If I make an error in grading to your credit, just be happy. If I made one not in your favor, let me know and I'll fix it. You may find out that you and another student put almost exactly same answer down, and one of you got partial credit while the other got full credit or no credit. There are two possible explanations for this. The first is that I screwed up. It happens. The second is the concept of "brownie points." If I am looking at your answer and can't decide whether to give credit or not, or how much to take off, other answers may provide the tie-breaker. Say that you spell out Boogofita, and I'm fairly certain you meant Bryophyta. If I absolutely can't decide whether or not to take off partial credit, I may resort to checking out answers on the same page. If you had another "iffy" answer that I was debating over, I may only take points off on one of the two and whichever one I take the point off of is up to chance. Alternatively, if you had a very good answer that demonstrated a good depth of knowledge on a similar question, my decision may be to go ahead and give you credit on a question where I couldn't decide. Usually the effect of "brownie points" is about one percent. These are only tie-breaker points, and I think it's a lot more fair to look at the rest of the test than to just flip a coin when I can't decide whether or not to give points for an answer. I'd like to assign 30 points per exam, and have 20 points spread over five quizzes. The remaining ten points I'll probably have an assignment for. I will give up to 5 points through the semester as a bonus; usually this involves finding things like fern gametophytes, cycad reproductive structures, etc.
