Grading Shortcut Guide Now Available!

If you would like to spend less time grading papers, you won't want to miss John Donnellan's teaching guide, How to Create and Use Building Blocks in Microsoft Word 2007 to Grade Papers Electronically, available by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.

Professor John Donnellan, who teaches at the University of Texas, Austin, explains how to use Microsoft Word 2007's Quick Parts Gallery feature to help you save time as you plow through your students' work.

The process involves two basic steps. The first is to create "building blocks," a drop-down list of text comments to insert into assignments as you grade. The comments can include any of the following:

• Definition of the error
• Explanation of why the error is significant
• Example of the error
• Explanation of how to fix the error
• Example that does not include the error

The feature even allows you to include hyperlinks to online help resources.

After you've created the building blocks, the next step is to add them to the Quick Parts Gallery. Professor Donnellan's guide provides step-by-step details with screen-shot graphics to guide you through this process. He also explains how to insert the comments into documents as you grade.

Once you've used this great time-saving shortcut, you may never want to go back to your old grading method again. Happy grading!

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How to Create and Use Building Blocks in Microsoft Word 2007 to Grade Papers Electronically