Professionalism Rubric

For written assignments:

3 = assignment was on-time, neat, orderly and meets all formatting standards. No typographical, grammatical, spelling or careless errors.

2=assignment was legible throughout; few typographical, grammatical, spelling or careless errors.

1= presentation was hard to read, at least in spots; typographical, grammatical, spelling or careless errors were common.

0 = unacceptable

Some oral assignments may also have professionalism points. Items which may be evaluated: on-time (both beginning and ending), appropriate dress, appealing visual aids that meet written standards, bringing all necessary materials

Additional “Professionalism” scoring:

On written reports (primarily written lab reports):

For each page of text (not title page or graphs) you are allowed 2 “free” typographical, grammatical, spelling or careless errors.

For each error more than this (regardless of where they occur), 0.5 points will be deducted from your assignment score.

You will also lose 1 point for each deviation from a formatting criteria. After midterm, this penalty may increase to 2 points.

Checklist of formatting requirements for Written Reports (Most common items, for specifics see Style Guide)

Manuscript format (for text)

Word-processed, Double-spaced (with no extra spaces between paragraphs)

Use appropriate heading style

EVERY paragraph is indented

Left justification only

Standard margins and font

Page numbers

Chemical names are NOT capitalized (unless, of course, it begins a sentence)

Stapled in upper left corner

Abbreviations

defined upon first use and used consistently

standard unit symbols and chemical formulas do not need to be defined

Numbers

Use appropriate units

Space between number and unit except ˚C

Zero before the decimal on fractions

Scientific notation in the format of N x 10^a

Figures and Tables (“graph” is not an appropriate label!!!)

Cited in text (note: these are titles, use title case)

Numbered in order of appearance. (e.g., Figure 1)

Collect Figures and Tables at the end of the manuscript

Include a Figure caption at the bottom instead of a title

Caption should have format: Figure 1. Title of the figure. Descriptors, if any that are not already included on the graph.

Captions are single-spaced

Tables should be single-spaced and complete on one page.

Tables should have a title in the format: Table 1. Title of table.

Equations

On own line, centered or significantly indented

Numbered

Variables defined

Formatting for Problem Sets

Handwritten, in pencil, is preferred

All numbers are legible

Each problem is numbered

Each step is clearly shown, including equation used

Problems are submitted in proper order

Final answer is circled or otherwise totally obvious

Heading Style

MAJOR DIVISIONS

Examples of this are: introduction, experimental section, results, discussion and conclusion.

Subheadings. For example, you might want to divide your experimental section into “materials” and “instrumentation.” Note the capitalization, bold font and punctuation and indentation.