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She is a candidate for class valedictorian and hopes to double-major in marine biology and political science in collegeBut the 17-year-old said she has written only one research paper during her high school career. It was three pages long, examining the habits of beluga whales.
Students simply aren't being asked to write. I don't think that the problem is a new one though. Find someone in their thirties and ask them what a "predicate" is. Or ask them how to conjugate a verb or diagram a sentence.
From a 10th grade test:
Define preposition - What a hooker says to get a date.
Strangely, the government hasn't funded a study showing the correlation between students that can't read and students that can't write. If most Americans read at or below the 8th grade level how can they be expected to write on a level that approaches 8th grade?
Out of the billions of websites that are online how many of them do you think have clear and compelling content? What is the easiest way to set your site apart from the rest of those poorly written sites?
Full Story [boston.com]
I spend much of my web browsing time searching for quick research or reference items: "what are the tax code changes effected by EGTRRA?" "what is a synonym for 'aesthete'?" "what was the score of Game 2 of the 1979 World Series?" I do not want to search for this information in a grammatically perfect three-paragraph essay, no matter how elegant the diction, or consistent the sentence structure, or profound the closing sentence. I rather prefer numbered and bulleted lists, tables, abstracts, indices, and illustrations whether static or animated, to the subject's life story (either figurative or literal).
In fact, I'd say the same is true for all media of business communication-- probably the most common writing many of us engage in. I had the good fortune to receive a fairly rigorous education in composition, but the emphasis was entirely on long-form writing-- narrative, expository, descriptive, or analytical-- rather than business writing. I haven't needed to describe a jumping dolphin dramatically once in my professional life, despite twelve years of instruction in it; on the other hand, I have sent thousands of e-mails and memos, made more effective from a single conference seminar which taught us to eschew the literary devices, the "funnel form" introductory paragraphs, the compound subordinating clauses, and all the other superfluous literatalia that afflicts simple written communiques in favor of a diagram.
Of course, long form writing is still quite important, whether to describe a product or report a news item. Good writing cannot make an insipid observation into an insight, however. The cynic in me says that the problem is not that a good idea has been ineptly expressed, but that a mediocre one has been just adequately expressed.
I've heard that same expression used as a reason for not learning algebra, trig, diagramming sentences or history. Other than teachers I've never had anyone ask me to diagram a sentence, nor have I ever had anyone ask me to give them a rundown on the rise and fall of Rome... :)
You also touched on another point. >>once in my professional life Well and good for you, but in 8th grade did you know what your professional life was going to be?
I've had to deal with people that can't write simple paragraphs, let alone a business letter. If teachers aren't asking them to write term papers what are they asking them to write? Which brings me to another point, if they aren't writing papers, they aren't reading. Without fundamental reading skills writing skills will never improve.
You may never be asked to describe a jumping dolphin dramatically, but aren't you glad that if you were asked, you could do it?
I'm not sure I agree with this! :)
I think the writing we learn (or should have learned) in school is important and has a significant impact on our ability to write for the web. Additional term papers are simply more opportunities to practice the basic rules of writing - which is very important.
Learning the proper way to do something as my first introduction to a topic has always served me well. After I've mastered the basics I can then begin to play around with the rules.
A good anology might be music. We learn the rules: eighth notes, measures, downbeats, keys, etc. Once we've mastered the rules, then we begin to play with variations, sliding notes, triplets, and grace notes. If we think in terms of writing then learning proper sentence structure, control of grammer, and how to write a term paper are basics we must learn before we can move on to shaping a written work to suit the web.
I'm all for learning the basics first as I DO think it important.
If you were responsible for the content of a site that catered to those 17yr old girls would you dumb the content down?
AW
One of the problems I see with tech-based and outcome based education is that rather than make students learn in order to better themselves, standards are lowered so that the students feel better about themselves.
<edit>Removed Redundancy</edit>
[edited by: digitalghost at 8:50 pm (utc) on May 27, 2003]
And/or teachers cater to the parents for fear of the next vote on the school budget.
algebra, trig, diagramming sentences or history
That's my point exactly. If the sales clerk at the department store requires three tries to get my total correct, it's not because he or she wasn't instructed in the finer points of additive abelian groups or had inadequate practice solving Riemann sums. It's because s/he wasn't sufficiently drilled in arithmetic.
If someone can't construct a proper paragraph, it isn't because he wasn't asked to write research papers, it's because he wasn't seriously asked to write a proper paragraph.
When I'm doing a lookup on the web, I don't want symphonies and fugues. Most of the time, I don't want sonatinas or etudes, either. I'm looking for a theme. If you're terrible at constructing themes, well, your concertos aren't going to make any sense, either. For my purposes, I'd be satisfied if the training ended with the formulation of a comprehensible theme, leaving the composition of the High Mass to the more gifted or industrious.
< Find someone in their thirties and ask them what a "predicate" is. Or ask them how to conjugate a verb or diagram a sentence. >
I failed miserably at diagramming sentences, sort of know what a predicate is (or could at least point it out, I think) and don't even get me started on gerands. That being said, I have been published in professional magazines across the country. I think what needs to be stressed along WITH grammer and writing is IMAGINATION! This is why I'm such a proponent of Montessori methods and why I pay my nanny an obscene amount of money to play with my children. We have been teaching our children to sit in a chair for eight hours a day and regurgitate information. And God forbid if the child is ahead or behind the majority of the other children.
Sometimes I wonder how there are so many businesses started every year. Or maybe this explains why 95% fail within 5 years. We aren't taught communication, finances or imagination.
In addition, by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of freshmen are unable to analyze or synthesize information or produce papers free of language errors.
In the past few years, I have asked friends in my age group to proofread things I have written, mostly for work. More than once people have not been able to make it through my, what I thought was basic, vocabulary. They have become so flustered they have to ask me for the meaning of words after not even being able to figure them out through context. It scares me that people (in college) cannot read through these things.
It took a couple times for me to really become aware of how big and real of a problem this really is. If they can't read it, they surely can't write it either.
I don't know the solution, but the problem certainly exists.
-Pete
In addition, by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of freshmen are unable to analyze or synthesize information or produce papers free of language errors.
I bet they can't analyze or synthesize that above sentence either.
And what I know of engligh tells me the <word> or <word> or <word> should be <word>, <word>, or <word>. (I could be wrong)
:-)
-Pete
BINGO!
And I'll add distill your thoughts into an appropriate concentration for your audience (one of my ongoing struggles). Too much or too little and you'll lose them.
In addition, by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of freshmen are unable to analyze or synthesize information or produce papers free of language errors.
...............And what I know of engligh tells me the <word> or <word> or <word> should be <word>, <word>, or <word>. (I could be wrong)
I'll bite. From my reading it should be:
analyze or synthesize information, or produce papers free of language errors
;) of course I could be wrong too.
>> It's not just about the writing, grammar, etc. It's about learning how to present information to others in a comprehensible way, and learning how to determine what information is valuable.
Absolutely agreed. Strictly speaking my grammar etc is probably atrocious, but it's not often that I can't get a message across, if a little clumsily.
HOWEVER (and it's a big one), I'm also a firm believer that people rarely choose to operate in the top level of their ability in any field: they may be capable of writing at X level (100% of ability) if required, but given the option they will read and write at Y level (say, 70% of ability).
On that basis I think it is VERY important that students are taught correct methods and pushed to the expand their abilities by writing those papers or whatever. They may never write another 20 page paper again, but a two page business letter will be less of a struggle to master, organising a series of thoughts into a logical list or process will be much easier, etc. They may never operate at 100% again, but their 70% will be at a much higher level.
Its a tough puzzling it out sometimes. Experience with good writing can help a great deal. For those without good writing skills, it must seem a daunting task.
Also, some people are just blessed with natural editing skills and can turn out surprisingly good copy, even if they couldn't point out a predicate or even a verb in their copy.
And to this day, I will still dust off my various grammar and copywriting books to look up something if I am just not sure how it should be written. I think everyone should have a copy of decent grammar and language book, as well as a decent dictionary, particularly for writing professional copy whether it is for online or offline.
In addition, by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of freshmen are unable to analyze or synthesize information or produce papers free of language errors.
Can you define what you mean by a language error? Where does the line between old school “stickler for the rules” and modern writing stop. I had a supervisor during my research that used to rip my writing to bits almost to the point of inserting old English that would have fitted in nicely with the works of Shakespeare. The fact is though that the world no longer talks like that and things have changed so where is the boundary between good and bad writing sit? Surely that could be related to the audience. For example a legal contract would use a very different style of writing compared to a student website about the virtues of getting wasted on Special Brew (mucho strong for those that don’t know).
This problem comes from crap schooling (UK) where we are not taught half of what we need to know. I am not saying that we should all know what all of the crazy rules are, but the correct construction of sentences and basic punctuation should be taught.
I know at times my writing is a shocker and one of the most difficult things I find is when to use affect and effect. Any chance of a quick lesson DG? I know it has something to do with Latin , to/from…..something like that. :)
For each class I've taught, when it's time for the paper assignment to be doled out, I've had to spend a class period teaching students the fundamentals of writing.
I finally created a handout - "Hawkgirl's Guide to Writing a Research Paper" - that I gave to every student as a checklist for their papers.
In addition, I "allowed" the papers to be iterative: they write a version, I give feedback, they write another version, I give feedback, they write a final version, I give a grade.
Whew. There are more than a few college seniors who can't put a paragraph together (let alone 3 pages). It's really sad - and it was really frustrating for me as a teacher. Having to teach my kids English as well as Sociology meant twice the amount of work for both myself and for the kids.
We're really setting our kids up at a tremendous disadvantage when we let them out of high school without basic functional skills.
Don't even get me started on the sad state of the math skills for the kids in the statistics courses I taught. Yowza.
Seems to me that things are starting to take a bad spiral downward. Peterdaly pointed part of it out in his post:
growing up in the age of spellcheck, I can't spell worth beans
With more and more technology - calculators, spell-check, grammar-check - people have lost the incentive to learn these skills. Yet these tools aren't perfect, so problems are going to slip by.
Two generations of people who can't write well are now publishing on the web; their lousy spelling and atrocious grammar are slowly becoming more and more acceptable. Want to search for something? Be sure to search in the vernacular, and throw in some misspellings to be certain you've cast your net wide enough.
So the quality of content suffers all around, misspelling and bad grammar will continue to surface as a norm, and we're in for a long haul - we're forced to not only read the schlock that gets produced and passed off as "content," we also have to modify our behavior (e.g., searching for misspellings) in order to compensate.
The cycle has to be broken ... and it has to start early in the schools.
One problem may be the teachers. A couple of years ago, Massachusetts started a testing program for new teaching college grads. Something like 60% of these "teachers" failed testing written at the 11th grade level. If the teachers don't know what they are doing, it's a cinch that their students won't either.
Having seen notes written by my kids' teachers, those test results didn't surprise me. Certainly, there are some fine teachers - the quality is far from uniform, though.
The line doesn't stop. ;) It's about knowing that there is a line to cross and when you've crossed it.
Affect is (usually) a transitive verb. Effect is a noun. (usually)
Affect - to produce an effect upon.
The change in the law didn't produce the desired effect.
We can't effect change without affecting how people feel.
I just remember that unless I'm writing about psychology then I shouldn't use affect as a noun.
Accept and Except cause similar problems. So do compose and comprise. Recently, your and you're seem to be wreaking havoc as well.
I need more more coffee, the first cup had no effect. If I drink too much, it affects the way I write, too little and the caffeine isn't effective.
It's about all communication. Writing -and reading- is *the* most important way of communicating when you don't have the luxury of talking directly to all your potential clients in person. You HAVE to get it right -literally!
You do need to be able to write reasonably clear. Think about job applications -how can a potential employer take you seriously if your CV is unreadable?
I agree with Jenstar, it's an ongoing process, you never stop learning when you write. I am -desperately- trying to finish my MA-thesis in literature and nearly all my exams have been written assignments. I have quite a bit of experience in writing, but I still use my dictionary and various other works of reference on a daily basis.
(and I don't think I have ever been this worried about spelling errors etc in a post on Webmaster World...)
Ivana
(and I don't think I have ever been this worried about spelling errors etc in a post on Webmaster World...)
I wrote the exact same thing on a recent copywriting discussion too. I usually don't think about it, except when I am posting something grammar related ;) It also seems to be when I make the most typos. But we aren't here to be the grammar and spelling police when it comes to posts, unless you have a specific question about a particular area of grammar.
Ivana, you bring up a very good point about impression and professionalism. If I go to a website looking to buy and find the writing hard to understand, I will question the quality of the product/software/etc. Chances are I will keep looking and purchase elsewhere.
digitalghost, one of my profs at university relished in handing out long essays for us to edit, filled with words like except/accept, there/their/they're, your/you're.
This is an area where many web writers need help - I am finding these kinds of errors on all kinds of sites, and I don't think people realize how important this area is, especially when you are trying to improve your conversion rate. Why give someone an excuse to look elsewhere? This is one area where a little copy editing and pay off (financially) in the long run.
It's about all communication. Writing -and reading- is *the* most important way of communicating when you don't have the luxury of talking directly to all your potential clients in person. You HAVE to get it right -literally!
You've nailed it. This is absolutely the way I feel about the things I write.
As a market researcher, as a web site producer, as a freelance writer - what am I selling? The written word. At the end of the day, I hand over a report, a page of content, an article. If what I produce as my final deliverable is poorly written, how can I persuade my client or editor that it was well-thought-out to begin with?
You can have the best ideas, the best insight, the best analysis in the world; if you can't present these things well, the ideas will be lost and it ultimately it will reflect poorly on you.
I suppose *people like us* will usually leave a site if the writing is poor -but sometimes I wonder if Johnny and his mates care? I mean, if they can't write themselves, do they recognize when other people can't? One day the world might be -or maybe it already is- dominated by the illiterate.
I always hoped that the web would house a higher percentage of people who could read and write, simply because the web is textbased, but I guess there are ways around that as well.
"The best thing about the internet is that everybody can be a publisher, the worst thing about the internet is that everybody can be a publisher"
I don't remember where I heard it, but I think it fits!
Hawkgirl: "The written word", couldn't agree more!
It's all about presentation, and presentation is writing. But for some reason not many people get it!
Personally I can't wait to get my thesis done and test these theories on sites of my own -with my own copy, of course- like proper grown-ups!
Ivana
I suppose *people like us* will usually leave a site if the writing is poor -but sometimes I wonder if Johnny and his mates care?
or if they even realise?
...
Just the other day I wrote off a site I was considering shopping at because of misuse of your/you're. I just wasn't confident that the person who wrote/allowed that cared that much about their business... or my custom.
Yikes.. I have become a spelling snob.
Find someone in their thirties and ask them what a "predicate" is. Or ask them how to conjugate a verb or diagram a sentence.
Phooey. I was never taught sentence diagramming... Not in my college english classes, and certainly not anywhere in the public school system. But I spent monstrous amounts of time reading as a child. I may even have spent more time reading than I spent doodling, and that's saying something. (Not having friends leaves a kid with a lot of free time for being a nerd!)
After absorbing all that reading, I learned when something just doesn't sound right in my writing.
I ended up writing a lot of papers in school. My AP classes in middle school required us to write papers to go with every class project we did. I worked on high school and college student newspapers, took college writing classes in high school, had tons of classes in college where we had weekly short papers due, and loved nothing more than a class where my entire grade hinged on a midterm and final essay.
Students just need to use the language enough to get to know it. They need parents who won't let them sit in front of cathode ray tubes all day as much as they need teachers who make them work for their grades. My mom wouldn't interrupt me when I was reading, even at dinner time. I came to the table when I'd found a good place for a bookmark. She bought me books for holidays. She bought me a new book every time I flew to my Dad's house, so I'd have something to do on the plane. I was raised to understand that reading and writing were important things.
That, IMNSHO, is what kids need. Not drills, not diagrams, not tests, lists, or memorization. They need immersion. Reading and writing need to be a constant and important thing in their lives. Good grammar and the ability to use it will develop naturally if they're given good examples to follow. But even then not everyone would be able to write persuasively, succinctly, or coherently... Some people have talent with language, and some don't.
One problem may be the teachers.
And what is happening with the public education system? Cuts and more cuts. (Notice I do not mention any one country as there are several undertaking major cuts in public education.) While more pay doesn't make a better teacher, better pay should attract better candidates.
It's about all communication. Writing -and reading- is *the* most important way of communicating when you don't have the luxury of talking directly to all your potential clients in person. You HAVE to get it right -literally!
And the effect of chat rooms!? The new english! ;) Sorry, the world is changing. Define who is your target audience. Kidz or professionals and write to their level, however atrocious.
It is a changing world. Not necessarily for the better. Most of you are educated either by parents or by post secondary education organizations. The world's masses aren't. You are the lucky few.
..... Shane
P.S. Hello, I am Shane and I have a problem. My writing is weak and I continue to work at it, one step at a time.
Exactly. But, have you looked at school reading lists lately? Have you noticed that there is no longer an emphasis on reading? Have you noticed that the average reading level keeps dropping?
Reading and writing go hand in hand. Unfortunately the demand that students learn these basics is declining.
How Diagramming Sentences Can Be Beneficial [cctc2.commnet.edu]
