Step 5 - Upload essays, add source materials, and choose grading settings

Upload essays, add source materials, and choose grading settings

This article continues the manual process of grading essays from your device or cloud storage. The process when linked to an LMS like Google Classroom or Canvas is covered in Step 9.

In the last set of articles we described how to select a rubric for grading from existing rubrics and to create a new rubric or import an existing one. The next part of the Start grading screen involves uploading essays, source material upload, and adjusting the grading settings.

Watch the 90 second demo video in our Video Tuorials section for a brief overview of the source material and essay selection. Or read on for a more detailed description. The numbered sections in this article correspond to the numbered markers in the screenshot below.

Select Rubric

We covered rubric selection and creation in the previous articles.

Add the writing prompt and assignment source materials (optional)

There is more information in the A Deeper Dive section of the help center that covers assignment topics and source materials, what they are, why they are helpful, and how you should use them. We will continue to add more articles to that section over the coming days and weeks.

If you select the Add Source Materials button, a box will slide out from the right hand side of the screen showing existing source materials for this assignment. You may select from this list and attach items to the current assignment. There are options to filter by source of search by keyword.

If you select Create New Material you will be presented with a screen that is idnetical to the Edit Material screen you would see if you edited an existing source material collection.

Give this source material collection a name so that you can find it more easily in the list for future re-use.
Add a writing prompt that aligns with the assignment instructions that you have given your students. This helps to give the AI context for its grading. DO NOT provide direction to the AI in this section—the Additional Grading Instructions section in the grading settings are where you can provide the AI with a supplementary prompt!
Upload reference materials related to the assignment that might give further context. This can include both written material as well as charts or graphics.

These reference materials and the writing prompt do not substitute for grading criteria. The AI will still grade on the basis of your rubric, so ensure that anything in this section that needs to be included as part of grading is reflected in the rubric.

If you are synced to an LMS like Google Classroom or Canvas, then any assignment instructions entered on that platform will be imported to this section and automatically attached to the assignment in EssayGrader. You can still edit it, but it will be prefilled for you.

Once you've finished adding or editing the writing prompt or source material, save your changes by clicking Save Material.

Upload essays

As with rubrics and assignment materials, essays may be brought into the system via:

upload from your device (computer, tablet, phone, etc.)
import from a cloud-based service like Google Drive and OneDrive.
using your webcam to import and upload a paper-based essay

Advanced optical character recognition (OCR) reads and converts handwritten essays that have been scanned and are already on your device or that you hold up to your webcam (single page essays only for webcam upload). Other paper based essays, even if not handwritten, are also recognized and converted for grading.

Customize grading

The next step involves selecting a variety of settings that drive some of the AI's grading behavior and the style and language of the feedback report that is produced. Any of these that overlap with settings in the rubric will default to the rubric settings.

You have the following options to set:

Student Level

This reflects the academic level of the students whose work is being graded and will default to the level assigned to the rubric. You can change it, however, if you so choose.

Language

You can set both the input and output languages here, but the default assumes that both are the same. The options you have are UK, Canadian, USA, and Australian English, as well as Spanish and French.

If you wish to produce a feedback report that is in a different language than the essay (e.g., a Spanish essay but an English report), then then uncheck the box below the language options that says 'Your output language is the same as input language' and choose a new output language from the selections that appear below.

Feedback Detail Level

Do you want the AI to create a report with feedback that is more wordy or less so with respect to explanations provided. Your options here are Detailed, Medium, and Short.

Grading Intensity

While the scoring criteria are most importantly set in the rubric itself, you can instruct the AI to apply those criteria in a Light, Moderate, or Strict manner by selecting a grading intensity option.

Advanced Rules

If not already set in the rubric, here is another opportunity to enable the Flexible Scoring option.

Additional Grading Instructions (optional)

Custom instructions add extra direction to the AI isn't as well suited to the rubric. For example, you might be dealing with students who struggle with language and you only want feedback to focus on content and not grammar. You could indicate that here.

Another example might be a situation where you want the AI to use specific language, like referring to the assignment as a paper rather than an essay. You could specify that here. You could also reference source material considerations here, although this can also be provided in the custom instructions section in the Create Source Material screen.

Please note: Custom instructions entered here only apply to the Feedback section of the report and not other sections.

Start grading

You've set the AI up for success and now you can sit back as it evaulates how successful your students have been. Just click the Start Grading button at the bottom right of the screen. Isn't technology grand!?

It may take just a few seconds or a couple of minutes to grade the essays you've selected, so be patient. Once it has finished, the software will take you back to the assignment screen where you will now see a populated list of essays and their feedback reports ready to review.

Continue the walkthrough: Select your LMS below for the next article:

Updated on: 01/13/2026

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