Gradatorium: Before you download

Before we start, a few notes on these collected sample papers.

Representative, not exemplary
First, in selecting the papers for this website, we chose examples which we felt reflected work that was attainable for any student. These papers are not, then, the "perfect" C or B or A because there is no "perfect" C or B or A. Rather than being "exemplary" papers, they are representative: they represent what students can do. These are papers written by students just like you, who had troubles with papers at the start of the semester but who were able to come this far. If they can do it, you can too. Each of these papers could use more work-even the A-because we believe that any paper can be improved. That's one of the reasons we stress revision in our courses. So, as you read the papers, focus on what makes them work as this or that grade despite any weaknesses the paper may still have.

Standards, not standardized
You should also notice that the teachers commenting on these papers don't identify all the same reasons for the paper to get that particular grade. It's important to realize that all teachers have their own "styles" of grading which emphasize slightly different features of the paper. At the same time, you will see that each of the teachers makes comments that reflect back to the grading criteria. So, while there is some slight variation in grading, there remains a single grading criteria for the entire course. We do have standards for our grades, but the grades are not standardized. Your instructor's grading might be a bit different, but probably only a bit.

Useful, not used
Finally, we encourage you to study these papers to help improve your own writing, but you should also review our plagiarism section to make sure that you don't overstep the bounds of intellectual property. We hope you find these papers useful, but you should only use them to help you understand your own work better.

Reading the papers
Because of the length of these sample papers, each one is only excerpted here on the website, allowing you to get a sense of how it "sounds." However, each paper is available for download as a PDF file. Many browsers allow you to read these documents without saving the file or launching another program. If your browser does not open the PDF file, you can download the FREE Acrobat Reader at the Adobe website.

next >>