essay success criteria

11 Success Criteria Examples

Educators know that establishing success criteria is important for learning. Students have to understand the expectations so that they can take responsibility for meeting them. We’re all students of life. Establishing success criteria in the workplace and our personal lives can help us recognize when we have reached our goals so that we can pat ourselves on the back.

Why Is it Important to Define Success Criteria?

In the classroom, establishing success criteria can help students learn without bogging them down with an overwhelming process or too much information. Properly defined success criteria:

• Enhances focus
• Gives opportunities to improve understanding
• Allows people to identify their own achievements
• Increases awareness of where challenges lie
• Opens a pathway for improvement
• Lets individuals monitor their development

In other words, recognizing the standards that you’ve created for your success allows you to understand when you’re meeting them, when you’re not and what you can do to change outcomes.

Let’s say that when people ask what you want to do for a living, you answer, “Be successful.” You would leave a lot of people wondering exactly what you do. They would probably want to know more details.

Those details are your personal success criteria. They may include:

• A financial goal
• A certain job title
• The way that you want to behave (i.e., with integrity, generosity and compassion)
• The number of times that you travel every year
• The way that you feel

Should Success Criteria Be Measurable?

When discussing success in the workplace, the subject of project success criteria often comes up. The definition of project success criteria is the benchmarks by which the endeavor will be assessed to determine whether it has been fruitful.

In this type of setting, being able to measure the success criteria is crucial. In many cases, shareholders want a quantifiable way to discern whether the project was effective.

In business organizations, people don’t usually document failure. Thinking about what failure could look like may drag down a project before it begins. On the other hand, being able to envision success can improve morale from the beginning.

Moreover, if you haven’t established success criteria, you might fall into failure mode when things aren’t going well. Life is often fraught with challenges. Having to navigate obstacles doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. Hurdles can serve as stumbling blocks, or they can help you grow.

However, if you haven’t defined what success looks like, you might interpret challenges as failures before you give yourself a chance to push past them.

Therefore, your success criteria examples need to be measurable enough for you to recognize when you’ve achieved them. However, we’re only human; some standards may be subjective. They need to be customized to your needs, values and desires so that you can acknowledge your success.

But if you spend your life measuring, analyzing and assessing your success standards, you might miss out on the opportunity to truly live. You might be ecstatic when you reach one measurable goal. However, you can be devastated when another goal remains outside of your reach.

To avoid experiencing this emotional roller coaster, you need to have various success criteria. Some can be outcome-based and measurable. However, the deeper indicators of success may be harder to evaluate. Those might be the most important factors, though.

Outcome-Based Success Criteria

Many people gauge success by a certain outcome. These success criteria examples are more measurable than process-based standards. They usually represent the results of reaching a specific goal.

One of the most commonly used standards for success is money. Some argue that money is the measure of everything in our society.

However, this wasn’t always the case. Historically, cultures have not judged their society’s well-being through economic measures. It wasn’t until the mid-19 th century that the American government and businesspeople began to define success as a person’s ability to earn a decent income.

Because of this shift, people’s well-being wasn’t measured by factors such as health or life expectancy. Instead, it became gauged by an individual’s ability to contribute to the nation’s economy or at least meet its standards.

The idea of progress was based on the concept of modernizing society through a shift from the traditional viewpoint. In other words, it was the philosophy that people can become more productive, doing things better and faster than they had previously done.

Are There Non-Economic Measures of Success?

But social revolutions have pushed for progress in areas other than economics. Some philosophers and policymakers claim that progress should cover :

• Rules and regulations
• Institutions
• Reduction of inequality

If you equate progress with success, then you could argue that success should cover similar categories. And Americans do have other quantifiable categories by which to measure their success , including those that we discuss below.

Before reading ahead, consider pulling out a paper and something to write with. As we move through the outcome-based success criteria examples, reflect on the standards that are important in your life.

Once you have a list of your personal criteria, you can track and measure it.

Average Hours Worked per Week

Even though you might think that most people quantify success by their careers, most people actually want to work less. They would see themselves as more successful if they were able to get just as much done in less time.

This is a departure from the message that society teaches most people, which is to take advantage of conveniences and technology to move faster and do more. We live in a society that prizes hard work.

Although working 60-hour weeks may seem grueling, it also sounds impressive. If you are dedicated to your career and spend much of your time producing great work, you might consider yourself successful.

However, in a survey of 2,000 Americans, only 21 percent said that spending their time working would indicate that they had “made it.” In contrast, 28 percent said that they would feel successful if they could enjoy time with friends and family. Twenty-three percent indicated that they would feel like they had “made it” if they could spend their time exploring.

Working to help others might be a different story, though. In the survey, 11 percent said that they would feel like they had made it if they were helping people in need.

What kind of work would you need to do to feel successful? You might want to journal about the factors that are important for you, such as:

• Roles and responsibilities within your job
• Opportunities for learning
• Opportunities for leadership
• Work in a specific industry
• Commute time
• Number of hours worked

Amount of Vacation Taken Each Year

Work-life balance and leisure are important indicators of success for most people. If you ask someone why they want to make a lot of money, they’ll probably tell you that it’s because they want to be able to fulfill their desires.

You work so that you can buy things that you enjoy. You probably also work so that you can make the most of your free time by doing activities that make you happy.

In the survey that we referred to above, many respondents said that they would want their amount of freedom and autonomy to increase. About 4 percent revealed that they would prefer less responsibility.

Getting away from it all seems to be a prominent measure of success. What does that mean for you?

You might want to consider writing a list of how you’d like to spend your free time. This might include:

• What you do before or after work
• The activities that you do on the weekends
• Travel destinations you’d like to visit each year
• How many vacations you’d prefer to take every year

Many people consider education to be a standard for success. While it’s true that college graduates get better jobs and earn more money , a degree shouldn’t be a measure of success for everyone.

You might want to add learning targets to your criteria. This is one way that teachers assess the success of their students’ progress.

A good teacher doesn’t churn out students that earn degrees. A good teacher helps students gain a working understanding of the material.

Therefore, education should really be gauged by what the student learned. Although our society values degrees as indicators of what you have learned, it is not always a valid measure.

You can breeze through college and “get by” without learning much. On the other hand, you can immerse yourself in an apprenticeship or entry-level job and gain wisdom that helps you open more doors, overcome obstacles and accomplish your goals.

If education is important to you, you may want to consider what kind of education can help you succeed. When you embrace the idea that learning goes beyond a diploma, you can set yourself up to gain an education in just about every environment, increasing the likelihood that you’ll feel successful.

Friends and Family

In the survey referenced above, most Americans said that they would feel successful with an average of two kids and four best friends.

Humans are wired for connection . Our need to interact positively with others is as strong as our basic survival requirements, such as food, water and shelter.

Psychoanalyst John Bowlby first developed attachment theory . He said that humans have an inherent need to create strong attachments. It starts with helpless infants that require attachment from their caregivers in order to survive. The attachment style that you develop from your interactions with your caregivers plays a large role in dictating your behaviors and patterns as an adult.

Research indicates that having meaningful, secure personal relationships is linked to feeling successful . There are many reasons for this.

The relationships that you have with your closest friends and family mirror those that you have with peers and colleagues. Improving your relationships has been shown to increase personal well-being. Developing strong, trusting attachments with people makes you more confident to take independent steps and exert your autonomy.

You can’t be successful in a cave. Or perhaps you can, but you probably won’t leave a legacy or be able to enhance the community, which are two examples of success criteria.

Therefore, it’s helpful to place importance on your relationships when defining your success. However, the number doesn’t really count. When it comes to relationships, quality is more important than quantity.

Having people to rely on when you need support is crucial. Developing a core network of confidantes can help you achieve this. But don’t get too concerned about the number of people who are in your social or family circle. Whatever works for you is the magic number.

Home, Property and Asset Value

Would you rather feel fulfilled but have nothing to show for it or have the expensive house and car but feel lonely and miserable? Many of us think that we want material possessions as indicators of our success. At some point, however, we might realize that those external factors aren’t bringing us happiness.

Your external measures of success need to match the internal criteria. Below, we go into more detail about process-based success and emotion-based success.

The feeling of success is ultimately a greater reward than the things that you can purchase because of your success. However, those concepts go hand in hand.

You may not feel the ease and freedom that you equate with success if you don’t have a comfortable space to live or a reliable car that allows you to get to work or head off for a weekend vacation. On the other hand, purchasing those items won’t necessarily fulfill you if you aren’t working on having other needs met, such as working in a career that aligns with your passion or nurturing a romantic relationship.

Americans say that they would own homes worth just about $500,000 and cars worth approximately $41,000 if they were successful. But they don’t necessarily indicate that buying those items would create a feeling of success. However, if they experienced financial success, they would want to live more comfortably, with enhanced conveniences and nice things.

Process-Based Success Criteria

One of the biggest problems with outcome-based goals is that you can become fixated on the results and ignore the process. If you work hard but don’t achieve your goals, will you have felt as though you succeeded? Will you be able to congratulate yourself on your dedication and perseverance?

An easy-to-understand example of this is the goal of losing weight. If you will only be happy when you lose 20 pounds, what happens if you plateau after losing 15? What if you’re exercising regularly and in the best health of your life? You may not celebrate your wins because you’re obsessed with the number on the scale.

Setting process-based goals allows you to grow toward your bigger objectives. Process-based success criteria let you work your goals into your journey so that you can hit your milestones along the way to your big dreams.

Many experts say that all successful people set goals . However, those goals don’t have to be the outcome at the end of the tunnel. If you set an objective to earn $500,000 a year by the time you turn 35, you might feel completely disappointed if you’re still working up to that salary on your 35 th birthday.

The key to setting goals is to stagger them so that you can reward yourself as you go. You might set small outcome-based goals that give you something workable to strive for.

However, setting processed-based goals or standards to work toward can help you live according to your values and pat yourself on the back for being the kind of person that you would respect.

Focus on the Process to Ensure Success

Outcome-based success is not guaranteed. You can set a goal to earn a certain income and work as hard as you can to achieve it. However, there may be variables outside of your control.

When you focus on process-based success criteria, you are in the driver’s seat. You can control the intentions that you set and make choices to take the actions that are necessary to meet them.

Here’s an example when it comes to weight loss. Sure, you’re hoping to lose 20 pounds. Where do you start?

You can set a goal to lose one pound. That’s still based on a specific outcome, though.

What if you set your initial goal to go to the gym three times next week? Unless your car breaks down or a hurricane hits, you’ll likely be able to meet that goal as long as you schedule your time right and keep up your motivation.

In other words, that goal is completely within your control. Your actions determine your success. If you go to the gym on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, you’ll feel successful before the week is even over.

This experience could tempt you to set an outcome goal the following week. Perhaps you’re confident that going to the gym three times a week will allow you to lose 2 pounds in seven days.

But other factors can still interfere with that goal and set you up for failure. If you don’t eat well all week, you could prevent the pounds from shedding. Being stressed out at work might make you sleep poorly and limit your weight loss.

If you don’t reach your outcome-based goal, you may attribute it to something that you did or failed to do. In fact, outcome-based goals are difficult to predict, and they’re not always consistent.

Concentrating on the process instead of results can:

• Allow you to maintain forward momentum
• Prevent frustration
• Help you stay focused
• Put your success within your control
• Let you avoid the emotional roller coaster

Recognize the Limitations of Time

It’s easy to get caught up in outcome-based goals because they promise measurable success. You can also hope to reach your goals in a fast amount of time.

Focusing on the process can be motivating, but it can be tedious. Some processes take longer than others to bring about results.

This is an idea that is perpetuated in our culture. To expand on the weight-loss theme, most people would be more excited by the idea of losing 15 pounds in three weeks than shedding 1 pound a week for 15 weeks. We want results, and we want them now.

In many cases, we get so excited about achieving successful outcomes quickly that we don’t realize that we have to build the foundations to maintain our success. We’ve all heard the stories of the overnight millionaire that didn’t know how to manage the money and ended up losing everything.

Sustained success comes from establishing a successful process. Building the groundwork to support your success can take time.

Think about the musician who wants to book high-paying gigs. One way to command higher pay is to improve their skills. But you can’t become a musical genius in a few days.

Developing your talents, increasing your knowledge base and building relationships can help you achieve your long-term goals. However, going through the process of growing those abilities can take months or even years. Making sure that you set goals that keep you aligned with the process can help you stay on track.

Doing this keeps you satisfied on your journey. It can also make you more likely to achieve the outcome-based goals that you set for yourself. You just have to be patient with the process.

Some keys to developing process-based success criteria include:

• Releasing emotions from your results
• Focusing on your behavior instead of outcomes or the behavior of others
• Building consistent daily habits
• Rewarding yourself every time that you follow the process

If you have set up an outcome-based goal that relies on a particular process, wait an appropriate length of time before measuring it. You have to give yourself a chance to work toward what you want before you determine whether the process is effective.

Emotion-Based Success Criteria

Whether or not you can measure your success standards, they are probably linked to an emotion that you want to feel. For example, you might want to pad your bank account so that you feel financial freedom. With that independence, you also enjoy:

• Less stress
• More security
• Spontaneity

If one of your success goals is to further your education, you may have strong ties to emotions such as:

• Gaining an understanding of the world
• Experiencing less uncertainty

Almost all of these emotions boil down to helping you feel less fear or discomfort and getting more enjoyment out of life.

WorkLifeBalance.com claims that these feelings can be identified as achievement and enjoyment. If someone were to ask you what your purpose was for the day, you might not know exactly what you wanted to achieve. However, you would probably want to accomplish something and enjoy the process.

Therefore, when you’re thinking about your success criteria, you might want to consider the way that each item will make you feel.

This not only allows you to gauge when you’ve hit your mark, but it also opens the door for other opportunities to achieve success. For example, let’s say that you’ve committed to earning a bachelor’s degree. You’ll feel successful when you graduate.

Now, let’s dissect what will make you feel successful about having that diploma in your hand. Maybe the answers are something like this:

• I’ll feel like I followed a desire to its completion.
• I’ll feel like others look up to me.
• I’ll be more confident looking for a job.

But what if something interferes with your ability to earn that degree? Perhaps you experience financial hardship and can’t afford to take classes anymore. After you leave college, you start working as a football coach for young children.

You develop skills in leadership, mentoring and working with a team, which you can add on your resume to boost your confidence if you have to seek a job in the future. You have a group of youngsters that look up to you. You accomplish your goal of providing for yourself financially.

Your goal may have changed, but you still satisfied it. Would you say that you’re a failure?

There is no easy answer to this question. Some people will want to achieve the goal of earning a specific degree. However, others will feel successful by the enjoyment and accomplishment that they’ve gotten from the new path. You might even feel more successful because you overcame an obstacle, which is a process-based success criterion.

By measuring success in multiple ways, you can reframe your circumstances and your mindset so that you feel like you’ve lived a meaningful life.

In the end, isn’t that the aim of achieving success? You can’t take your bank account, big house and nice car with you when you’ve passed.

However, you can leave a legacy by developing strong relationships and bringing new ideas to the world. If you can look back and know that you’ve lived with integrity and enjoyed every moment, wouldn’t you say that you were successful?

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Criteria of a Perfect Essay

Writing is easier said than done and writing a perfect essay requires keenness to details as well as the application of certain criteria. Writing is a process, and it takes time, patience, and endless practice to grow and develop this skill to perfection. Unfortunately, for a newbie and a majority of writing amateurs, writing is easy and anyone with a good command of English can write. They could not be more wrong. Having a great command of the queen’s language will not guarantee or qualify you as a great writer much less a writer. Writing requires more than just language and a repository of great vocabulary, and you have to grow and develop your skills before you can call yourself a writer. You should not expect to simply become and evolve into a great writer overnight. Perfect essay writing requires a resolve and a commitment to certain criteria which makes up the essence of this article. If you are in immediate need of assistance and deadlines to meet, you can also explore option to buy essays online which can be your lifeline in such difficult situations. 

How to Write a Perfect Essay

• Ensure you have a thesis and thesis statement . When writing a perfect essay, you must have a thesis. This gives your essay purpose and with it you can develop and build your stance. A thesis helps you to identify the topic of your essay and it is followed by other sentences. The thesis statement makes it simple for your readers to understand your perspective or viewpoint.
• Have a well-structured essay . Perfect essay writing necessitates organization. Each body paragraph of your essay should begin with a topic sentence which conveys the main point of a single body paragraph. The topic sentence ought to have an argument which supports or builds on the thesis statement so as to motivate your readers’ interest in your article. You may require some help and ideas to better structure your work and consider taking help of professional services.
• Provide evidence for your arguments . For you to learn how to write a perfect college essay, you should have resolute support for your claims. Your argument is well presented when you state it and explain the specifics which led you to this conclusion. This effectively sets up your organization.
• Subject perception . Your essay can be well-organized but without acuity it does not bare much evidence based on your arguments. In order to learn how to write a perfect essay, the perspicacity of your subject ought to relate directly to the organization and the evidence you provide for your arguments. With this, you dig deeply with your claims and offer a perceptive subject.
• Resolve yourself to being lucid . Perfect essay writing requires clear and concrete words and sentences. Its vitality is that the meaning of your article will reach your readers thus your essay will be highly graded. Ensure that you do not introduce your paragraphs with the commonly used examples in class.
• Purpose to use a formal voice throughout your essay . For you to comprehend how to write a perfect essay, you should use the formal speech. This is crucial since it makes you sound more substantial and in command. Avoid using the informal language and retrenchments such as can’t, won’t, isn’t etc.
• Be resourceful in how you come up with your ideas . Perfect essay writing necessitates a distinctive presentation of ideas. This drives your readers to want to know more of what your essay entails. Present your opinions in an original format so as to make your article to appear more alluring.
• Purpose to maintain relevance throughout your essay . When writing a perfect essay, ensure that you do not veer off topic. Your readers can easily lose interest and give up on continuing to read your article. Ensure that the subsequent paragraphs link or mimic the main argument or the thesis statement.
• Using correct spelling and punctuation enables you to improve on how to write a perfect college essay. To ensure this, make an effort of always proofreading through your paper and omit the errors you come across.

Writing needs to have a goal and a purpose because, without one, an article may not appeal to the readers. Readers need to look forward to the next paragraph. From the criteria above, some simple and seemingly irrelevant factors like punctuation and the choice of voice must also be taken seriously. 

In conclusion, writing perfect essays takes time and you need to have a plan in place. The ideas to be included in an article should be well-researched and have enough substance to develop or build the thesis statement. The points provided above are not necessarily all you need to write a perfect essay, but they can help you comprehend what a perfect essay entails and warrants. Simply adhere to the above criteria and maintain a keen eye to details and you might surprise yourself.

About The Author

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Write your essay introduction

The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

See the full essay example

The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Write your essay conclusion

Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

Is this article helpful?

Other students also liked.

• How long is an essay? Guidelines for different types of essay
• How to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples
• How to conclude an essay | Interactive example

More interesting articles

• Checklist for academic essays | Is your essay ready to submit?
• Comparing and contrasting in an essay | Tips & examples
• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks
• Generate topic ideas for an essay or paper | Tips & techniques
• How to revise an essay in 3 simple steps
• How to structure an essay: Templates and tips
• How to write a descriptive essay | Example & tips
• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide
• How to write a narrative essay | Example & tips
• How to write a rhetorical analysis | Key concepts & examples
• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples
• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips
• How to write an essay outline | Guidelines & examples
• How to write an expository essay
• How to write the body of an essay | Drafting & redrafting
• Kinds of argumentative academic essays and their purposes
• Organizational tips for academic essays
• The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples
• Transition sentences | Tips & examples for clear writing

"I thought AI Proofreading was useless but.."

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

Get started

• Project management
• CRM and Sales
• Work management
• Product development life cycle
• Comparisons
• Construction management
• monday.com updates

A guide to defining project success criteria

When planning a project, your top concern is delivering successful results that satisfy your stakeholders. Back in the day, you could achieve this by producing a product on time, on or below budget, with a high level of quality. But the final result is no longer the single measure of the project’s success.

In this guide, we’ll discuss today’s expanded view of project success criteria, including how stakeholders want to understand whether new products and services meet customer expectations and boost organizational processes. We’ll also explore how to track all aspects of project success on the monday.com Work OS.

How do you define project success criteria?

Success criteria refer to the standards stakeholders use to determine if the project meets their expectations. Project managers may examine these during the project lifecycle and after the project close. The criteria are somewhat focused on budget and schedule but also consider how stakeholders – leadership, employees, and customers – are affected by the result of your project. Here are some questions you can ask to define project success:

Did the customer accept the project?

Does the product or service meet the customer’s brief? Does it perform as expected and align with the business case? Have tools and support been implemented to make change easy on customers, and does it improve their experience?

Does the project contribute to organizational workflows?

Have new efficiencies or workarounds been created that will have a positive impact on performance ? Does the outcome improve or at least not change how things work today? Does it advance the technology used by the organization?

How does the project impact the organization’s culture?

Will new processes affect how team members interact with each other or their customers?

Overall, the main focus is on the customer having a good experience while the project is in flight or following the launch of a new product or service. Start by defining what success means for your team and stakeholders, in terms of real, measurable criteria you can track on the monday.com Work OS.

6 examples of project success criteria

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to defining success criteria, and project managers will be guided by the specific needs of their stakeholders. We asked Matt Burns, Project Manager at monday.com, how he ensure his projects hit the mark. He told us he always asks the following question to provide a framework to shape his project management:

“If I have a magic wand, and this goes perfectly for you and does exactly what you want in your heart and soul, what does that look like for you?”

Some common examples of project success criteria you might track to build your own framework include:

• Scope : The project manager will begin by defining the project’s scope and establishing what needs to happen to consider it a success. On the monday.com Work OS, you can define a baseline to set project scope, then make necessary adjustments along the way.
• Budget : No project manager wants their project to be a money drain. Establish a budget and compare it to actual expenses throughout the project’s lifecycle.
• Timeline : The timeline of the project should be included when defining success criteria, including meeting milestones and deadlines to achieve success. This is easy to accomplish on monday.com, where you can mark significant checkpoints to measure and share project progress.
• Business Goals: Consider customer goals, organizational goals, and project management team goals. A successful project will ensure these are all in alignment.
• Deliverables : Check that the project deliverables align with expectations and are satisfactory. For example, if your project goal is to produce a new app, the deliverable should be a fully functional, bug-free app that is intuitive and meets the customer’s needs.
• Risk management : The project manager should be able to identify risks early on and develop mitigation strategies. For example, on the monday.com Work OS, you can use real-time data to track, monitor, and mitigate any roadblocks throughout the project lifecycle.

You can create and manage these project success criteria and more thanks to the curated yet flexible features on monday.com.

How do you write success criteria for a project?

Begin by deciding on the categories of your success criteria, for example, project management or project delivery success criteria, then make a list of priorities.

For project management , your success criteria might be to:

• Hold weekly project team update meetings
• Conduct one-on-one tracking meetings with the team lead
• Conduct a monthly detailed budget review
• Ensure all milestones attain stakeholder sign-off

For project delivery, your success criteria might be to:

• Approve Change Management & Communications Plans by the end of the month
• Deliver training to the entire Customer Service Organization by the end of the quarter
• Improve call completion time by 20% over first-month post rollout
• Improve customer satisfaction survey results by 10 points within three months

What are the benefits of measuring project success?

Measuring project success enables you to gain greater visibility into the progress and results of your projects to :

Establish goals and objectives

Tracking and measuring results begins with benchmarking goals from the get-go. By doing so project managers can benefit by ensuring everyone involved is on the same page and working towards the same result. Everyone, from senior stakeholders to team members, will understand the project’s purpose and how their role contributes to its success.

Meet milestones

By tracking progress, you’ll identify any potential issues before they arise. This ensures that the team is able to meet the expectations for the delivery of a successful project.

Evaluate project management methodologies

Project managers can assess the effectiveness of their project management techniques to assist in future planning. For example, if traditional project management methods like Waterfall fail, you can adjust the process to something more agile.

Make data-driven decisions

Access to measured data allows for more intelligent decision-making for this project and future projects. You’ll be able to make decisions about resource allocation and budgeting based on the actual results of your work.

Manage project risks

With data about the progress of your project, you can monitor risk factors and act swiftly if something goes wrong. This keeps potential issues from spiraling out of control, so your project can stay on track and achieve a successful outcome.

4 tips to achieve project success

Give your project every chance at success by following these tips that will make a big difference:

1. Establish a baseline

You’ll make your comparison against this data, so be sure to use the same measurement tools for baselining and measuring. If your goal is to improve call answer times, you need to know how long it takes representatives to answer the phone now so you know what you’re trying to achieve.

2. Get stakeholder buy-in and sign-off

With well-defined targets and a baseline to perform against, you can engage your stakeholders, keep them updated, justify requests, and get their support when needed. Ask for sign-off to have a history of positive results that stakeholders can see.

3. Use continuous measurements

Improvements take time, so setting a very rigid set of criteria may not allow time for the new product or service to show any real impact. Set targets with a range – like improving performance by 25 to 35 percent over three months – to give yourself room to grow.

4. Use project management software

Tracking project success using paper and pen is time-consuming and can be inaccurate. A powerful project management tool is the way to go if you want a more efficient way to measure progress and success. The monday.com Work OS can automate the process and make tracking easier.

Track progress and measure project success on monday.com

Connect all the moving parts of your project on the monday.com Work OS. We offer a wide variety of features to achieve project success, including:

Centralize project success planning

Use the appealing centralized dashboard to formally log your project success criteria name, such as “Improved Customer Satisfaction Scores,” and your measurement method. A best practice is to include the frequency of measurement, such as weekly or monthly budget reviews.

Collaborate with stakeholders

Eliminate knowledge silos with open communication channels from a central location. Update changes in real-time, and allocate resources to team members as required. For example, a PM should track contractor hours, while a Business Analyst can track software testing.

Monitor project success

Set milestones for your desired outcomes, such as reducing customer cancellations by 20% by X date. List what issues you’ve identified and how you plan to resolve them.

Track dependencies

Keep multi-stage projects on track by informing all key stakeholders when they need to commence work.

Integrate with key project management tools

Ensure your project runs smoothly by connecting essential third-party tools like Slack, Jira, or Salesforce to keep your data and teams perfectly aligned.

These are just a few of the features available on the monday.com Work OS to set and track your project success criteria. Explore all of these and more by signing up for a free trial below.

What is success criteria in project management?

Success criteria in project management are the measures used to determine whether a project has been successful. The criteria will depend on your project and goals but often includes scope, budget, timeline, business goals, deliverables, and risk management. Project manager Matt Burns recommends outlining these before you begin the project.

“The number one thing is the initial definition you set with stakeholders, which you should do at the beginning. If you want to go somewhere and you don’t have a map, you’re probably going to get lost.”

How do you measure project success criteria?

Measure project success criteria by defining what metrics you are going to use and how frequently you will track them. View them from a centralized dashboard on the monday.com Work OS to keep all the stakeholders informed about progress and identify any areas of concern.

Who is in charge of setting project success criteria?

Typically, the project manager will establish goals for the project, along with success criteria to measure whether those goals have been achieved. Although the PM is responsible, they will liaise with stakeholders and customers to define these criteria. If necessary, create a formal agreement or contract between all parties involved. This ensures everyone is on the same page about what success looks like.

Establish new project success criteria

Once the project closes, your team will no longer be responsible for tracking the product’s performance, so be sure to build a solid measurement process into the handoff activities. New criteria should be established and logged on the monday.com Work OS to set goals for continuous improvement and measurable success.

Send this article to someone who’d like it.

Identification and Evaluation of Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors in Project Success

• Original Research
• Published: 16 March 2022
• Volume 23 , pages 237–253, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Athanasios Lamprou 1 &
• Dimitra G. Vagiona   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5584-9373 1  

3554 Accesses

12 Citations

Explore all metrics

Project success is one of the widely discussed issues inside Project Management field in the last decades. Success criteria (SC) and critical success factors (CSFs) constitute the two fundamental components of project success. The aim of this paper is the identification and evaluation of the SC as well as the CSFs in project success in theory and practice. A detailed literature review and content analysis are used to identify the frequency of reference of SC and CSFs, while an extensive questionnaire survey in individuals and organizations with experience in construction projects in Greece is performed to investigate their importance in project success. Regarding the relative importance, according to respondents’ perceptions, cost/budget, time/schedule, client/user satisfaction, and quality and technical performance are the most important SC, while project finance/funding and economics, project team/team members ability/competence and effectiveness, and project manager/team leader ability/competence and relative/past experience are the most important CSFs. The first four SC present similarities in terms of citation frequency in the literature review and relative importance provided by the respondents, while the ranking of the rest SC and CSFs presents several deviations. The Spearman correlation coefficient is used to investigate the possible relationships among the SC and the CSFs. 5 out of 17 SC and 11 out of 26 CSFs present low or moderate correlations ( rs  < 0.5) respectively. The present research can serve as the basis for developing either a mathematical model or performance index for evaluating success of construction projects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Research Methodology: An Introduction

What is Qualitative in Research

Patrik Aspers & Ugo Corte

Stakeholder Management: Framework and Philosophy

Data availability.

Not applicable.

Code Availability

Adabre, M. A., & Chan, A. P. (2019). The ends required to justify the means for sustainable affordable housing: A review on critical success criteria. Sustainable Development, 27 (4), 781–794. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1919

Article   Google Scholar  

Alashwal, A. M., Fareed, N. F., & Al-obaidi, K. M. (2017). Determining success criteria and success factors for international construction projects for Malaysian contractors. Construction Economics and Building, 17 (2), 62–80. https://doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v17i2.5319

Albert, M., Balve, P., & Spang, K. (2017). Evaluation of project success: a structured literature review. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 10 (4), 796–821. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-01-2017-0004

Al-Tmeemy, S. M. H. M., Abdul-Rahman, H., & Harun, Z. (2011). Future criteria for success of building projects in Malaysia. International Journal of Project Management, 29 (3), 337–348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.03.003

Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17 (6), 337–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(98)00069-6

Avots, I. (1969). Why does project management fail? California Management Review (Fall 1969), 12 (1), 77–82.

Baccarini, D. & Collins, A. (2003). Critical success factors for projects. In Proceedings of 17 th ANZAM Conference (ANZAM 2003). (pp. 1–10). Fremantle, Western Australia.

Baccarini, D. (1999). The logical framework method for defining project success. Project Management Journal, 30 (4), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697289903000405

Baker, B. N., Murphy, D. C., & Fisher, D. (1983). Factors affecting project success. In D. I. Cleland & W. R. King (Eds.), Project management handbook (pp. 669–685). Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Google Scholar  

Belassi, W., & Tukel, O. I. (1996). A new framework for determining critical success/failure factors in projects. International Journal of Project Management, 14 (3), 141–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/0263-7863(95)00064-X

Boynton, A. C., & Zmud, R. W (1984). Critical Success Factors: A Case-Based Assessment. Sloan Management Review, 25 (4), 17–27.

Castro, M. S., Bahli, B., Farias Filho, J. R., & Barcaui, A. (2019). A contemporary vision of project success criteria. Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management, 16 (1), 66–77.

Chan, A. P. C., & Chan, A. P. L. (2004). Key performance indicators for measuring construction success. Benchmarking Int J, 11 (2), 203–221. https://doi.org/10.1108/14635770410532624

Chan, A. P. C., Scott, D., & Chan, A. P. L. (2004). Factors affecting the success of a construction project. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 130 (1), 153–155. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2004)130:1(153)

Cleland, D. I., & King, W. R. (1983). Systems analysis and project management . McGraw-Hill.

Cohen, J. W. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Davis, K. (2014). Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success. International Journal of Project Management, 32 (2), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2013.02.006

Davis, K. (2017). An empirical investigation into different stakeholder groups perception of project success. International Journal of Project Management, 35 (4), 604–617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.02.004

De Wit, A. (1988). Measurement of project success. Project Management Journal, 6 (3), 164–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/0263-7863(88)90043-9

Fortune, J., & White, D. (2006). Framing of project critical success factors by a systems model. International Journal of Project Management, 24 (1), 53–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2005.07.004

Freeman, M., & Beale, P. (1992). Measuring Project Success. Project Management Journal, 23 (1), 8–18.

Gravetter, F. J., & Wallnau, L. B. (2017). Statistics for the behavioral sciences (10th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Gudienė, N., Banaitis, A., Banaitienė, N., & Lopes, J. (2013). Development of a conceptual critical success factors model for construction projects: a case of Lithuania. Procedia Engineering, 57 , 392–397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2013.04.051

Gudienė, N., Banaitis, A., Podvezko, V., & Banaitienė, N. (2014). Identification and evaluation of the critical success factors for construction projects in Lithuania: AHP approach. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 20 (3), 350–359. https://doi.org/10.3846/13923730.2014.914082

Gunduz, M., & Almuajebh, M. (2020). Critical success factors for sustainable construction project management. Sustain, 12 (5), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051990

Ika, L. A. (2009). Project success as a topic in project management journals. Project Management Journal, 40 (4), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20137

Kulshreshtha, R., Kumar, A., Tripathi, A., & Likhi, D. K. (2017). Critical success factors in implementation of urban metro system on PPP: a case study of Hyderabad metro. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 18 (4), 303–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-017-0164-6

Lamprou, A., & Vagiona, D. (2018). Success criteria and critical success factors in project success: a literature review. RELAND: International Journal of Real Estate & Land Planning, 1 , 276–284. https://doi.org/10.26262/reland.v1i0.6483

Lester, A. (2021). 8 - Project-success criteria, In A. Lester (Ed.), Project Management, Planning and Control (8th ed., pp.41–42). Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 9780128243398.

Lim, C. S., & Mohamed, M. Z. (1999). Criteria for project success: an exploratory re-examination. International Journal of Project Management, 17 (4), 243–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(98)00040-4

Lock, D. (1984). Project management . St. Martins press.

Martin, C. C. (1976). Project management . Amacom.

Mathar, H., Assaf, S., Hassanain, M. A., Abdallah, A., & Sayed, A. M. (2020). Critical success factors for large building construction projects: Perception of consultants and contractors. Built Environment Project and Asset Management, 10 (3), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1108/BEPAM-07-2019-0057

Morris, P. W. G., & Hough, G. H. (1987). The anatomy of major projects: a study of the reality of project management . John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Müller, R., & Jugdev, K. (2012). Critical success factors in projects: Pinto, Slevin, and Prescott - the elucidation of project success. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 5 (4), 757–775. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538371211269040

Murphy, D.C., Baker, B.N., & Fisher, D. (1974). Determinants of project success . Boston College, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Chestnut Hill. Massachusetts.

Nelson, R. R. (2005). Project retrospectives: evaluating project success, failure, and everything in between. MIS Q Executive, 4 (3), 361–372.

Nguyen, T. A., Chovichien, V., & Takano, S. E. (2013). Quantitative weighting for evaluation indexes of construction project success by application of structural equation modeling. International Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 2 (3), 70–84. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.ijcem.20130203.05

Pallant, J. (2016). SPSS Survival Manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using IBM SPSS (6th ed.). Mc Graw-Hill Education.

Pinto, J. K., & Slevin, D. P. (1987). Critical factors in successful project implementation. IEEE T Eng Manage, 34 (1), 22–27. https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.1987.6498856

Pinto, J. K., & Slevin, D. P. (1988a). Project success: Definitions and measurement techniques. Project Management Journal, 19 (1), 67–73.

Pinto, J. K., & Slevin, D. P. (1988b). Critical success factors across the project life cycle. Project Management Journal, 19 (3), 67–75.

Pinto, J. K., & Slevin, D. P. (1989). Critical success factors in R&D projects. Res Technol Manage, 32 (1), 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.1989.11670572

Queiroz, M. M., & Mendes, A. B. (2020). Critical Success Factors of the Brazilian Offshore Support Vessel Industry: A Flexible Systems Approach. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 21(Suppl 1), S33–S48.

Shahu, R., Pundir, A. K., & Ganapathy, L. (2012). An Empirical Study on Flexibility: A Critical Success Factor of Construction Projects. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 13 (3), 123–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-012-0014-5

Silva, G.A.S.K., Warnakulasuriya, B.N.F., & Arachchige, B.J.H. (2016). Criteria for construction project success: a literature review, In Proceedings of 13 th International Conference on Business Management , (pp. 697–717).

Slevin, D. P., & Pinto, J. K. (1986). The Project Implementation Profile: New Tool for Project Managers. Project Management Journal, 17 (4), 57–70.

Sudhakar, G. P. (2012). A model of critical success factors for software projects. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 25 (6), 537–558. https://doi.org/10.1108/17410391211272829

Tabish, S. Z. S., & Jha, K. N. (2011). Identification and evaluation of success factors for public construction projects. Construction Management and Economics, 29 (8), 809–823. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2011.611152

Tiwari, P., & Suresha, B. (2021). Moderating role of project innovativeness on project flexibility, project risk, project performance, and business success in financial services. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management , 22(3), 179–196.

Toor, S. U. R., & Ogunlana, S. O. (2008). Critical COMs of success in large-scale construction projects: Evidence from Thailand construction industry. International Journal of Project Management, 26 (4), 420–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.08.003

Toor, S. U. R., & Ogunlana, S. O. (2009). Construction professionals’ perception of critical success factors for large-scale construction projects. Construction Innovation, 9 (2), 149–167. https://doi.org/10.1108/14714170910950803

Turner, J. R. (2009). The handbook of project based management: leading strategic change in organizations (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Turner, J. R., & Müller, R. (2006). Choosing appropriate project managers: matching their leadership style to the type of project . Project Management Institute.

Vishvakarma, N. K., Sharma, R. R. K., & Kumar, A. (2021). An Empirical Analysis of Impact of Organizational Strategies on Critical Success Factors of Business Process Reengineering. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management , 22(1), 55–73.

Wai, S. H., Yusof, A. M., & Ismail, S. (2012). Exploring success criteria from the developers’ perspective in Malaysia. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 4 , 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5772/51096

Wai, S. H., Yusof, A. M., Ismail, S., & Ng, C. A. (2013). Exploring success factors of social infrastructure projects in Malaysia. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 5 (2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5772/55659

Westerveld, E. (2003). The project excellence model: Linking success criteria and critical success factors. International Journal of Project Management, 21 (6), 411–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(02)00112-6

Yong, Y. C., & Mustaffa, N. E. (2012). Analysis of factors critical to construction project success in Malaysia. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 19 (5), 543–556. https://doi.org/10.1108/09699981211259612

Yong, Y. C., & Mustaffa, N. E. (2013). Critical success factors for Malaysian construction project: an empirical assessment. Construction Management and Economics, 31 (9), 959–978. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2013.828843

Yong, Y. C., & Mustaffa, N. E. (2017). Critical success factors for malaysian construction projects: an investigative review. International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, 4 (2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.11113/ijbes.v4.n2.180

Download references

This research received no external funding.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece

Athanasios Lamprou & Dimitra G. Vagiona

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dimitra G. Vagiona .

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

Additional information, publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Lamprou, A., Vagiona, D.G. Identification and Evaluation of Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors in Project Success. Glob J Flex Syst Manag 23 , 237–253 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-022-00302-3

Download citation

Received : 27 March 2021

Accepted : 21 February 2022

Published : 16 March 2022

Issue Date : June 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-022-00302-3

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Critical success factors
• Project management
• Project success
• Project success assessment
• Project success evaluation
• Success criteria
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

IB Extended Essay: Assessment Criteria

• Research Questions
• Past Essays
• Notes & Outlines
• Works Cited Page
• In-Text Citations
• Assessment Criteria
• Reflections
• Supervisor Info
• Net Valley Library This link opens in a new window

Score Descriptors for each Criterion:

• A - Focus and Method
• B - Knowledge and Understanding
• C - Critical Thinking
• D - Presentation
• E - Engagement

Printable: Full Rubric  for all subjects

To view details for your SUBJECT, open the correct page below.

• Choose "Interpreting the EE Assessment Criteria" on the sidebar to see how to score well in YOUR subject area

Language & literature (language A)

Language acquisition (language B)

Mathematics

Visual Arts

World Studies

Business Management

Grade Boundaries

What's Expected?

• A: Focus/Method
• B: Knowledge
• C: Critical Thinking
• D: Presentation
• E: Engagement
• A: Focus and Method (6 marks)
• B: Knowledge and Understanding (6 marks)
• C: Critical Thinking (12 marks)
• D: Presentation (4 marks)
• E: Engagement (6 marks)
• Total marks possible: 34 (see grade boundaries below)
• Printable:  Full Rubric
• Printable: A3 size with details
• Printable:  Details for each criterion , via the Oxford guide

Criterion A:  Focus and Method (6 points)

What It Means:   This criterion focuses on the topic, the research question and the methodology. It assesses the explanation of the focus of the research (this includes the topic and the research question), how the research will be undertaken, and how the focus is maintained throughout the essay.

Questions to ask:  

• Does this essay meet the requirements for the subject for which you are registering it?
• Is your research question stated as a question?
• Have you explained how your research question relates to the subject that you selected for the extended essay?
• Have you given an insight into why your area of study is important?
• Is your research question feasible within the scope of the task? Could your research question be “answered” or it is too vague?
• Did you refer to your research question throughout the essay (not only in the introduction and conclusion)?
• Did you explain why you selected your methodology?
• Are there other possible methods that could be used or applied to answer your research question? How might this change the direction of your research?
• If you stated a particular methodology in the introduction of your essay, or specific sources, have you used them?
• Are there any references listed in the bibliography that were not directly cited in the text?

(Source: Susan Trower, via West Sound Academy)

Criterion B:  Knowledge and Understanding (6 points)

What It Means:   This criterion assesses the extent to which the research relates to the subject area/discipline used to explore the research question; or in the case of the world studies extended essay, the issue addressed and the two disciplinary perspectives applied; and additionally, the way in which this knowledge and understanding is demonstrated through the use of appropriate terminology and concepts.

• Have you explained how your research question relates to a specific subject you selected for the extended essay?
• Have you used relevant terminology and concepts throughout your essay as they relate to your particular area of research?
• Is it clear that the sources you are using are relevant and appropriate to your research question?
• Do you have a range of sources, or have you only relied on one particular type, for example internet sources?
• Is there a reason why you might not have a range? Is this justified?

(Source: Oxford EE manual, p. 110)

Criterion C:  Critical Thinking (12 points)

What It Means:   This criterion assesses the extent to which critical thinking skills have been used to analyze and evaluate the research undertaken.

• Have you made links between your results and data collected and your research question?
• If you included data or information that is not directly related to your research question have you explained its importance?
• Are your conclusions supported by your data?
• If you found unexpected information or data have you discussed its importance?
• Have you provided a critical evaluation of the methods you selected?
• Have you considered the reliability of your sources (peer-reviewed journals, internet, and so on)?
• Have you mentioned and evaluated the significance of possible errors that may have occurred in your research?
• Are all your suggestions of errors or improvements relevant?
• Have you evaluated your research question?
• Have you compared your results or findings with any other sources?
• Is there an argument that is clear and easy to follow and directly linked to answering your research question, and which is supported by evidence? Are there other possible methods that could be used or applied to answer your research question? How might this change the direction of your research?

(Source: Oxford EE Manual p. 111)

Handy Links:

• Presentation One Pager  via Catalina Bordoy
• Presentation Checklist
• Sample Title page   (see below - top half of the page)

Criterion D:  Presentation ( 4 points)

What It Means:   This criterion assesses the extent to which the presentation follows the standard format expected for academic writing and the extent to which this aids effective communication.

• Have you read and understood the presentation requirements of the extended essay?
• Have you chosen a font that will be easy for examiners to read on-screen?
• Is your essay double-spaced and size 12 font?
• Are the title and research question mentioned on the cover page?
• Are all pages numbered?
• Have you prepared a correct table of contents?
• Do the page numbers in the table of contents match the page numbers in the text?
• Is your essay subdivided into correct sub-sections, if this is applicable to the subject?
• Are all figures and tables properly numbered and labelled?
• Does your bibliography contain only the sources cited in the text?
• Did you use the same reference system throughout the essay?
• Does the essay have less than 4,000 words?
• Is all the material presented in the appendices relevant and necessary?
• Have you proofread the text for spelling or grammar errors?

Criterion E: Engagement

• Three reflections (best after meeting with your supervisor)
• 500 words TOTAL (100 + 150 + 250?)
• Reflections are done in Managebac on your Reflection space
• See the "Reflections" tab above for prompts to write about

(Source: Oxford EE Manual p.135)

(Source: Oxford EE Manual p.133)

• Sample Reflections
• Full chapter on Reflections from the Oxford Guide

Criterion E:  Engagement (6 points)

What It Means:   This criterion assesses the student’s engagement with their research focus and the research process. It will be applied by the examiner at the end of the assessment of the essay, after considering the student’s RPPF (Reflections on planning and progress form).

• Have you demonstrated your engagement with your research topic and the research process?
• Have you highlighted challenges you faced and how you overcame them?
• Will the examiner get a sense of your intellectual and skills development?
• Will the examiner get a sense of your creativity and intellectual initiative?
• For prompts to deepen your reflections, go  here  and then to the bottom of the page
• Presentation Quick Guide
• << Previous: In-Text Citations
• Next: Reflections >>
• Last Updated: Apr 9, 2024 9:39 AM
• URL: https://sis-cn.libguides.com/ExtendedEssay

• Writing for Success: Compare/Contrast

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This section will help you determine the purpose and structure of comparison/contrast in writing.

The Purpose of Compare/Contrast in Writing

Comparison in writing discusses elements that are similar, while contrast in writing discusses elements that are different. A compare-and-contrast essay, then, analyzes two subjects by comparing them, contrasting them, or both.

The key to a good compare-and-contrast essay is to choose two or more subjects that connect in a meaningful way. The purpose of conducting the comparison or contrast is not to state the obvious but rather to illuminate subtle differences or unexpected similarities. For example, if you wanted to focus on contrasting two subjects you would not pick apples and oranges; rather, you might choose to compare and contrast two types of oranges or two types of apples to highlight subtle differences. For example, Red Delicious apples are sweet, while Granny Smiths are tart and acidic. Drawing distinctions between elements in a similar category will increase the audience’s understanding of that category, which is the purpose of the compare-and-contrast essay.

Similarly, to focus on comparison, choose two subjects that seem at first to be unrelated. For a comparison essay, you likely would not choose two apples or two oranges because they share so many of the same properties already. Rather, you might try to compare how apples and oranges are quite similar. The more divergent the two subjects initially seem, the more interesting a comparison essay will be.

The Structure of a Compare/Contrast Essay

The compare-and-contrast essay starts with a thesis that clearly states the two subjects that are to be compared, contrasted, or both and the reason for doing so. The thesis could lean more toward comparing, contrasting, or both. Remember, the point of comparing and contrasting is to provide useful knowledge to the reader. Take the following thesis as an example that leans more toward contrasting:

Thesis Statement: Organic vegetables may cost more than those that are conventionally grown, but when put to the test, they are definitely worth every extra penny.

Here the thesis sets up the two subjects to be compared and contrasted (organic versus conventional vegetables), and it makes a claim about the results that might prove useful to the reader.

You may organize compare-and-contrast essays in one of the following two ways:

• According to the subjects themselves, discussing one then the other
• According to individual points, discussing each subject in relation to each point

The organizational structure you choose depends on the nature of the topic, your purpose, and your audience.

Given that compare-and-contrast essays analyze the relationship between two subjects, it is helpful to have some phrases on hand that will cue the reader to such analysis.

Phrases of Comparison and Contrast

Writing an Compare/Contrast Essay

First choose whether you want to compare seemingly disparate subjects, contrast seemingly similar subjects, or compare and contrast subjects. Once you have decided on a topic, introduce it with an engaging opening paragraph. Your thesis should come at the end of the introduction, and it should establish the subjects you will compare, contrast, or both as well as state what can be learned from doing so.

The body of the essay can be organized in one of two ways: by subject or by individual points. The organizing strategy that you choose will depend on, as always, your audience and your purpose. You may also consider your particular approach to the subjects as well as the nature of the subjects themselves; some subjects might better lend themselves to one structure or the other. Make sure to use comparison and contrast phrases to cue the reader to the ways in which you are analyzing the relationship between the subjects.

After you finish analyzing the subjects, write a conclusion that summarizes the main points of the essay and reinforces your thesis.

Compare/Contrast Essay Example

Comparing and Contrasting London and Washington, DC

By Scott McLean in Writing for Success

Both Washington, DC, and London are capital cities of English-speaking countries, and yet they offer vastly different experiences to their residents and visitors. Comparing and contrasting the two cities based on their history, their culture, and their residents show how different and similar the two are.

Both cities are rich in world and national history, though they developed on very different time lines. London, for example, has a history that dates back over two thousand years. It was part of the Roman Empire and known by the similar name, Londinium. It was not only one of the northernmost points of the Roman Empire but also the epicenter of the British Empire where it held significant global influence from the early sixteenth century on through the early twentieth century. Washington, DC, on the other hand, has only formally existed since the late eighteenth century. Though Native Americans inhabited the land several thousand years earlier, and settlers inhabited the land as early as the sixteenth century, the city did not become the capital of the United States until the 1790s. From that point onward to today, however, Washington, DC, has increasingly maintained significant global influence. Even though both cities have different histories, they have both held, and continue to hold, significant social influence in the economic and cultural global spheres.

Both Washington, DC, and London offer a wide array of museums that harbor many of the world’s most prized treasures. While Washington, DC, has the National Gallery of Art and several other Smithsonian galleries, London’s art scene and galleries have a definite edge in this category. From the Tate Modern to the British National Gallery, London’s art ranks among the world’s best. This difference and advantage has much to do with London and Britain’s historical depth compared to that of the United States. London has a much richer past than Washington, DC, and consequently has a lot more material to pull from when arranging its collections. Both cities have thriving theater districts, but again, London wins this comparison, too, both in quantity and quality of theater choices. With regard to other cultural places like restaurants, pubs, and bars, both cities are very comparable. Both have a wide selection of expensive, elegant restaurants as well as a similar amount of global and national chains. While London may be better known for its pubs and taste in beer, DC offers a different bar-going experience. With clubs and pubs that tend to stay open later than their British counterparts, the DC night life tend to be less reserved overall.

Both cities also share and differ in cultural diversity and cost of living. Both cities share a very expensive cost of living—both in terms of housing and shopping. A downtown one-bedroom apartment in DC can easily cost $1,800 per month, and a similar “flat” in London may double that amount. These high costs create socioeconomic disparity among the residents. Although both cities’ residents are predominantly wealthy, both have a significantly large population of poor and homeless. Perhaps the most significant difference between the resident demographics is the racial makeup. Washington, DC, is a “minority majority” city, which means the majority of its citizens are races other than white. In 2009, according to the US Census, 55 percent of DC residents were classified as “Black or African American” and 35 percent of its residents were classified as “white.” London, by contrast, has very few minorities—in 2006, 70 percent of its population was “white,” while only 10 percent was “black.” The racial demographic differences between the cities is drastic.

Even though Washington, DC, and London are major capital cities of English-speaking countries in the Western world, they have many differences along with their similarities. They have vastly different histories, art cultures, and racial demographics, but they remain similar in their cost of living and socioeconomic disparity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A compare-and-contrast essay analyzes two subjects by either comparing them, contrasting them, or both.
• The purpose of writing a comparison or contrast essay is not to state the obvious but rather to illuminate subtle differences or unexpected similarities between two subjects.
• The thesis should clearly state the subjects that are to be compared, contrasted, or both, and it should state what is to be learned from doing so.
• There are two main organizing strategies for compare-and-contrast essays.
• Organize by the subjects themselves, one then the other.
• Organize by individual points, in which you discuss each subject in relation to each point.
• Use phrases of comparison or phrases of contrast to signal to readers how exactly the two subjects are being analyzed.
• Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : http://lumenlearning.com/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Successful Writing. Provided by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/successful-writing/s14-07-comparison-and-contrast.html . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Comparing and Contrasting London and Washington, DC. Authored by : Scott McLean. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/successful-writing/s14-07-comparison-and-contrast.html . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Table of Contents

Instructor Resources (Access Requires Login)

• Overview of Instructor Resources

An Overview of the Writing Process

• Introduction to the Writing Process
• Introduction to Writing
• Your Role as a Learner
• What is an Essay?
• Reading to Write
• Defining the Writing Process
• Videos: Prewriting Techniques
• Thesis Statements
• Organizing an Essay
• Creating Paragraphs
• Conclusions
• Editing and Proofreading
• Matters of Grammar, Mechanics, and Style
• Peer Review Checklist
• Comparative Chart of Writing Strategies

Using Sources

• Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Formatting the Works Cited Page (MLA)
• Citing Paraphrases and Summaries (APA)
• APA Citation Style, 6th edition: General Style Guidelines

Definition Essay

• Definitional Argument Essay
• How to Write a Definition Essay
• Critical Thinking
• Video: Thesis Explained
• Effective Thesis Statements
• Student Sample: Definition Essay

Narrative Essay

• Introduction to Narrative Essay
• Student Sample: Narrative Essay
• "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell
• "Sixty-nine Cents" by Gary Shteyngart
• Video: The Danger of a Single Story
• How to Write an Annotation
• How to Write a Summary
• Writing for Success: Narration

Illustration/Example Essay

• Introduction to Illustration/Example Essay
• "She's Your Basic L.O.L. in N.A.D" by Perri Klass
• "April & Paris" by David Sedaris
• Writing for Success: Illustration/Example
• Student Sample: Illustration/Example Essay

Compare/Contrast Essay

• Introduction to Compare/Contrast Essay
• "Disability" by Nancy Mairs
• "Friending, Ancient or Otherwise" by Alex Wright
• "A South African Storm" by Allison Howard
• Student Sample: Compare/Contrast Essay

Cause-and-Effect Essay

• Introduction to Cause-and-Effect Essay
• "Cultural Baggage" by Barbara Ehrenreich
• "Women in Science" by K.C. Cole
• Writing for Success: Cause and Effect
• Student Sample: Cause-and-Effect Essay

Argument Essay

• Introduction to Argument Essay
• Rogerian Argument
• "The Case Against Torture," by Alisa Soloman
• "The Case for Torture" by Michael Levin
• How to Write a Summary by Paraphrasing Source Material
• Writing for Success: Argument
• Student Sample: Argument Essay
• Grammar/Mechanics Mini-lessons
• Mini-lesson: Subjects and Verbs, Irregular Verbs, Subject Verb Agreement
• Mini-lesson: Sentence Types
• Mini-lesson: Fragments I
• Mini-lesson: Run-ons and Comma Splices I
• Mini-lesson: Comma Usage
• Mini-lesson: Parallelism
• Mini-lesson: The Apostrophe
• Mini-lesson: Capital Letters
• Grammar Practice - Interactive Quizzes
• De Copia - Demonstration of the Variety of Language
• Style Exercise: Voice

• Contact sales

Start free trial

Understanding Project Management Success Criteria

Without knowing what your project success criteria are, can you truly say your project is successful? Everyone wants their project to be successful, but few take the time to define what that means.

Let’s say you’ve delivered a product or service on time and within budget—is that success? It could be, but not if it doesn’t meet stakeholder expectations. Project success criteria are critical to know if, in fact, the project has met those metrics.

How To Define Project Management Success

Project management success is defined by how efficiently a project manager achieves the project’s goals and objectives. Of course, you want to bring in a project before the deadline and under budget. That’s all about using limited resources in the best way possible. But at the same time, you need to develop good relationships with all the stakeholders.

Stakeholders have expectations that must be managed. Everyone who is invested in the project has a picture of what success looks like, and it’s critical to understand and manage those expectations or else there will be stakeholders who feel the project has failed regardless of meeting the budget, schedule and scope goals.

Another aspect of project management success is the quality of the product or service delivered. Who cares if you make a widget that won’t work but delivered it on time and within the approved budget? You have to manage quality and never lose sight of the benefits that are the core goals and objectives of the project.

That doesn’t mean defining project management success is easy. There are a lot of factors to take into account and some of them can’t be assessed until long after the project has closed. Therefore, it’s important to understand project success and project management success are not the same things.

How To Evaluate Project Management Success

Project success is based solely on how efficiently the project is managed while delivering on its goals and objectives. With that said, there are six metrics by which any project’s success is measured:

• Scope: Achieving the intended results of the project.
• Schedule: Meeting the deadline, including all milestones.
• Budget: Delivering the project for the amount agreed upon.
• Team Satisfaction: Making sure the team feels satisfied with the project.
• Customer Satisfaction: Get positive feedback from clients, sponsors, stakeholders, et al.
• Quality: Achieve expectations of stakeholders.

The great thing about defining project success criteria is that it not only leads you to a successful project but also helps future projects. Using success criteria can also be seen as practice towards continuous improvements by learning from the experience.

What Are Project Success Criteria?

As noted above, project success criteria and project management success are slightly different. Even these differences can vary from organization to organization, project to project and even team to team. But basically, we’re dealing with two types of success.

The first type is related to project management. It’s both about managing the project efficiently and aligning with the business objectives of the organization. This can be done through regular meetings, project audits, meeting the timetable and deadlines as well as reaching the expected quality for the product or service.

The second type is related to the deliverables. When measuring this type of success, stay focused on what the project has promised to accomplish. You want to reach the objectives as outlined in the business case for the project, such as getting the product or service to users and meeting customer satisfaction, etc.

What Are the Three Success Criteria for Projects?

The three success criteria for a project are cost, scope and time (the triple constraint). While the details might be different depending on the industry, company or objective of the project, success or failure will depend on these three factors.

If you can deliver a project on time, within budget and achieve the scope as defined in the project documents, that is a success. But as we’ve learned, there’s often more involved and it’s better to get more specific.

For example, it’s not merely bringing the project in or below the budget, but also creating value for investment and reaping benefits for stakeholders. It’s best to define what cost, scope and time mean beyond the general idea to get a better sense of what is a successful project.

Get your free

Stakeholder Analysis Template

Use this free Stakeholder Analysis Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Three Things to Keep in Mind When Tracking Success

We’ve been discussing project management success in the abstract. While it’s important to define project success criteria, it doesn’t speak to what needs to be done in order to help that success along. Let’s talk about some of the rules to keep the project on the road to success:

1. Milestones

Defining milestones, which are any important dates in the project, makes a project more manageable. The most obvious way to set milestones is by marking the end of any phase and the start of the next. By performing an evaluation test after each phase, you can see if you’re meeting the planned progress or not. Not only does this help with tracking, it boosts morale for the team when they complete a major phase of the project. A happy team is a more productive team, which is a key indicator of project management success.

2. Communication

Communication greases the wheels in every aspect of project management. Having a communication plan in place at the start of the project is essential. The more effective the communication between project members and stakeholders, the less likely there will be issues that cause delays. Keeping lines of communication open is key, but so is using reports to communicate vital project data. Use status reports to check in on the triple constraint in real-time and track actual progress against planned progress.

3. Use a Project Management Tool

Dynamic project management software provides tools to set up milestones and foster collaboration where team members can stay in touch. Using robust project management software adds efficiencies to the project, which is the very definition of project management success.

How ProjectManager Delivers Project Success

ProjectManager is online software that delivers real-time data to keep you on track by making better decisions. Tracking your project is as important as defining project success criteria. Using project management software gives you the tools to know if you’re meeting the baseline for the project.

Live Dashboards That Automatically Calculate Data

There are several ways you can see how your project is performing. Get a high-level view with the live dashboard, which automatically calculates data from your team’s status reports and updates easy-to-read charts and graphs on time, costs and more.

Easy Reporting to Stay on Track

Get deeper into the data with one-click reporting on project variance, workload and more. Reports can be filtered to show just what you want to see and then shared to update stakeholders.

Powerful Resource Management Features

Keeping your team happy and productive is part of project management success. Our resource management features include a color-coded workload chart that shows how many tasks each team member is assigned. If some are overallocated, simply reallocate resources right from the same page.

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps you plan, monitor and report on your project to help complete it successfully. Keep stakeholders in the loop while giving your team the tools they need to work better together. Join the tens of thousands of teams and organizations such as NASA, the US Postal Service and the Bank of America that are delivering successful projects with our tool and take this free 30-day trial.

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

How to Use Success Criteria in Your Lessons

A guide for teachers on how to use success criteria in their lessons.

Using success criteria in your lessons can be an effective way to help your students understand what is expected of them and guide their learning. Learn more about the benefits of using them here.

Success Criteria can and should be used throughout a lesson but the way we construct and use them can vary based on our students, their prior knowledge and our teaching preferences.

When introducing a topic or teaching new knowledge, processes or skills, you probably want to prepare your Success Criteria prior to the lesson. You can make these available to students during the lesson through slideshows, writing them on the whiteboard or distributing them printed handouts or digital resources.

The other option is to co-construct the Success Criteria with your students. The benefits of this are that it makes the whole process of learning more transparent and students are likely to have a better understanding of what ‘success’ looks like if it is written in their own words. This approach is best done after students have previously been exposed to the concept or related skills.

At the start of a lesson you might introduce some or all of the Success Criteria. This makes it clear to the students what and how their success will be measured against right from the start. 

What can be more powerful though is identifying and recording the Success Criteria as and when you teach the relevant knowledge and skills. Let’s say you had three Success Criteria for what makes an effective introduction for a piece of persuasive writing. 

I can use a rhetorical question that makes the reader think

I can state my opinion 

I can use persuasive language

You might hone in on what rhetorical questions are at the start of your lesson using a video and some written examples. After showing students that it is a powerful method for hooking a reader, you might suggest or think-aloud that it would make a great Success Criteria for your piece of writing today.

Following this, you might unpack a moot topic and explore the students’ opinions on this e.g. Electric cars are the way of the future. After discussing reasons for and against, you might add ‘I can state my opinion’ to your Success Criteria list. Get the idea?

Now perhaps, you do some Modelled Writing while thinking aloud about what to include in your introduction paragraph. After writing it, you might read it back and comment on whether it was a strong introduction. You might ponder whether saying ‘I think’ is the best way of starting your sentence. Discuss alternative ways of phrasing parts of your sentences to include more persuasive language such as ‘I believe’ ‘It is imperative that’ ‘we must’ ‘it is crucial to understand that’ and so on. Now add that to your Success Criteria.

Students are only going to act on Success Criteria that they understand and see the value of and now that you’ve given them that, they’re much better equipped to go and show them in action. 

Allow students to work independently or in peers or small groups to apply the skills and knowledge they’ve learnt. You’ll probably need to remind them to double-check the Success Criteria to begin with but once they get into the habit, they should take responsibility for doing this independently. 

If your Success Criteria are part of the printed or digital resources you’ve distributed to students, they may be able to identify and mark off what they have met. Peer feedback can be a useful low-stakes assessment tool for students to identify if they have achieved success.

Finally, it is important to link back to your Learning Intention and Success Criteria at the end of your lesson in your Plenary. In our Writing lesson, this might involve sharing a piece of student work and as a class or in talk partners, identifying the evidence that shows achievement of each Success Criteria. This is also where there is opportunity for feed-forward and to set up next learning steps...which you guessed it, you’ll be talking all about next lesson when you build on this knowledge and experience. 

All Categories

Sign up for the latest content and updates.

The English Classroom

A GUIDE FOR PRESERVICE AND GRADUATE TEACHERS

Success Criteria

The situation.

Your students need to understand what must be demonstrated in the lesson.

The Solution

What is a success criteria.

A success criteria is a set of two-four “I can” statement that contribute to a student’s overall learning during a lesson. For example, I can identify a metaphor in The Raven . It simply outlines the skills that need to be demonstrated during the lesson. The success criteria should be ticked off cyclically during the lessons, so that students understand how they are traveling with the learning.

A success criteria is much like an action plan. It outlines the smaller pieces of learning that students will complete to get to a point where the learning intention will be achieved. Below, is an example of what I use:

Here is the learning intentions presented with the success criteria:

The overall learning focused on language features in a gothic narrative. To achieve this learning, I had students look at The Raven. Now, you wouldn’t have to look at The Raven to achieve this goal – you could look at any number of gothic narrative or poems. This is the sweet spot of the success criteria and learning intention. The end goal is always the same, but you are free to adjust the road leading there. For example, we could look at poetic devices in a different poem and still achieve the learning goal.

Warning: the success criteria is not a step one, step two process. It is not a checklist. It simply outlines what students can do. This is why they are written using “I can statement”.

Differentiating Success Criteria

Aside from the above, you can also differentiate the success criteria. Some students can dig deeper into their learning than others and should be encouraged to extend themselves. If possible, give students another option that they can achieve after the central learning has been completed.

Below is the learning intention:

And the differentiated success criteria, encouraging students to use a rubric to goal-set for future learning.

Share this:

Published by The English Classroom

View all posts by The English Classroom

One thought on “ Success Criteria ”

• Pingback: Check For Understanding | Cosmik Egg

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Examples >
• Essay Topics

Essays on Success Criteria

2 samples on this topic

Crafting piles of Success Criteria papers is an essential part of contemporary studying, be it in high-school, college, or university. If you can do that unassisted, that's just awesome; yet, other students might not be that fortunate, as Success Criteria writing can be quite troublesome. The directory of free sample Success Criteria papers offered below was formed in order to help lagging learners rise up to the challenge.

On the one hand, Success Criteria essays we publish here evidently demonstrate how a really exceptional academic piece of writing should be developed. On the other hand, upon your request and for a reasonable price, a professional essay helper with the relevant academic background can put together a top-notch paper example on Success Criteria from scratch.

Existing Mixed Method Studies Dissertation Methodologies Example

x University

Success Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on success.

Success Essay- In today’s world everyone wants to be successful but what is a success. The perspective of success varies from person to person. For the record, the people before us have a different view on success and the person after us will have a different view on success.

Moreover, people compare different people performance to evaluate their success. But success is not something that you can copy from others. You have to make your own path to achieving success. In modern-day, people are obsessed with success because of the glamour and lifestyle of successful people .

What formulates a person successful?

There are many ways in the world to be successful. But most people think of celebrities, artist, politicians, and businessmen whenever they heard the word success.

Moreover, they think doing what they will make you successful but that not the case. They forget the most basic thing that makes a person successful that is their hard work, dedication, and the desire to achieve their dream. More importantly, they what they like to do not what that others told them to do. Successful people do what they like to do also they do what they feel correct for their business.

If you look in the dictionary for the meaning of the word success then you will find that it means the achievement of one’s goal or aim . So, basically, anyone can achieve success by simply achieving their aim or goal.

What is the harm of success?

We all knew that we can’t achieve something without sacrificing something. Success also demands various things from you. But these sacrifices will not go in vain if you achieve your goal.

Certainly, many people achieve professional success but in doing so they fail in achieving mental, social and physical success. The tension of lacking behind in other things pulls them apart.

Also, there are cases where people became so obsessed with success that the people around them start to feel uncomfortable around them. In some cases, they have gone mad. Apart from that, people also get depressed if they can’t achieve success like others. So, we can say that there is much harm to success.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Success and hard work

It may sound unfit to some peoples but success depends a lot of hard work. Without it, you can’t become successful. Hard work does not mean that you do laborious work or the work that make you sweat. Hard work means having a healthy body, strong mind, willpower and positive attitude towards things. And for all those things you need energy. So, be attentive to your body and soul.

Besides, do not just work on your program, push your limit, take charge of other things, improve your skills and most importantly keep learning. Apart from that, be with positive peoples, develop positive habits, and do exercise not only for the body but also for your mind.

To sum it up, we can say that success is like a seed that needs a balanced proportion of all the elements of life. And no one can achieve success in a day they have to go through and face different conditions in life for being successful. Above all, success is the feeling of fulfillment that you feel when you achieve your goal.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Original Drafts

Finished Papers

How do essay writing services work?

In the modern world, any company is trying to modernize its services. And services for writing scientific papers are no exception. Therefore, now it is very easy to order work and does not take time:

• First, you need to choose a good site that you can trust. Read their privacy policies, guarantees, payment methods and of course reviews. It will be a big plus that examples of work are presented on the online platform.
• Next, you need to contact a manager who will answer all the necessary questions and advise on the terms of cooperation. He will tell you about the acceptable writing deadlines, provide information about the author, and calculate the price of the essay.
• After that, you sign the contract and during the indicated days stay in touch with the employee of the company.
• Then you receive the file, read it attentively and transfer a certain amount to the company's bank card. After payment, the client downloads the document to his computer and can write a review and suggestions.

On the site Essayswriting, you get guarantees, thanks to which you will be confident and get rid of the excitement. The client can ask any questions about the writing and express special preferences.

(415) 397-1966