Grading final exams, I find myself writing similar comments on many exams. One of the recurring comments is that the student needs to define a particular word. Here are a few examples:

• Salvation/Saved: If you’re talking about people needing salvation, particularly in a history course at a secular university, you need to explain from what people are being saved. Does salvation mean the same thing for all leaders, writers, groups in Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins?
• Blasphemy: On a question about why Jesus was executed, if you list “blasphemy” as one of the reasons, you need to explain what that means in context!
• God: Seems almost too obvious. What do you mean by “God”? Is it a God interested in individualist spiritual enlightenment? The God of community forming power? Different groups had different understandings of “God,” even within Judaism and Christianity.
• Christianity and Judaism: These are not two separate monolithic “religions” that are somehow instantaneously at odds with one another in the middle of the first century.
• Gospel: If “the gospel” is something that Jesus or Paul preached, state what you mean. What is the “good news”?
• “Literally”: If you’re going to say that some scholar is taking a particular text “literally,” what do you mean by “literal”? This is one of my least favorite words in relation to biblical studies. It is rarely, if ever, used accurately. You might as well just not use it. All biblical scholars should “read the Bible literally” when it is not symbolic, even if they offer alternative explanations for what the text means in historical context.

Other things to remember on exam essays:

Tell me why I should care (answer the question, “So what?” or “What is the relevance of this?”).

Use specific examples as evidence of your blanket assertions. You may not be able to get away from generalized assertions in final exam essays, but you need to at least say why you’re making them.

Try to connect topics in your essays. If two seemingly unrelated topics are included in the same question, the professor thinks there is a connection. Look for the link!

Also, ask yourself whether your answer lines up with what you’ve heard in lectures and read in course textbooks. If you found something “interesting” on Wikipedia that we didn’t talk about in class, you are susceptible to the aforementioned traps. I actually had a student come up to me after the midterm and defend his inclusion of an incorrect fact because it was on Wikipedia. Gasp! How could he be held responsible for incorrect information on unreliable website that he relied on for his exam essay?!

On a related note, get your facts straight. Pliny was not an emperor and Paul was not from a Gentile background (yes, someone actually said that Paul was a Gentile). And don’t just make stuff up, it wastes the grader’s precious time.

Cut the fluff. Don’t waste the grader’s time with flowery introductions and conclusions. Like the Gentiles, you will not be heard for your many words.

I would also like to make a plea that exam takers use caution when making their blanket statements. Note the kinks in your main argument. Acknowledge that it is a complicated topic. Use nuance. For example, avoid using words like “all” or “never.” If you are saying that something is “clear” or “certain,” there is a good chance that you are wrong.

Avoid careless phrases that you might use in common speech. If you say “against better judgment, Jesus flipped the tables of the money changers in the temple,” did you really mean that Jesus had bad judgment? Okay. Who has this better judgment? Why is it better? If you say that a claim that there were no women leaders in early Christianity can be “watered down,” what does that mean? Are you saying that the claim is partially true but not entirely? Okay. Then say that. Just so you know, use of casual phrases open you up to grader suspicion. I will assume you didn’t think through the logic very clearly.

Finally, don’t apologize for your work–if you think you did a bad job. It may actually be better than you thought, but then you make me think you’re not confident about your work. If you’re actually right, but not confident about it, that raises my suspicions.