Marks made by the instructors on your papers, in general, have the following meanings:
- A check in the margin means the student made a good, solid, or accurate point.
- A squiggly line under words means that these words/phrases are vague or unclear, e.g. "The strategic argument relates environmental issues to humans." This may also be denoted by "unc." of "unclear" in the margin.
- A "G" in the margin means that the sentence has poor grammar.
- If we put an X through a section/sentence, this indicates the claim being made is simply wrong, e.g. "Norton defends capitalism." This may also be indicated by "wrong" or "incorrect" in the margin.
- A straight line through a sentence means that this is unnecessary or off-topic, e.g. "The little girl smiled as she picked up sand dollars." This may also be indicated by "N/A" or "unnecess." in the margin.
- The "awk." margin note means that those sentence(s) are constructed awkwardly.
- The "colloq." margin note means that those sentence(s) are written too informally for the type of writing
- "TS" means topic sentence. "CI" means thesis statement or controlling idea.
