Figure 2: Garner's Holistic Scoring Criteria

5 = "superior effort that is accurate, comprehensive, balanced, organized, and genuinely readable, with clear sentence structure and excellent mechanics" (214).

4 = "work that is excellent but weaker in one or two areas compared with a '5' " (214).

3 = "reasonably good, but definitely not in the excellent group; the student has obviously read the material and holds some understanding but did not communicate the same to the reader" (214).

2 = "signifies that the student's writing is seriously flawed in several areas, lacks clarity, and is unbalanced and 'fuzzy' in its presentation. Sentence structure and comprehension are poor" (214).

1 = "writing displaying serious lack of effort, being unacceptable in every criteria [sic]" (214-215).