HE ESSAY
Each essay submission should consist of (a minimum of) five fully-developed paragraphs, and include an introduction and a conclusion.  The essay should be a minimum of 350 words; top essays will be a minimum of 600 words in length. 
The essay should be a maximum of 1000 words.
The introduction should include a strong thesis statement.
Each paragraph, including the introduction and conclusion, should be fully-developed paragraphs (at least 75-100 words).
Avoid first person (I, me, my) in formal academic writing. Formal academic writing is always in third person.
All essays must be submitted as Microsoft Word documents.  All students have access to Word through the college via Office 365.
All papers automatically undergo a plagiarism check through SafeAssign.  If an assignment fails to generate a SafeAssign report for the instructor, students will be required to resubmit the paper.
GRADING
Essays are scored based on the following criteria:
Thesis (15%): Is the first paragraph appropriately developed? Does the first paragraph contain a coherent central argument(s) for the essay?
Evidence (25%): Does the essay contain an appropriate amount of evidence and development to support its coherent central argument(s)?
Organization (20%): Does the essay contain appropriate structure and organization, including at least three (3) body paragraphs? Are those paragraphs appropriately developed?
Conclusions (15%): Is the last paragraph appropriately developed? Does the last paragraph appropriately summarize the central argument(s) for the essay?
Grammar (25%): How many grammatical errors (per word) are in the paper?  Is the paper written at an appropriate college grade level?
SafeAssign:  All papers automatically undergo a plagiarism check through SafeAssign, and Mr. Owens will report that score to you when grading.  If the SafeAssign score is 20% or higher, a points deduction will be made on the paper (higher SafeAssign scores result in higher deductions).  This deduction escalates for each paper: the deduction on Essay 2 is greater than Essay 1, the deduction of Essay 3 is greater than the deductions on Essays 1 and 2, etc.  If the SafeAssign score is 90% or higher, the paper is considered plagiarized and a score of zero will be recorded for the assignment.