This week you wrote a persuasive submission about pre-publication fact-checking of political advertising. Now you'll read another student's submission and judge how strong it is. Working through how assessors evaluate formal persuasive writing sharpens your ability to apply the same lens to your own work.
A strong persuasive submission takes a clear position, supports it with specific reasoning and evidence, addresses the strongest counterargument, and closes with a practically specific recommendation. Assessors judge whether the argument truly convinces its professional audience.
Ideas & Content
Specific reasoning — not just asserting a position, but naming the mechanism behind the problem.
Evidence that genuinely supports the claim.
The precise way the strongest objection fails to undermine the case.
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Specific reasoning: shows mechanism, evidence and objection handling instead of assertion alone.
Language Choices
Precise analytical language throughout.
Key claims expressed exactly, and the recommendation stated in specific, actionable terms.
No vague or informal language that weakens formal credibility.
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Actionable precision: states claims and recommendations in exact, formal terms.
Conventions
Accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation, as expected in formal submissions.
Errors reduce professional credibility.
Sentence variety and controlled complexity show command of formal written expression.
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Formal control: uses accurate mechanics and controlled sentence complexity to sustain credibility.
Let’s Focus
Three strands matter most this week: Ideas & Content, Audience & Purpose and Language Choices. The quality of ideas decides whether the case is analytically rigorous, with specific mechanisms and evidential grounding. The calibration for a parliamentary committee decides whether the submission is credible. The precision of language decides how clearly each analytical claim is expressed.
Ideas & Content
Strong writing this week shows Ideas & Content applied consistently — not just in isolated moments. Assessors look for reasoning that serves this task: specific mechanisms of harm and evidence, not a general claim about misinformation.
What markers scan for
- Ideas & Content applied consistently throughout — not only in isolated moments.
- The specific task and topic visibly shaping how the strand is demonstrated.
Score Bands
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Basic
Ideas & Content is present but applied inconsistently or only at a surface level.
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Strong
Ideas & Content is applied consistently, with genuine understanding of what this task requires.
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Excellent
Ideas & Content is applied with sustained precision throughout, shaped by the specific demands of this task.
Audience & Purpose
Strong writing this week shows Audience & Purpose applied consistently — not just in isolated moments. Assessors look for calibration that serves this task: framing pitched for a parliamentary committee, with an actionable recommendation.
What markers scan for
- Audience & Purpose applied consistently throughout — not only in isolated moments.
- The specific task and topic visibly shaping how the strand is demonstrated.
Score Bands
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Basic
Audience & Purpose is present but applied inconsistently or only at a surface level.
-
Strong
Audience & Purpose is applied consistently, with genuine understanding of what this task requires.
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Excellent
Audience & Purpose is applied with sustained precision throughout, shaped by the specific demands of this task.
Language Choices
Strong writing this week shows Language Choices applied consistently — not just in isolated moments. Assessors look for precision that serves this task: exact phrasing that keeps each analytical claim clear, such as the distinction between false and contested content.
What markers scan for
- Language Choices applied consistently throughout — not only in isolated moments.
- The specific task and topic visibly shaping how the strand is demonstrated.
Score Bands
-
Basic
Language Choices is present but applied inconsistently or only at a surface level.
-
Strong
Language Choices is applied consistently, with genuine understanding of what this task requires.
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Excellent
Language Choices is applied with sustained precision throughout, shaped by the specific demands of this task.
Student sample for assessment
Written by a Year 10 student in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
This submission argues in favour of requiring all political advertising to be independently fact-checked before publication, on the grounds that knowingly false political claims cause measurable harm to democratic deliberation and that the current self-regulatory framework has failed to address this. The case for pre-publication fact-checking rests on two claims. First, false political advertising produces measurable harm: studies across multiple countries have documented that exposure to political misinformation influences voting behaviour even when the misinformation is later corrected. The persistence of false beliefs after correction is well-documented and is significantly greater than most citizens expect. Second, the current self-regulatory framework has not produced adequate outcomes: social media platforms, broadcasters and publishers have consistently failed to remove false political advertising at the scale or speed required to prevent harm. Mandatory pre-publication review by an independent body with clear, evidence-based criteria would address both gaps. The strongest objection to pre-publication fact-checking is that it would constitute an impermissible restriction on political speech — that requiring prior approval of political content is incompatible with democratic free speech principles. This is a serious objection that deserves a direct response. The objection conflates two different types of restriction: content that is demonstrably false and verifiable through evidence-based methods, and content that is politically contentious but not demonstrably false. Pre-publication fact-checking of the kind proposed here would apply only to the first category. Political opinions, contested claims and value judgements would not be subject to prior restraint. What would be subject to review is factual claims that can be assessed against verifiable evidence — the same standard applied in defamation law and in commercial advertising regulation. The committee is asked to consider that allowing demonstrably false political advertising to circulate unchecked is not a neutral position but an active choice to permit harm. The committee is invited to recommend mandatory pre-publication fact-checking for factual claims in political advertising, administered by a statutory independent body with defined criteria and appeal rights.
