I have a big pile of essays to mark and wondered if anyone had any advice. As I have posted previously, I am teaching a subject which is new to me so I'm worried that I won't know whether an essay is good or not because I'm not an expert on the topic. Some of the essays are on areas which have not been touched on in the seminars I run so I know even less about it. Obviously I can see where the grammar, spelling, sentence structure, referencing and arguments fall down. But if someone made a completely false statement about something I might not even realise!

I have been in this position. If you have time - it helps to read as many essays as you can first without really marking them. Use the essays to help compile an ideal essay plan. You should see the same items and examples appearing and might notice some contradictions. You could then check some or all the items quickly by searching online. Believe - by the end of all those essays - you really will be an expert!

I found reading through once and writing rough comments and giving a grade, then going back ovver them worked. It is a bit time consuming, but you do get an idea of what is right and wrong from looking at a few of them.

I always mark on the essays themselves in pencil, so if I realise I've made a mistake I can rub it out. Also, I read through a few and give them a ballpark grade so I can refresh my memory of the level they're working at, then rank the next few compared to those grades.

To stave off boredom and despair I try to rearrange them so I know I won't be marking ten on the same topic in a row (also, they start to blur together after a while and it helps if I'm alternating questions so I don't mix them up).

The only way I could motivate myself to do my marking this Easter was to go to Costa and have a massive slice of cake while I did the first batch

Yes - whenever I can't find my pencil you can be sure I will change my mind about the comment.

And I tend to start losing the will to live after 10 essays....

Thanks for the advice. I think having cake while marking is particularly good advice. I was intending to mark all those on the same question together but the suggestion of alternating is good.

some people say: do as many as possible in one go, to get it over with. but that totally doesn't work for me. after 3, maximum 4 essays my brain turns mushy. i'm physically not able to continue marking (and other thinking work is hard, too) - i need to turn to something that takes little or no thinking, such as filing or cleaning the house or doing the laundry... so for me it is: spread them out! one to start the day, two at lunch, one in the evening, that would be 4 per day - keep that going and it will eventually be finished without cutting too much into your other work.

pmsr , are you a phD student or a post-doc ?

I meant pamr

I'm a second year PhD.

Just get them over with as soon as you can!

I actually find it easier to deal with essays answering the same title first, then looking at the essays looking at the next title etc. I find it lets me stay focused on the one topic as opposed to switching mindsets back n forth. I had to mark essays that weren't in my subject area so I just did a little basic reading into the topic, I also took a look through what was covered in class (I wasnt teaching in the module) so I could identify if anyone did extra reading/their own research outside of what was covered and so were more original and could earn a few extra marks. Does your department not provide you with marking criteria with what the student needs to have done to achieve an A, B etc?

Once you have done a few, you will be able to see who has done the work, and who has been to the library the day before and dashed something off. (I used to work on the enquiry desk in the library on Saturdays, providing help especially for students who could not get in to see their academic librarian during the week, and the number of students who came in on Saturday afternoon wanting help with an essay due in on Monday morning was astounding, some third year students didn't know how to do a journal search, or sometimes even a book search, so I have no idea how they managed to get that far)One of the things I find most difficult is getting past the awful spelling and the tendency to write as though it was a letter to a friend rather than an academic piece of work.

i remember marking some essays in a subject i hardly knew, coming up with a marking scheme and then after reading them i couldn't figure what mark to give each essay as it was hard to tell if they were good or bad, so i went with my gut instict all the way. my worst fear was if the students compared their marks and i had given a normally good student 40% and a poor student 60% or if they'd plagiarised each others work and i gave them totally different marks. even worse was the look on their faces when they got them back - for some it was like their world had ended. just mark them and give them back at the end -NEVER AT THE BEGINNING -of the seminar or their moods will make them sabotage the seminar. even better tell them you still have a few to go and put them in their pigeon holes to collect the following day . that way you'll have trouble free marking. hopefully you don't have to teach them much after that.