E303A TMA General Marking Guidelines and Notes First Semester 2013-2014 Prepared by Course Chair Dr. Ismail Safieh General Notes for Tutors: 1. Students are requested to write a short and relevant introduction and a conclusion to the TMA. 2. The 20

E303A TMA General Marking Guidelines and Notes

First Semester 2013-2014

Prepared by Course Chair
Dr. Ismail Safieh


General Notes for Tutors:

1. Students are requested to write a short and relevant introduction and a conclusion to the TMA.
2. The 20 marks for this TMA are to be divided as follows:
Introduction: (1.5 marks). Students are required to write a general but sound introduction to the TMA specifying also what to be discussed, analyzed and explained and how.
- Conclusion (1.5 marks). Students are required to write a conclusion summarizing the findings and stating their own opinions, judgments and evaluation of the TMA.
- Maximum 1 mark is deducted for grammar/structure for the introduction and the conclusion.
- Task 2: 8.5 marks.
- Task 3; 8.5 marks.
- Maximum 5 marks can be deducted for grammar/structure in essays in these two tasks.

3. The division of 70% of the total mark for content and 30% for language/form is recognized.
4. It is absolutely necessary, according to the instructions of the external examiner for E303, that tutors write useful and positive notes both on the cover page and inside the TMA pages. These notes should tell the students about their points of strength and weakness and how to improve their performance; not just notes that refer to language errors with very brief or no reference to content. This is a very important issue in marking TMAs and MTAs. Therefore, please kindly pay full attention to it while marking TMAs and MTAs.


In marking this assignment, tutors should pay close attention to:

* the extent to which students have followed the task specifications
and guidelines given in the assignment;
* how far the student's work demonstrates the learning outcomes of
the assignment; and
* how the student's answer matches up to the general marking criteria
for E303 as given in the marking grid.


In marking this TMA, tutors have a broad spectrum of key concepts and techniques to look for in the students’ transcripts.
This TMA asks the students to do 2 tasks:

Task 2

Students are required in this task to analyze the structure of ALL Noun Phrases (NPs), the embedded and the non-embedded ones, of the 200-250 words in both texts. Students underline all NPs in each text, and then draw a table for each text showing the analysis of each underlined NP in terms of Determiners, Numeratives, Classifiers , Describers and Head Nouns (as Pre-modifiers), and Qualifiers (i.e. Prepositional Phrase and Clauses (as Post-modifiers).They should write about 500 words in an essay form to discuss, explain and compare the findings and results of the analysis in the two texts. Here accuracy and correctness of the analysis and use of proper linguistic/grammatical terminology are
crucial for marking purposes.


Task 3:

Students are required in this task to analyze the structure of ALL Verb Phrases (VPs) of the 200-250 words in both texts. Here, they follow the same steps they did in Task 2 except for analyzing the VPs instead the NPs in terms of Auxiliaries, Lexical Verbs, Main Lexical Verb (as Head; also Complex Verb Phrases). They should write about 500 words in an essay form to discuss, explain and compare the findings and results of the analysis in the two texts. Here again accuracy and correctness of the analysis and use of proper linguistic/grammatical terminology are crucial
for marking purposes.



Thank you very much and good luck
Ismail Safieh