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 - it will be filled in once and substituted everywhere.
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 placeholder becomes an input field, labelled with the placeholder name.
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