The Six Traits of writing are Voice, Ideas, Presentation, Conventions, Organization, Word Choice, and Sentence Fluency. It creates a common vocabulary and guidelines for teachers to use with students so that they become familiar with the terms used in writing. It develops consistency from grade level to grade level.

The Six Traits of Writing are rooted in more than 50 years of research. This research reveals that all “good” writing has six key ingredients—ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

This writing rubric is organized using the 6 traits (content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions) with student-friendly language. Students can see expectations for above-, on-, and below grade level work.

The 6 traits of writing are voice, ideas, conventions, organisation, word choice and sentence fluency. Sometimes presentation is also included as an extra trait. In this case, we refer to this list as the '6 + 1' traits of writing or as the 7 traits of writing.