Location: Use the gradebook > Manage grades and students > Manually grade essay questions

Manually grade essay questions

Important: This topic describes how to manually grade essays. This information does not apply to auto-graded essays that are available in some MyLabs.

To manually grade essay questions:

Open the View Submissions window for the submission you want to grade. The question appears in the activity preview pane of the submissions window.
Tip: You can click Questions on the left, if available, to view the submission list by activity question rather than by student. This option groups all answers for a given question together. You can click a question to view and grade all student answers for that question at once rather than opening each student submission individually.
Review the Student Submission to the essay question. If the answer is an audio message, click Play to listen to the answer.
Tip: To expand the response window, click the view larger icon.
If you want to let the student attempt the question again, click Allow resubmission. This option is available only for essay activities that allow for multiple student attempts. The student can then re-take and re-submit the question.
Enter your grade in the Grade field. Note that the maximum score for the question appears for your reference.
Select the Submission Grade and enter the score in the field for manually-graded submissions.
Use the View menu to filter the list. The View menu is only available if In View Submissions View By Correct/Incorrect Filter is selected on the Preferences > Grading page. Options are:
- All Answers: Displays all answers.
- Incorrect Answers: Displays only incorrect answers. This option appears as Incorrect and Unattempted if Add third View By filter to display instructor-graded questions separately is selected on the Preferences > Grading page.
- Correct Answers: Displays the correct answers.
- Manually Graded: Displays all answers that require manual grading. This option is only available if you select Add third View By filter to display instructor-graded questions separately on the Preferences > Grading page.
To add comments inline with student answers, click the Instructor Comments box and provide feedback.
- To cross out text, select the text and click the strikethrough icon .
- To highlight text, select the text and click the font color icon . Select a color from the standard color palette or click More Colors to select a different color. You can also type the hex code of a color in the box provided below the color chart.
- If enabled, you can select a common error file from the list and click inside the Instructor Comments box to insert the error text. This option automatically inserts the error text or the recording (if enabled) into the comments area at the current cursor location.
- Depending on your course design, you may be able to Record Feedback.
- To clear all the current comments, click Reset Comments.
- To open the original essay submission, click View Original Submission, which displays the following details:
  - Item: Activity name.
  - Student: Student name.
  - Submitted: Date and time (HH:MM) when the student turned in the essay question.
  - Attempt No: Fraction that shows the attempt number currently displayed in the window and the total number of attempts allowed.
- To save your comments and continue, click Save, or click Save and Close to save your comments and close the View Submissions window.
After you enter your grade and comments, click Save and Next to view the next submission or click Previous to view the previous submission.

Note: Teaching assistants must have permission to view or change the gradebook. Use the Preferences > Permissions page to control which functionality is available to teaching assistants.