The Marking App
Create fill-in-the-blank comment templates that prompt you for specific details when copying.
Placeholders are named gaps in a comment that you fill in at copy time. Instead of writing a comment that says "Your answer of X was incorrect" - where X changes for every student - you write a template once and fill in the specific detail each time you use it.
Placeholders are written using double curly braces: {{placeholder_name}}. Use underscores
instead of spaces in placeholder names.
Add one or more placeholders anywhere in a comment's text when creating or editing it. For example:
{{student_answer}} was incorrect.
The correct answer is {{correct_answer}}.
In future, remember to {{next_step}}.You can use the same placeholder name more than once in a single comment. You only fill it in once, and the value is substituted everywhere that placeholder appears. For example:
{{student_name}} - this is a big
improvement. Keep it up, {{student_name}}!Tip: Keep placeholder names short and descriptive. Names like {{student_answer}} and {{next_step}} are easier to scan quickly
while marking than {{x}}.
When you click a comment that contains placeholders, instead of copying immediately, a form opens below the comment. Each unique placeholder name becomes an input field, labelled with the placeholder name. If a placeholder appears more than once, you'll only be asked for it once, and your value fills every occurrence in both the preview and the copied comment.
Fill in the first field and press Tab or Enter to move to the next placeholder.
After the last field, pressing Enter copies the completed comment to your clipboard.
Press Escape to cancel without copying.
A preview of the comment updates in real time as you type, so you can see exactly what will be copied before you commit.
When the AI rewrites a comment, it may insert [insert "..."] markers where it detects missing
specific details. These are suggestions from the AI - you can convert them to proper {{placeholder}} syntax manually when editing
the comment.
Note: The app caches the last value you entered for each placeholder name within a session. If you use the same placeholder name across multiple comments, the field will be pre-filled with the most recent value - useful when marking the same student across several comments.
Last updated June 2026