Convergence of International Accounting Standards

Draft Grading Rubric (subject to change)

___/Point value

Technical content (50 points):

___/5  International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)’s convergence agenda/mission is clearly described.

___/5  The importance of global convergence is clear from the discussion.

___/15  The author clearly describes three differences in accounting standards from their target country and IASB (only one difference for EU papers). 

NOTE:  Comments about how their “selected country” differs from US GAAP is generally a distraction and cause for deductions.

___/15  The author has a clear insight about why the unresolved issues are holding up the convergence process.

___/5  Author’s opinion makes sense given the prior discussion (ties insight to the three differences in a believable way).

___/5  Author’s opinion that make it clear they comprehend the issue at more than a superficial level.

Communication skill and overall impact (50 points):

___/5  Hook is interesting and ties to issue at hand [without dominating paper].

___/5  All paragraphs have topic sentences, conclusions and transitions assist reader in following the arguments.

___/5  Author’s opinion is clearly separated from discussion of other’s thoughts and evidence.

___/5  Bibliography complies with standard format chosen.

___/10  Sentences are grammatically sound and free of punctuation, spelling and other distracting errors.

___/5  Sentences are in active voice, clearly stated and not overly long (hard for on-line readers).

Overall impact:

___/5  The author’s opinion is persuasive in the context of the whole paper.

___/10  The reader gets the impression, from the work as a whole, that the student understands the difficulty of converging local country standards into one global set of standards and took time to communicate in a way to hold the reader’s interest.

Source: Carol W. Springer, 9/30/2004