Grading always occurs in a social context. We’ll examine a study that measured how weight bias manifested when scoring writing samples. Work from overweight students was scored lower in some categories, but teachers believed bias was far less of an issue than their scoring revealed.Later, we unpack research on the impact of subtle changes in prompting on participant success in a simple logic puzzle. The results show the importance of crafting assignments and assessments with a few essential elements.Finally, we read commentary from an expert on helping research impact policy.