Holistic Scoring Method

Holistic scoring –sometimes called focused holistic scoring— is a method by which trained readers evaluate a piece
of writing for its overall quality. The holistic scoring requires readers to evaluate the work as a whole, while
considering four elements: focus, organization, support, and conventions. In this type of scoring, readers are trained
not to become overly concerned with any one aspect of writing but to look at a response as a whole. All four
elements receive a score from 1 to 10 separately; then the sum total is divided by four and the result of this is
converted into percentage which, in turn, is converted into a grade according to the 70% scale. Therefore, a score of
40 = 7,0 and a score of 28 =4,0.

Focus
Focus refers to how clearly the paper presents and maintains a main idea, theme, or unifying point as well as tone,
register, shifts in person, verb forms, incomplete ideas, overgeneralizations, referential elements and Spanish-
like constructions.

Papers at the lower and middle scores may contain information that is loosely related, extraneous, or both. They
consider genre, thesis statement, and double subject.

Papers representing the higher end of the point scale demonstrate a consistent awareness of the topic and do not
contain extraneous information.

Organization
Organization refers to the structure or plan of development (beginning, middle, and end) and whether the points
logically relate to one another. Organization refers to (1) the use of transitional devices to signal the relationship
of the supporting ideas to the main idea, theme, or unifying point and (2) the evidence of a connection between
sentences (coordination, subordination, parallelism).

Papers at the lower and middle scores may lack transitional devices and summary or concluding statements or
may present an overuse of transitional expressions as well as faulty parallel structures and inversion.

Papers representing the higher end of the point scale use transitions to signal the plan or text structure and end
with summary or concluding statements.

Support
Support refers to the quality of the details used to explain, clarify, define or describe. The quality of support
depends on word choice, collocations, wordiness, specificity (e.g. appropriate examples), depth, credibility,
inappropriate expressions, and awkward constructions of sentences.

Papers at the lower and middle scores may contain support that is a bare list of events or reasons, support that is
extended by a detail, or both.

Papers representing the higher end of the point scale provide fully developed examples, illustrations and
description in appropriate places; the relationship between the supporting ideas and the topic is clear.

Conventions
Conventions are basic writing skills and refer to punctuation, capitalization, spelling, format, prepositions,
articles and variation used in the paper. These conventions are basic writing skills.

Papers at the lower and middle scores may contain some or many errors in punctuation, capitalization, spelling,
faulty word order, contractions (depending on the genre), plurality, format, wrong use of articles and prepositions

Papers representing the higher end of the scale follow, with few exceptions, the conventions of punctuation,
capitalization, and spelling and use a variety of sentence structures to present ideas.

Each criterion has a weight of 10. Each error in Focus, Organization and Support=-1.0
Each error in Conventions=-0.25. 70%=28pts=4.0