How I Mark Essays

I shall now attempt to give some idea of how I mark the essays. First, there are three common types of essay that will not get good marks:

History of philosophy essays (except when you are writing for a history of philosophy supervision).
Sociology of philosophy essays.
Regurgitations of the lecture notes.

The last is simply bad practice. The first two may be perfectly good essays, but they are not appropriate to the context: they are not philosophy essays. It doesn't matter how good your history of philosophy essay is, there is no way that you will get more than a borderline II:ii/II:i.

I mark essays by approximate class. That is, I will assign a class, or tell you that it is borderline between two classes, or, sometimes, give it a class as it stands, and a class that it could reach after revision (this case generally applies to good ideas badly presented). The things I look for in an essay are as follows:

Original ideas. These will pardon a multitude of sins, and without them there is no way at all that you will get a first. Take risks.
Use of philosophical argument. This is a skill that you should be able to learn over the course of the year.
Clarity. A wrong but clear presentation of the literature will not score lower than a wrong and obscure presentation, and a clearly right account will obviously do better than a confused, but correct, one.
Understanding of the literature. The least important factor. You could get a good first for an essay that made no explicit mention of the literature. However, that is very risky: think of the literature exposition as the safety net, rather than the show.

For a first, you need original ideas. The better they are presented, the better the first. A really confused presentation of original ideas might only get a high II:i, but if there is a good idea, you are unlikely to get lower than that. Of course, if the presentation is so confused that I don't notice the idea, you won't get credit for it.

A clear, thorough presentation of the literature which uses philosophical argument to good effect will get a good II:i.

II:ii's are awarded to essays that are confused but basically right. Original thought will probably elevate such to a II:i. III's are rare: lots of errors are generally necessary. I have only ever classed one essay as a Fail, and that was because it was about UFO sightings, rather than HPS.

While I am not an examiner, my predictions of class tend to be fairly accurate, with only one or two surprises in a year. However, do not assume that you can calculate my prediction from the classes on your essays: if you are improving, your prediction will probably be higher. If you have a grave objection to having your essays classed, then tell me, and I will try to remember not to. It is supposed to be useful feedback (just how good is 'good'?) rather than a rigid assessment of your capabilities.