What the five marks mean
Every mark has a colour, a symbol and a word, so it works whatever colours you can see. The number is the key that marks with it.
| Mark | Key | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| COMMAND | 1 | The job your work has to do: analyse, compare, critically evaluate. Tap one for its meaning. |
| TOPIC | 2 | What your work is about. Every paragraph should link back to it. |
| LIMIT | 3 | A rule to stick to: a word count, a date, a time period, a place, a referencing style. |
| CRITERIA | 4 | How you will be marked. Markers look for these, so plan where each one will show. |
| INCLUDE | 5 | Something that has to be in your work: a reference list, a case study, eight sources. |
How to use it
Paste the brief
The question, the word count, the deadline, how it’s marked: everything on the assignment page or in the handbook. Or press Use the example brief to try it first.
Command words
The verbs that say what to do. Find command words marks the ones in the glossary; tap one to see what it asks for. Describing when the brief says evaluate is the most common reason a good essay gets an average mark.
Topic, limits, criteria, include
One step each. The topic is what it’s about; the limits are the word count, dates, place and style; the criteria are what the marks are awarded for; include is anything that has to be in. Each gets a line of teaching, an example and its own marker. The same marker on the same words takes a mark off again.
Your brief, taken apart
The last step shows what you found and what the brief doesn’t say (no deadline? no word count?), which is a question for your tutor this week.
Send it on
Copy as a checklist gives you one line per mark, ready to paste anywhere. Send to a KanBananza board makes a card with the brief and its marks as a checklist, so step 1 of your plan is done.
Then plan the rest in KanBananza
- The brief is marked, and then forgotten. Sent to a board, it lives on the assignment’s card with its deadline and the marks as a checklist, on every new tab until it’s handed in. Free
- “Three weeks” is too vague to start on. Plan an assignment turns the brief into dated milestones with small steps, which you check before anything is added. Pip can also suggest marks you keep or skip. Pip
- The sources end up everywhere. A Sources stack beside the board, saved from any page in two clicks, and Peel for PDFs and quotes with their page numbers. Peel checks each source against the brief’s limits, like a date range or how many academic sources you need. Free
The whole route is in how to plan an assignment from start to finish.
Questions
What are command words?
The verbs in a brief that say what kind of thinking the task wants: analyse, compare, critically evaluate, to what extent. They decide the shape of your answer. Describing when the brief says evaluate is the most common reason a good essay gets an average mark. The marker has a plain-English meaning for 27 of them.
Does my brief get sent anywhere?
No. The marker runs in your browser. The brief you paste and the marks you make are kept in this browser only, so they are there when you come back, and Clear marks removes them. Send to a KanBananza board hands them to the extension on your computer, or opens the web app with them in the address. Nothing is sent to us.
What happens when I send the marks to a board?
If KanBananza is installed in Chrome or Edge, a new card opens with the brief on its Brief tab and each mark as a checklist item. Without the extension, the marks are copied as a checklist and you can add KanBananza or open the web app instead.
Can I use it with a keyboard or a screen reader?
Yes. Tab to the brief, move word by word with the arrow keys, hold Shift to select more, press 1 to 5 to mark, Enter to use the current marker or read a meaning, and Delete to remove a mark. Each word is announced with its kind, and every mark has a symbol and a word as well as a colour.
Is there an AI in it?
Not on the website. Find command words uses a built-in glossary. In KanBananza, Pip can suggest marks for you to keep or skip, with a free week that covers up to 3 briefs, and it never writes any of your work.
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