Grading guidelines: Squibs

Over the quarter, graduate students are expected to produce six very brief (~1500–2500 word) papers on the topic of their choice related to course content. These “squibs” are used to engage further with ideas from the readings and, hopefully, to develop new ideas that can feed into the graduate student’s core work.**

What is a squib?

Squibs are personal to your research interests—they are here for you to make concrete connections with what we are discussing in class and what you are thinking about in your Masters/PhD work. There is no right answer and Marisa will mostly just be checking to see whether you are thoughtfully engaging with course content.

Your squib can take many forms, but some common ones include:

  • A critical response to a paper or set of papers that lays out a countervailing argument or elaborates a critical flaw in the theory/study logic
  • A proposed study to address a question raised in one or several papers
  • An exploratory analysis linking a concept from one or more readings to a research question you have been grappling with
  • A short report analyzing some new examples or pilot data that you have come up with to explore a question inspired by a reading

If you have an idea but aren’t sure whether it “counts” as a squib, just send Marisa a quick email summarizing your idea in a few sentences.

Points and deadlines

Each squib is worth up to 5 points (5% of your final grade), and you should submit six over the course of the quater (i.e., for a maximum total of 30 points; 30% of your final grade).

  • Squibs will be accepted on Tuesdays beginning 21 January 2021
  • You can choose which weeks to submit a squib
  • The last squib submission deadline is 16 March 2021
  • Please submit a maximum of one squib per week

If your squib is thoughtfully composed, clearly linked to course content, accurately reflects that course content, and is relatively typo-free and easy to read, you will receive full credit.

** “Squibs” are commonly used in linguistics, but it appears they are also present in the Harry Potter universe in addition to also being a type of explosive. We’ll stick to the linguistics-inspired version in this course ;)