no reasons ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Premise 2: Did you state clearly whether you agreed or disagreed with it? (Doesn't matter whether you agreed or didn't agree, only with whether you said so.) 0, 1, 2, or 3, as for Premise 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Did you give your reasons for your (dis)agreement? 0,1,2, or 3, as for Premise 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Valid? no answer: 0 yes; XOR no, but no MP: 1 no, with wrong MP or yes, with right MP: 2 no, with right MP: 3 (MP [Missing Premise] = computers are not natural phenomena) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. Evaluation of MP (agree? why?): no evaluation 0 dis/agree, but no reason 1 dis/agree, w/ unclear reason 2 dis/agree, w/ clear/pertinent reason 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. Conclusion: Did you state clearly whether you agreed or disagreed with it? 3 = clearly stated whether you agreed 2 = not clearly stated, but implied 0 = did not clearly state whether you agreed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. Did you give your reasons for your (dis)agreement? 0,1,2, or 3 points, as for premise 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9. Citation style: used sources w/o citing -3 used sources w/ incomp & incorrect citation -2 used sources w/ incomp XOR incorrect citation -1 not applicable 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Attached draft 1 & list of peer editors to demo that draft 2 <> draft 1? 0 Didn't -1 ======================================================================== The total is 24 points, which, following my grading theory, maps into letter grades as follows: letter CSE484 both CSE/PHI584 A 23-24 A- 22 B+ 21 B 19-20 B- 18 C+ 17 C 14-16 9-16 C- 11-13 D+ 9-10 D 5-8 F 0-4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On my grading scheme, "A" means "understood the material for all practical purposes", (here, that's 24 pts = 8 parts * 3 pts full credit) "B" has no direct interpretation, but comes about when averaging A and C grades "C" means "average", (here, that's max 16 pts = 8 * 2 pts partial credit) "D" means "did not understand the material, (here, that's max 8 pts = 8 * 1 pt minimum credit) "F" usually means "did not do the work" (i.e., 0 pts), but can also come about when omitting some parts and doing D work on others. Please see my grading website, http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howigrade.html for the theory behind all of this, which, by the way, I'm happy to discuss via UBLearns email. ======================================================================== Instructions on how to interpret the scoring on your paper: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When you get your papers back, you will see a numerical score and a letter grade at the top, in the format g/24 = X where "g" is the total number of points you got, based on the above rubric (and "24" is the max number of points), and "X" is the letter-grade equivalent. The body of the paper will contain some brief comments I wrote while reading your papers. If you can't read my handwriting, please come see me before or after class, or during office hours. Near the end of your paper, you will see a list of between 8 and 10 numbers; each is either 0,1,2, or 3, or, in the case of n8 and n9, they might be negative numbers: n1 n2 n3 n4 n5 n6 n7 n8 n9 These correspond to the items on the grading rubric, so, e.g., a list that looks like this: should be interpreted like this: 3 full credit on dis/agreement with premise 1 3 full credit on reason for your dis/agreement 3 full credit on dis/agreement with premise 2 0 no credit for your reason for your dis/agreement (i.e., I couldn't find any reason in what you wrote) 2 partial credit for saying whether the argument is valid (by the way, it is not valid as written!) 1 minimal credit for evaluating the missing premise (namely, computers are not natural phenomena) 2 partial credit on dis/agreement with conclusion 3 full credit for your reason for your dis/agreement -2 negative credit for problems with citations -1 negative credit for failing to attach draft 1 w/peer comments YOU MAY REMOVE THE NEGATIVE CREDIT BY HANDING IN A REVISION THAT USES PROPER CITATION FORMATS BOTH IN THE BODY OF THE PAPER AND IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHY SECTION. PLEASE READ MY "How to Write" WEBSITE FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howtowrite.html#citations ======================================================================== Statistics: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The point ranges were: CSE 484 5 (D) - 23 (A) CSE/PHI 584 9 (C) - 24 (A) The overall average was 17 (C+); I haven't yet computed separate grad/undergrad averages. ======================================================================== Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The main problem I saw was that many of you presented your own opinions (which is good), but didn't necessarily *support* those opinions (which is not good), and--more importantly--didn't deal directly with the engineering dean's *argument*. Philosophy is a conversation--a long one that's been going on for several thousand years, on a wide variety of topics. But it's not just a lot of people shouting their own views. It's a lot of people *rationally critiquing* each others' views. The point of philosophy is not merely for each of us to present (and defend) our own theories, but to assist others in evaluating *their* theories (with the hope that they will assist *us* in evaluating our own theories!). Therefore, you must first grapple with another person's theories before presenting your own; that's how you join in the conversation. You can then present your own theory as a contrast to the other person's theory. And, so, given an argument (such as the dean's) with premises (i.e., reasons) for a conclusion, you need to evaluate *it* before presenting your own views. (If you're a good writer, you can sometimes figure out how to present your own views in the process of evaluating the other's). And there's a technique (maybe even an algorithm? :-) for doing that kind of evaluation: 1. Evaluate each explicit premise. That is, for each premise, determine whether it's true or false (or whether you agree with it or not, or whether it's plausible or not), *and* say *why* you believe that it's true (or plausible). (In other words, give *another* argument for or against each premise of the argument that you're evaluating.) A reminder: Premises can't be "valid" or "invalid" and arguments can't be "true" or "false". Premises are sentences, so they *can* be true or false. Arguments are *sequences* of sentences that are "valid" just in case it's impossible for all of its premises to be true while its conclusion is false. And you should try to avoid saying that a statement or an argument is "correct" or "incorrect", because those aren't technical terms, and it's hard to know what's meant by them. You should also try to avoid saying that a conclusion of an argument is "valid": As a statement, a conclusion is either true or false. As a conclusion, it either *follows validly* or not. But to merely call it "valid" is ambiguous. 2. Identify any *missing* premises that must be assumed in order for the conclusion to follow logically (or "validly". This can be difficult (or even impossible: sometimes there are no missing premises, and sometimes there cannot be any--nothing will make the argument valid), and it takes some practice; it requires you to be a bit of a detective, as well as to be logical. For example, in the dean's argument, the only way his conclusion that computer science is not a science follows logically (i.e., validly) from his premises (whether or not his premises are true, and whether or not you agree with them) is for there to be a third premise (the missing one): that the "computers and related phenomena" that computer science is the study of (according to the second premise) are *not* among the "natural phenomena" that science studies (according to the first premise). 3. Evaluate the missing premises (as you did in step 1 for the explicit premises). 4. Evaluate the conclusion. You can criticize it for not following logically from the premises (including the hidden ones), or else you can agree with it because it does follow from them *and* because you believe the premises. If you think it does not follow from the premises (either because there's no logical argument, even with missing premises added, that leads from the premises to the conclusion, or because--even though there is--you believe that one or more of the premises is false), you might still believe the conclusion for different reasons. And *that's* where your personal opinion can come in--as long as you present your *own* argument in defense of your opinion! Following this procedure as an outline for your evaluation of an argument yields the classic structure for a philosophy paper: A. Thesis (presented as an argument for a conclusion). B. Evaluation of the thesis (usually a discussion of the problems with the argument). C. Presentation of your own (presumably better!) argument. (I should add, especially for those of you who are philosophy students, that not all philosophy papers (not even all good ones) take this classic form. But this is a good way to get started writing philosophy.) If you feel that I misunderstood something you wrote, I'll be happy to re-read your paper. There *may* be an opportunity later in the semester to *revise* one of your position papers, so please don't ask to revise this one now.