Holistic grading

Holistic grading or holistic scoring, in standards-based education, is an approach to scoring essays using a simple grading structure that bases a grade on a paper's overall quality. This type of grading, which is also described as nonreductionist grading, contrasts with analytic grading, which takes more factors into account when assigning a grade. Holistic grading can also be used to assess classroom-based work. Rather than counting errors, a paper is judged holistically and often compared to an anchor paper to evaluate if it meets a writing standard. It differs from other methods of scoring written discourse in two basic ways. It treats the composition as a whole, not assigning separate values to different parts of the writing. And it uses two or more raters, with the final score derived from their independent scores. Holistic scoring has gone by other names: "non-analytic," "overall quality," "general merit," "general impression," "rapid impression." Although the value and validation of the system are a matter of debate, holistic scoring of writing is still in wide application.