Hello and again welcome to the class. 
We're kind of a bit of the way in the 
class and I figured, it's time to talk a 
little bit about how we do the peer 
grading assignments. 
These are may be a little bit foreign to 
you and because this is in early class, 
it's kind of a first year kind of college 
class, I've decided to make all the 
writing assignments extra credit. 
There's going to be three of them. 
They're going to be 10 points each. 
all the points that you get on the 
writing assignments are going to be added 
to your overall points, so they're, 
they're, extra credit. 
So, even if you get 2 points, you're 
getting 2 extra points. 
And they can, you know, if you do less 
than perfect on the quizzes, or less than 
perfect on the final, these points can 
help make up without, with no cost to 
you. 
So, they're kind of risk free. 
So, you'll generally have about two weeks 
to write each of the essays. 
I, I don't really mean for you to write 
them for two whole weeks. 
I'll give you some time so I'll tell you 
what the questions are as you watch the 
lectures maybe the ideas form. 
Some of you'll write them early, some of 
you'll write them right the night before 
the deadline. 
and and then after we sort of close the, 
the deadline and there's sort of no 
slippage because then the grading has to 
start. 
And so, you'll be assigned three to five 
other students assignments to grade. 
And and that takes a week and then the 
grades are all collected together. 
as you're writing if you're writing often 
in a regular classroom, you're writing to 
impress the teacher. 
You're trying to show all the complex 
wizardry that you have and you, you write 
as much complex stuff as you can to sort 
of, you know, dazzle the teacher with 
your command of complex and intricate 
theories and ideas That's not actually 
not what you're going to do here. 
You're writing for your peers. 
these, fellow students have various 
education levels as I'm going to show you 
in a second. 
And you have to write to be understood, 
don't, don't show off. 
You may be a genius. 
You may have a CISCO thing and you may 
know net masks more than anybody, even 
way more than me. 
Don't show off your super mask knowledge. 
Write to teach, write to explain, explain 
to your fellow students, okay? 
So, and when you're doing the grading, 
understand that this class is not a 
masters degree or a PhD class. 
This is a freshman class. 
And don't have expectations of this class 
that are like, you know, that they'll 
everyone in the class is going to write 
at the same level that you're going to 
write. 
So, I'll tell you, share you a little 
bit, wit, a little bit of demographic 
data with you so you kind of get a sense 
of the make up of the class. 
Over half of the students in this class 
are likely to be non-English speakers 
right? 
So I'm, I'm an English speaker and I'm 
lecturing in English but over half of the 
students are, in this class, that are non 
English speakers. 
We're all just figuring this out. 
We're all just kind of clunking along and 
learning as we go, and so treat each 
other with some respect. 
We're all beginners, we're all just 
figuring this out. 
we have a wide range of age. 
Again, this data is from a previous one, 
a previous class that I taught. 
and interestingly even though the class 
is kind of aimed at sort of 18 or 19 year 
old student, there are very few students 
in the class, that are actually 18 or 19 
years old. 
And many of the students are educated, 
highly educated, andn then some of the 
students are coming back to school or 
perhadps they, they they never finished 
their education for one reason or 
another. 
So understand we have a very, very 
diverse population. 
If we were teaching this class on a 
campus, pretty much everybody in the room 
would be like, 19 years old. 
But that's not the case here. 
So as we write for each other and we 
grade each other's work, we have to be 
sensitive to that. 
Here's another thing that you've gotta be 
really sensitive to. 
So, this class is like a first year 
class. 
Some where between the end of high school 
and college. 
This is the typical education of someone 
in this class. 
We have, so starting from here, high 
school, and then some college. 
Right? 
So that's, that's sort of the [LAUGH] 
this is the student the class is aimed 
at, someone who's finished high school 
and is just starting college. 
We have some people that are late high 
school, and that's okay. 
They're probably advanced students 
anyway. 
Well, what's really important when we 
start thinking about our grading is well 
over probably two thirds, or three 
quarters have a bachelor's, a degree in 
one form or another, bacherlor's, 
master's, even PhD people in this class. 
And so, the key thing is, this is great, 
it's great to have so many really sharp 
people in this class. 
They're going to be sophisticated writers 
but we have to be careful not to write 
our essay for these kinds of people. 
We're going to write the essay. 
And if you're really smart, then write a 
really good essay for a 19-year old 
freshman to understand. 
Now when you're grading, don't grade as 
if someone has a master's degree in 
Computer Science and mark them off 
because they, somehow, didn't write at a 
master's in computer science level, even 
if that's who you are. 
So, let's get to the point where we're 
all on the same page. 
That this is a beginning freshman class 
and even if you already have a PhD you 
should grade, and you don't have to be a 
bad writer, but you should write for an 
audience that is a beginning audience. 
Don't show how super awesome you are. 
Show how super awesome you are by writing 
really clearly and writing to explain, 
writing to teach. 
So, we definitely have less participation 
in the writing exercises for non-native 
English speakers. 
And I think that's sad. 
And so I go extra lengths to encourage 
non-English speakers to write. 
Go ahead and write in your own language, 
translating it Google. 
If you know some English, you can clean 
it up a little bit. 
But even if you don't, just write it in 
your native language. 
Answer the question in your native 
language, translate it, and just go ahead 
and turn it in. 
Please add a little note to be just 
really clear at the top of your writing 
to indicate your, that, that it's, what 
your native language is and that this was 
translated by Google Translate or 
whatever thing that you use. 
And I am instructing everyone when we 
grade to ignore small grammar errors and 
read for content. 
Let me give you kind of an example of how 
this works. 
So here is a paragraph at the top that I 
wrote. 
You know, I'm writing it for an article. 
It's in one of the, it should be in one 
of the articles that will ultimately be 
in the class. 
Come back, come back. 
Right? 
And so here I'm writing with kind of 
flowery English. 
In 1993, the connectivity is expanding 
around the world in many new 
applications. 
Blah, blah, blah, quietly decommission 
blah, blah, blah. 
So, you know, I write this. 
I'm you know, I'd like to think I'm a 
pretty good writer. 
And so I use sort of some active tense 
and passive tense. 
And then what I did is I translated in 
like into Spanish and then back into 
English. 
And, and so you'll see when it comes back 
into English, as if I had been written in 
Spanish and then I translated it. 
So first I say at the top, I say, you 
know what, I translated this from 
Spanish, usually Google Translate. 
That's a signal to the graders to be even 
more relaxed about small grammar things. 
Just ignore them. 
So just, you know, you, you can see 
things here as, if you're a native 
English speaker. 
You can see situations where, you know, 
in, in 1993 NSFNet connectivity is 
expanding worldwide. 
Well, okay, that's not very good grammar. 
You know, was is the right way to say 
that. 
But it's okay, right? 
So just ignore that. 
Think about what the writer's trying to 
say. 
Because there's a translating device 
that's in between us. 
you know, Gopher and Web come back, 
Gopher and Web developed as distributed 
applications. 
You might say, oh, what do you mean, they 
didn't develop? 
Are they like a plant? 
No. 
Understand what the writer's trying to 
say and then, and then again, so you can 
see, had been quietly decommissioned 
where I write my glorious English. 
The translator says was decommissioned in 
silence February 28th. 
But if you read and you read for content 
rather than read for syntax, you can kind 
of understand what's being said. 
And so understand if you are reading, 
somebody's writing that, that has been 
gone through translate. 
These kinds of Little glitches in the, in 
the grammar are going to naturally be 
introduced. 
And it, and so it could be written in a 
very pretty way, who knows if I'm a 
pretty, my writing is pretty or not. 
And then, because of the translate it 
sounds kind of clunky. 
But just read past the clunkiness, okay? 
Just read with a smile on your face. 
Read for content, don't read for, we're 
not, this is not an English class, this 
is not a grammar class, this is a class 
about technology. 
Okay, I think I've said enough about 
that. 
Be kind. 
Plagiarism, plagiarism often comes up, 
especially because we have lots of 
different cultures and plagiarism is 
something that comes up differently and 
is treated differently in different 
cultures. 
part of the goal of a first level class, 
a freshmen class higher education is 
often, especially, when people from 
different cultures come together is often 
educating about plagiarism rather than 
just detecting, detecting and punishing. 
We're here in this class to teach people 
about plagiarism, who may not have any 
sense what plagiarism is. 
They may not have been taught anywhere 
else. 
So if you detect plagiarism, please do 
you not attack the person, please do not 
tell them that plagiarism is the most 
horrible academic offense. 
If you see plagiarism, think of that as 
an educational, an opportunity for you to 
teach somebody. 
Say, oh, I see you took this. 
Please, this is plagiarism, you're not 
supposed to do it, you should either 
rewrite this or indicate that it's a 
quote, okay? 
When you're turning in an essay, 
everything that you write should be your 
own words. 
Unless it's a quote and then you should 
indicate it's a quote. 
So here's here's a little example of 
something that I wrote. 
So this might be something, a question 
about something like who is the most 
important person in the history of the 
internet? 
Or who is your favorite person in the 
history of the internet? 
Maybe that's the question, and so here 
I've started to write at the top. 
You know what, I say I think Vint Cerf is 
an important figure. 
And then I go, and I copy and paste 
directly from Wikipedia. 
In the early days Vint Cerf was a program 
manager for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, 
blah, blah. 
And then, I sort of switch back into my 
own voice, and I just kind of decide as 
I'm reading Wikipedia to help me write. 
And I just grab this little sentence from 
Wikipedia. 
Now when I'm grading, it's interesting, 
it's very easy to sort of catch the 
change of voice from something you're 
writing very easy in narrative flow and 
something like Wikipedia where they're 
writing in a more formal style. 
And so, it's like, in the early days, 
well that, for me, I can just look at 
that, I don't even have to look at 
Wikipedia. 
I can go like, hmm, this writer probably 
wouldn't use the phrase 'in the early 
days. 
And so I have this little [SOUND] little 
bell go off. 
I don't look for plagiarism, but it's not 
hard to find, okay? 
Because you see a change in writing 
style. 
Now if, for example, you really felt that 
this statement was gloriously expressed 
in Wikipedia and you could do no better, 
you can put it in your document, you just 
have to put it in properly. 
You have to reference it. 
So I say, you know, I think Vint Cert is 
an important figure, according to 
Wikipedia, and then I put a little 
reference mark in here. 
And then, I simply cut and paste the text 
from Wikipedia. 
I put it in double quotes, I make it 
italics, and then I put at the bottom, I 
put a little reference. 
This is not plagiarism. 
I cut and pasted it literally from 
Wikipedia, right into my paper. 
But I'm honest about it. 
I'm pointing out what part I wrote. 
What part I didn't write. 
What I said in the previous slide is when 
you're putting something in, unless you 
indicate otherwise, you are representing 
it as your own writing, your own creative 
expression. 
Okay? 
And that's the key to plagiarism. 
It's not that you don't put this in, it's 
you don't put it in, you don't put it in 
and then hide it or not acknowledge it. 
Alright, in the second example, I'm 
acknowledging what I'm using. 
Now, I may want to rewrite it. 
And that's okay, and you don't have to 
rewrite it. 
You might even put, like, a little, if 
you take this and reword it quite nicely 
to be your own words, you might still put 
a footnote in to say, as I wrote these 
words, I was inspired by the, what I 
wrote, read on Wikipedia. 
Oh, and by the way, I like Wikipedia, 
okay? 
Some teachers will tell you that oh, 
Wikipedia's terrible. 
Especially for technical things, 
Wikipedia is probably the best reference 
in the world, the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, or even a textbook is often 
not as, quite as good as Wikipedia on 
something like who Vint Cerf is. 
Right? 
So, don't get all upset if people start 
using Wikipedia. 
I actually encourage it. 
I encourage you to use Wikipedia to help 
form your thoughts quickly and if 
Wikipedia is something that you want to 
reference, far as I'm concerned it's 
great. 
And that's different teachers may think 
differently about that. 
They may be teaching different things. 
I'm teaching a topic for which Wikipedia 
is often an excellent source. 
Maybe not the only source, maybe use 
Wikipedia to learn other things that's 
all cool but, I'm not anti-Wikipedia in 
this course. 
So again, don't spend a lot of time like, 
staring for plagiarism, looking at every 
word trying to find it. 
I find they often jump out at me as I 
just in reading as I've been doing it for 
a long time. 
You know, take points off as you see. 
If you want to put the points all the way 
down to zero, if somebody just answered, 
I asked that question about Vince Surf, 
and they just took the first four 
paragraphs from Wikipedia and they put 
those right in, and that's their whole 
essay with no acknowledgments or 
anything, give them zero. 
Right? 
And just say, it appears as though the 
first, all your paragraphs came straight 
from Wikipedia. 
This is plagiarism. 
You did not reference it. 
You did not indicate that it came from 
another source, so that’s plagiarism and 
so I gave you zero points. 
Don’t say, and you’re evil. 
Right. 
Don’t be cruel. 
I mean, again, not everybody sees 
plagiarism the same way, especially when 
we’re bringing people from so many 
cultures together. 
So don't add comments about your views on 
plagiarism. 
Don't make value judgements about some 
person being horrible because they did 
it. 
We are here to learn. 
And even in cases of plagiarism, our 
primary goal is to learn. 
So, generally, I have a coupe of rubrics 
that I ask you to rate them on. 
You don't have to grade these things 
particularly harshly. 
I'm curious if it was interesting to 
read. 
That kind of, did this person write for 
the audience? 
You're the audience. 
Did you read it? 
Did you think that it was worth your time 
reading? 
Is the answer on topic? 
Sometimes people will completely ignore 
the question and answer something 
completely different. 
If they misunderstand the question, or 
whatever. 
So you get a chance to give points as to 
whether or not the question was answered. 
And for the more technical ones, you 
know, the, we, you know, did the person 
dig in a little bit? 
Are there, or did they just state the 
obvious or kind of gently rephrase 
exactly what was said in lecture? 
Did they, did they add something beyond 
the obvious? 
you know, do they have, do they make 
arguments without supporting them? 
Or do they, if there is any kind of 
argument or statement that that might be 
questioned. 
Do they use references to support them? 
And so, not all questions that I ask will 
have the same rubric. 
Some, some have fewer rubrics, some have 
more rubrics. 
But this is the basic things I'm going to 
ask you to rate points. 
And you'll put like, oh okay, this is 
this is like 6 points, and this is 2 
points, and this is 2 points. 
Well, okay so this is 4 points, 2 points, 
2 points. 
And that adds up to 10 points. 
And you get to, to put a little ranking 
on them. 
And that's how you'll be grading, so 
I'll, I'll do some guided grading for 
you, to get you, to help you. 
So when the peer grading is done your 
grade, the grade that you get for the 
assignment effectively drops the high and 
low grades. 
It's not the average. 
it's the median. 
Right? 
So it's something in the middle. 
The, the, the, the hopefully they're all 
clustered together and they're all pretty 
consistent. 
The survey research says that, you know, 
if you have five people do peer grading, 
you kind of throw out the top and the 
bottom. 
And something in the middle is, is, is 
very close to what the teacher would have 
ultimately graded the assignment. 
And so it's, it's a median, high and low 
scores are dropped. 
What I really want is I want you to 
relax. 
I want you to do these things, I want you 
to learn from it. 
If you're not an English speaker they, 
they can be a little intimidating. 
And I want you to give them a try and I 
want you to see how it goes. 
And if it doesn't feel good to you, then 
yeah, go ahead and and, and, you know, 
don't do any more. 
But they're extra credit, you know? 
you just have to get used to when you 
look at the comments that come back from 
other students. 
Some of them are just going to be dumb. 
I mean some are going to be bad and 
they'll just be wrong or they'll be 
critical. 
You gotta ignore those. 
Look for those things in the feedback 
that you get from the other students that 
help you learn, that help you become a 
better writer. 
Remember part of my goal across these 
three assignments is not just the 
material in this class. 
But if you're to take other Coursera 
classes, I want you to be skilled at peer 
[INAUDIBLE], writing for your peers and 
grading your peers. 
So part of this is just practice, in case 
you're going to take other classes that 
require peer grading. 
And so, look at the comments that are 
useful to you, and ignore the bad ones. 
And, you know, you, you will feel bad 
when you see a grader who's, who said 
something very critical about your work. 
We're not going to and punish bad 
graders. 
[COUGH] We're not going to regrade. 
That's why these things are all extra 
credit. 
If you get a 6 out of a 10, that's 6 
extra points. 
You shouldn't, I mean we all think that 
if we don't get anything other than a 10 
out of a 10 we've somehow failed. 
This is a very imperfect process. 
We're going to learn from the process and 
that's why I made all of the credits 
extra credit, right? 
Again, this isn't just for this class. 
I want to get us used to as a community, 
as a Coursera community, on how to do 
this in general. 
So, let's focus on enjoying this, 
learning this, and not getting too 
serious. 
So I hope to see some of your writing in 
the peer graded assignments in the 
course. 
Thanks.