I'll try to explain it.

First, I'll create some sample data to follow along and keep it short.

CREATE TABLE #SampleData(

Criteria_Numberint,

Criteria_Namevarchar(50),

Calc_Pointsint,

Max_Pointsint);

INSERT #SampleData

SELECT 1, 'Criteria A', 5, 10 UNION ALL

SELECT 1, 'Criteria B', 13, 20 UNION ALL

SELECT 1, 'Criteria C', 70, 100;

If we run the following query using FOR XML PATH ('') and assign an alias to the column, we'll end up with the tags <Value></Value> for each row of our table.

SELECT bidPoints = (

SELECT Value = LTRIM(RTRIM(CRITERIA_NAME)) + ' - '

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Calc_Points ) + '/'

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Max_points) + CHAR(13)

FROM #SampleData

ORDER BY CRITERIA_NUMBER

FOR XML PATH(''));

--Result

--<Value>Criteria A - 5/10& #x0D;</Value><Value>Criteria B - 13/20& #x0D;</Value><Value>Criteria C - 70/100& #x0D;</Value>

If we remove the alias from the column, the tags will be gone as well because SQL Server won't know what field is it as it is an unnamed column

SELECT bidPoints = (

SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(CRITERIA_NAME)) + ' - '

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Calc_Points ) + '/'

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Max_points) + CHAR(13)

FROM #SampleData

ORDER BY CRITERIA_NUMBER

FOR XML PATH(''));

--Result

--Criteria A - 5/10& #x0D;Criteria B - 13/20& #x0D;Criteria C - 70/100& #x0D;

Note that we still have a code representing the CHAR(13) (I added a space to it in this post to be able to show it). To remove the XML codes as this one or the ones for <, >, & and others, we use the TYPE and .value to avoid this characters being tokenized. Resulting on:

SELECT bidPoints = (

SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(CRITERIA_NAME)) + ' - '

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Calc_Points ) + '/'

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Max_points) + CHAR(13)

FROM #SampleData

ORDER BY CRITERIA_NUMBER

FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.','nvarchar(4000)');

--Result

--Criteria A - 5/10

--Criteria B - 13/20

--Criteria C - 70/100

--

To avoid the final CHAR(13) we can change the order of the elements in our string concatenation and use STUFF to remove the first character.

SELECT bidPoints = STUFF((

SELECT CHAR(13) + LTRIM(RTRIM(CRITERIA_NAME)) + ' - '

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Calc_Points ) + '/'

+ CONVERT(varchar(10),Max_points)

FROM #SampleData

ORDER BY CRITERIA_NUMBER

FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.','nvarchar(4000)'), 1, 1, '');

I hope that this becomes easier to understand.