Teaching & Supervision

Transparent criteria for the assessment of assignments are important. For this reason, all assignments will now be graded according to the following fixed criteria.

1. Grading key, based on the total number of points:
   1. 100-90 points => Grade 1
   2. 89-75 points => Grade 2
   3. 74-60 points => Grade 3
   4. 59-50 points => Grade 4
   5. 0-49 points => Grade 5
       
2. The total score is the arithmetic mean of the following 7 partial scores + a maximum of 10 points for originality.
   
   All partial scores are on a scale of 0-100 points. 
    
   1. Structure and layout
      
      Title page, bibliography, headings, logical structure, outline.
      
      Please note: The purely visual structure is not assessed here! Instead, questions such as: Are the headings meaningful and appropriate? Is the structure logical? Are the references complete? Have the works cited been selected correctly? Is the title appropriate? Are the individual paragraphs appropriate to the argument?
       

   2. Linguistic clarity
      
      Do your sentences correspond to what you want to say? Is the content clear? Are anaphoric references clearly recognizable? Is the work written coherently? Are your sentences grammatically correct? Are your statements not too vague?

      Important: The use of scientific terminology and very complex sentence structures bears no relation to this criterion. If in doubt, only use terms that you really understand or explain what you do not understand about the relevant terms!

      <NEW: 19.02.2021> If the linguistic clarity is rated below 50 points, the paper is NOT PASSED, regardless of the other sub-grades. This applies to all work agreed from this date onwards.
       

   3. Scientific classification
      
      Have you read the correct research literature? Have you understood it? Have you summarized the relevant content well? Have you explained the terminology? Have you adequately presented the problems you are dealing with?
       
   4. Quality of empirical data
      
      All term papers must have an empirical part. This may be the results of an experimental study or corpus data or examples from the literature or examples you have devised yourself. The quality of this data depends on its relevance to the scientific problem being addressed.
       

   5. Quantitative evaluation of empirical data
      
      Depending on what kind of data you use, it must be analyzed using different methods. Has the data been analyzed appropriately? Have you done the right statistics? If so, in the right way? Is a statistical analysis even necessary?

      Important: In the case of purely theoretical work, a statistical evaluation may not be necessary. In this case, this evaluation criterion is replaced with a score for the quality of the theoretical analysis. It is generally not recommended (especially in the BA program) to write a purely theoretical paper.
       

   6. Presentation of the empirical data
      
      Was the data presented clearly and comprehensibly? Tables? Description of the tables and their relevance? Was the data interpreted correctly? Was it explained why this data was chosen? Was the method used to collect or gather the data explained?
       
   7. Discussion
      
      Does the paper make clear what we can learn from the data with regard to the problem of the paper?
       
3. Originality
   
   Originality is generally awarded 0 points. The value increases if you have received little input from the seminar leader and show new ideas or arguments either in the implementation or in the planning or in the discussion. The score decreases the more conventional the work and the more input was required from the seminar leader. If I have explained step by step what to do, how to collect the data, how to analyze it and how to interpret it, then the originality score will be 0.
    
4. If the work is classified as plagiarism, the final grade will be unsatisfactory (5) regardless of the grade key.
    
5. Differentiation by phase of study:
   1. The scope and complexity of the work depend on the course in question.
   2. The requirements for the assessment of the individual criteria also depend on the course in question.
       
6. To avoid misunderstandings and disappointments: All term paper topics must be precisely agreed with the seminar leader. A meeting protocol signed by both parties should be drawn up. This should be enclosed with the submission of the paper.