Full and Minimal Markup Both Help Students to Improve Their Writing

Abstract

College faculty faces decisions about how to provide feedback on written work. We compared the quality of student writing and student impressions of feedback from both full and minimal markup methods. There was only one significant difference in the quality of writing or content between full and minimal markup. Students scored the functionality of the two markup methods consistently in their ability to improve their writing skills. Student comments were overwhelmingly positive for both markup formats. We encourage teachers to make use of the approach that fits the best with the teaching and learning strategies and designs in their classes.

Keywords:

• Feedback
• grading
• student writing
• writing quality
• written work

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the students who permitted their data to be used in the study and two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors have received no monetary benefits from the outcome and applications of this study.

Data availability

Data from this study are available at 10.6084/m9.figshare.13242146.