Tools You Can Use to Mark Students' Papers

One of the issues that instructors wonder about when considering teaching online is how they will be able to mark and annotate their students' papers as they have done in the margins and between the double spacing of the hard copies in the past. There are some software programs that one can purchase to help mark papers online. One of them is Adobe Acrobat and the other is simply Microsoft Word. The following information has been created to assist instructors with the marking of their student's papers on their computer. The instructor must have the students' papers in digital format to be able to utilize the following instructions.

Go to Microsoft Word Information

Go to Adobe Acrobat Information

Marking Papers in MICROSOFT WORD

Many people aren't aware that Microsoft Word has a utility for revising and annotating documents as a part of its software. This tool is called the Reviewing tool and can be activated from the toolbars menu in Microsoft Word. Go to View > Toolbars > select Reviewing, and an additional toolbar will pop up under the standard toolbars at the top of the word processing document. (The large red arrow points out the Reviewing toolbar below.)

The icons that aren't grayed out are explained below and examples of how an instructor might use some of these options are included in the following section:

Insert Comments - Select the text you want to comment on by clicking and dragging your mouse over it. Then click on the Insert Comments icon. Type the comment text in the comment pane at the bottom of the screen. Click Close.

Track Changes - Click Track Changes first. Make the changes within your document by inserting, deleting, or moving text or graphics. You can also change any formatting. The Track Changes tool uses revision marks to track the changes.

Previous Change - After some changes have been made to the document using Tracking Changes, click Previous Change, and the cursor will move back to the previous change.

Next Change - After some changes have been made to the document using Tracking Changes, click on Next Change, and the cursor will move forward to the next change.

Highlight - Select the text or graphic you want to highlight. Click the Highlight icon to highlight the text in the color that is displayed at the bottom of the icon. To select a different color, click the small down arrow in the icon, and select another color from the palette. To turn off highlighting, click the Highlight icon again, or press ESC.

Create Microsoft Outlook Task - Open the document you want to add a task for in the Outlook task list. On the Reviewing toolbar, click Create Microsoft Outlook Task. Select the options you want, and a task for this document will be created in your Microsoft Outlook Task area.

Save Version - Click on Save Version, you will be able to save the revisions that you have made as a separate file under the same file name.

Send to Mail Recipient - Click on the icon and if your computer is set up to directly email from other programs outside your email program, you can send the reviewed document directly to someone. If your computer is not set up to send email directly from a Word document (because you use a free email program or AOL), then simply save the document and email it as an attachment.

THE THREE MOST POPULAR MICROSOFT WORD TOOLS

As instructors, most likely you will concentrate on the Insert Comments, Track Changes, and Highlight tool. In order to practice using these tools, open a Microsoft Word document with some text on it that is already saved on your computer and do the following:

INSERT COMMENTS TOOL

1. Go to View > Toolbars > Reviewing to activate the Reviewing toolbar.
2. With your mouse, highlight a section or sentence that you want to comment on within the document, then click on the Insert Comments icon. (Another option for inserting a comment, is to click the Insert menu in the toolbar above and select Comments.) Notice that a Comments pane opens at the bottom of the page. The blinking cursor sits in front of a marker with your initials and a number within brackets. Start typing your comment, for example, "This is a great point. How do you think this applies to the process?"

Close the window or leave it open as you continue to annotate the Word document. When you are finished with marking the document, save it.

If there are several comments on a page, the comments toolbar will provide the following features:

• Edit Comment ,
• Previous and Next Comment ,
• and Delete Comment.
• You can also edit a comment by right clicking it and selecting Edit Comment.

When the student opens up the document, they will see the area to which you have added comments highlighted in yellow. When they hold their mouse pointer over the highlighted area, your comments will pop up above the highlighted area.

Note: We recommend that you explain to students how they can view your comments since many will not know about these features of Word. You might include explanations of how to read a note in the syllabus, in the assignments area and/or in the email when you return the document back to the student.

To delete a "comment," you can right click on the comment and select delete, or click on the Delete Comment icon in the Reviewing toolbar.

This tool allows for the comments on any part of the text that as instructors we would write between the lines or in the margins on the hard copies. If students have Microsoft Word, they will be able to read the comments easily.

TRACK CHANGES TOOL

In order to mark text document using the Track Changes tool, make sure the Reviewing toolbar is open in your Microsoft Word document.

1. Go to View > Toolbars > Reviewing to activate the Reviewing toolbar.
2. Click on the icon in the toolbar. Now, whenever you type something, the text will be in red and underlined. If you delete something from the text, it won't disappear, but a line will be drawn through the deletion. Basically, the tool is tracking all new additions and deletions to the document. The image here is an example of what the track changes tool creates in the document.

- Use Previous Change and Next Change to maneuver between changes in the text.

To turn off this tool, simply click on the Track Changes tool to disengage it.

This tool can be handy to insert comments directly into the text and for revising certain areas of the text by crossing the main points out.

HIGHLIGHT TOOL

The highlight tool is rather basic in that whatever text you highlight with your mouse, and then click on the tool, changes to the color highlight that is selected. If you click the arrow next to the highlighter, you can select color from a color palette. This is an example of the palette.

Note: One way to use this tool, would be to set up a system ahead of time outlining for the students what various colors would represent. For example, pink could represent sentence structure errors, green could represent comma errors, blue could represent spelling errors, etc.

To turn off the highlight tool, simply click on the icon .

Finally, this is an example of a Microsoft Word document being reviewed by an instructor.

Marking Papers with ADOBE ACROBAT

Another software product that is useful to mark papers is Abobe Acrobat. One can purchase the software at educational prices in college bookstores, and it might be well worth it.

You can annotate anywhere on a page of a PDF document by using its various tools. However, we are going to focus on the main tools such as the annotation, graphic, and text markup tools. These can be customized to fit the document and your design needs. Lengthy comments can be place in the equivalent of a Post-It note, audio files can be attached, text can be typed between the lines, and lines can be drawn with the graphic markup tools. The results will look as if the instructor had marked up the paper by hand.

Once you have a student's paper as a electronic document, first, you will need to save it as a PDF document.

1. Open the student's paper on your computer.
2. Click the little Acrobat icon on your toolbar. (It is loaded onto your toolbar when you install Adobe Acrobat.) Select "Create" and the document will be converted to PDF. You can also create a PDF document by going to File > Print > Printer Name > Acrobat Distiller > OK. This will create a PDF document. Check the Adobe Help files for instructions for Mac users.
3. Once the paper is open in Acrobat you will see a toolbar across the top and down the left side of the screen. We will concentrate on the toolbar on the left side. The main tools are highlighted below.

   We will focus on the Annotation, Graphics, and Text tools.

THE ANNOTATION TOOLS

If you click once and hold the mouse button down over the Annotation/Notes tool, a small menu of additional tools will open up to the side. The options for this tool include the following: the Notes tool, Text tool, Audio tool, Stamp Tool, and File tool.

• Notes Tool - You can create notes to place anywhere on the document. Click on the Notes tool , then click anywhere on the document, and a Post-It size note will open. Click inside the note and type your message.

To close the window, click the box in the top left-hand corner with the white dash in it. A little Post-It note like stickie will remain on the document. You can grab it with your mouse and drag it anywhere on the document you wish to place it.

You can change the properties of the Post-It note looking icon by selecting the stickie note icon by clicking on it once, and going to Edit > Properties and selecting a different icon and color.

You can copy text directly from the document into the note by using the Text Select Tool on the left-hand navigation toolbar.

 

• Text Tool - If you would like to type text directly onto the document and position it anywhere, then click on the from the Notes tool bar. This text remains visible on top of the page and doesn't hide inside a note. After you click the , place the mouse pointer anywhere and click. Begin typing the annotation. To finish, click outside the text area with your mouse.

To make changes such as color, size, font style, or border size, click on the text once, go to Edit > Properties.

 

• Audio Tool - Allows for audio files to be created and added anywhere on the document. You must have a microphone and a sound card in the computer to record and listen to the audio file. For more information see the Adobe Acrobat Help files.

• Stamp Tool - You can stamp your document with prefabricated stamps such as "Red Flag" or "Draft." Click on Edit > Properties to view the choices.

• File Tool - You can embed a file for referencing anywhere in the document. The file becomes part of the PDF document, and if the PDF document is moved the embedded file moves with it. You can attach any file type, but in order to read the file, the reader must have that software (Microsoft Word) installed on their computer.

If you click once and hold the mouse button down over the Pencil tool, a small menu of additional tools will open up to its right. The options for this tool include the following: the Pencil tool, Rectangle tool, Ellipse tool, and Line tool. There are times that marking the student paper will be most effective drawing a line or a box around something that you want the students to highlight or delete. Each of these tools allows a note to be added to the graphic. Once you create a graphic, you can double click on it, and the notes tool will open up for you.

• The pencil tool creates a freeform line.
• The rectangle tool creates a box that you can position over text.
• The ellipse tool creates a circle that you can position over text.
• The line tool creates a straight line from two specified points.

Once you draw the tool, a "bounding box" appears around the border of the tool. To make it active, click on the graphic, get the bounding box, go to Edit > Properties to set desired options.

To move the graphic, click your cursor on the hand tool located at the top of the left-hand navigation bar. Go back to the graphic and "grab" it with the hand tool (your mouse). Drag to the correct location.

To adjust the size of the graphic, move the hand tool over the corners of the graphic until you see the double-headed arrow. Drag until you have the desired size.

THE TEXT TOOLS

If you click once and hold the mouse button down over the Text tool, a small menu of additional tools will open up to its right. The options for this tool include the following: the Text tool, Strikethrough tool, and the Underline tool. These tools allow for additional methods of marking your students' papers. Each of these tools allows a note to be added to the tool.

To use any of these tools, select the tool from the left-side navigation bar, move the cursor to the beginning of the text that you want to mark up and drag.

Double click the annotation to associate a note with it. Choose Edit > Properties to change the default.

When and if the student prints out the marked up paper, the highlighted text will print out with a box around it due to printing limitations of the printer.

Finally, this is an example of an Adobe Acrobat document being annotated/marked by an instructor.

A FEW MORE TIPS for ANNOTATIONS

Summarizing annotations - you can generate a list of all the annotations in the paper. Go to Choose Tools > Annotations > Summarize Annotations.

To show or hide all annotations - Choose Tools > Annotations > Filter Manager and deselect the tools that you don't want to show.

To set preferences for annotations - Choose File > Preferences > Annotations. Make the preferred changes.

• Auto-Open Other Markup Windows automatically displays the window when you create a new graphic or text markup annotation.
• Auto-Open Notes Windows automatically displays the window when you create a new note annotation. This is an authoring preference.
• Show Sequence Numbers in Summarized Notes displays sequential numbers with each annotation to show the order in which they were created. This is useful when used in conjunction with the summarize annotation feature.
  (Source page 337, "Annotating PDF Documents," Adobe Acrobat Help File.)

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