The Problem with Essay Feedback

Over the years I have marked essays from primary school all the way to PhD dissertations. From this experience I know how much feedback and iteration matters.

I see how students improve when they get feedback that is actionable and timely.

The Four Barriers to Better Writing

But most students don't get that kind of feedback. There are four problems:

• Quantity — Teachers are marking 30, 40, sometimes 100+ essays. There's not enough time to write detailed comments on every paragraph for every student.
• Quality — When feedback does come, it's often just a score or a brief comment. Students see "needs improvement" but don't know what that means or how to fix it.
• Timing — Essays come back weeks later, sometimes months. By then you've forgotten what you were thinking when you wrote it.
• Culture — Most students write an essay, get a mark, and move on. There's no habit of revision. But real writing improvement comes from iteration.

How EssayHero Addresses These Problems

EssayHero tries to address all four barriers:

• Unlimited quantity — Submit as many essays as you want
• Detailed quality — Paragraph-by-paragraph feedback tied to specific criteria
• Instant timing — Results in seconds, not weeks
• Revision culture — Instant and unlimited feedback enables actual revision cycles

What the Marking is Based On

When you submit an essay, EssayHero analyses it against the official HKEAA Level Descriptors. These are the same criteria that DSE markers use.

HKDSE Paper 2 Criteria

For HKDSE Paper 2:

Each criterion is scored on a 1-7 scale, aligned with HKEAA standards but with additional granularity to provide more actionable feedback.

The Experience Behind the Algorithm

I've been marking DSE essays for over twenty years. That experience is embedded in how EssayHero is tuned.

Not just the official criteria, but the patterns I've noticed: the difference between a score 4 and score 5 essay, the common mistakes Hong Kong students make, what actually gets marks.

What the AI Actually Sees

Behind each request, your essay text is actually a tiny portion. The rest is instructions and criteria.

The Prompt Architecture

The AI receives detailed guidance about:

• Level descriptors — What each score level looks like in practice
• Evidence standards — What counts as good evidence vs weak support
• Weighting factors — How to balance different aspects of each criterion

How Feedback is Generated

The output streams back paragraph by paragraph. For each paragraph, you see what worked and what didn't, tied to specific criteria.

The overall score comes with reasoning that explains the judgement.

Where AI Falls Short

I won't pretend AI is perfect. There are real limitations:

Four Key Limitations

• Knowledge cutoff — The AI's training has a cutoff date. It won't know about very recent events or examples that fall outside its training data.

• Creative blindspot — Highly unconventional or experimental writing can confuse it. A human examiner might appreciate a bold structural choice; the AI might mark it as disorganised.

• Context blindness — The AI doesn't know you. Your teacher knows your previous work, your improvement trajectory, what you're capable of. The AI sees one essay in isolation.

• Not a predictor — EssayHero gives you an estimate based on criteria analysis. It is not a prediction of your actual DSE score. Real marking involves human judgement that AI cannot replicate.

How to Use It Well

Think of EssayHero as a practice partner, not an oracle.

The Revision Cycle

The best way to improve:

1. Submit — Upload your essay
2. Read — Study the feedback carefully
3. Revise — Make specific improvements
4. Resubmit — Try again with the changes

That cycle of iteration is where real improvement happens.

What EssayHero is For

Use the feedback to:

• Understand criteria better — Learn what examiners actually look for
• Spot patterns — Identify recurring issues in your own writing
• Practise before exams — Build confidence with realistic feedback

EssayHero is free, has no commercial aims, and is built by a Hong Kong teacher for Hong Kong students. Questions? Email hello@essayhero.app.