BS: Graduate students who can't write

Subject: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Mentor torment
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:39 AM

I'm mentoring a new trainee at work, and one aspect of our job involves writing 1-2 page analyses of another component's work, for quality control purposes.

She told me she has a master's degree in psychology. However, her writing skills seem to be barely past the high shcool level.

There are problems with spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. More importantly, she doesn't seem to be able to write a coherent report, in terms of the overall content. She just presents a list of facts from the file she's reviewing, and then presents a conclusion which doesn't particularly follow from these facts.

When we actually discuss the work and the issues involved in these cases, she's very good at analyzing the cases. She also is a hard worker with a good attitude. Her main problem seems to be expressing herself in writing.

I've been working with her, and seen some improvement, but it's slow going. Since she's working hard, and is very proud of her graduate degree, I'm feeling rather guilty about having to correct her reports, and I can tell she's not happy about it, althoguh she tries to be polite when I correct ere.. However, we need to send these reports out to two other components, one that needs to take action based on the reports, and another that reviews the quality of our work. So I feel I can't just leave them be.

A fellow mentor is facing a similar situation with the trainee that she is mentoring, who also has amaster's degree. BOth of these trainees are much younger than we are, and we are wondering whterht the U.S. education system is to blame. It's just hard to beleive that soemone could have gotten to the point of obtaining a graduate degree in a field that seemedly required research and wriring, and never learned to write along the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Mentor Torment
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:45 AM

Whoops - I just sabotaged my own complaint here, by not doing a final proofreading. Here's the CORRECTED version, with my own typos fixed! I wonder if there's a way to delete the first posting...


I'm mentoring a new trainee at work, and one aspect of our job involves writing 1-2 page analyses of another component's work, for quality control purposes.

She told me she has a master's degree in psychology. However, her writing skills seem to be barely past the high school level.

There are problems with spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. More importantly, she doesn't seem to be able to write a coherent report, in terms of the overall content. She just presents a list of facts from the file she's reviewing, and then presents a conclusion which doesn't particularly follow from these facts.

When we actually discuss the work and the issues involved in these cases, she's very good at analyzing the cases. She also is a hard worker with a good attitude. Her main problem seems to be expressing herself in writing.

I've been working with her, and seen some improvement, but it's slow going. Since she's working hard, and is very proud of her graduate degree, I'm feeling rather guilty about having to correct her reports, and I can tell she's not happy about it, although she tries to be polite when I correct her. However, we need to send these reports out to two other components, one that needs to take action based on the reports, and another that reviews the quality of our work. So I feel I can't just leave them be.

A fellow mentor is facing a similar situation with the trainee that she is mentoring, who also has a master's degree. Both of these trainees are much younger than we are, and we are wondering whether the U.S. education system is to blame. It's just hard to believe that someone could have gotten to the point of obtaining a graduate degree in a field that requires research and writing, and never learned to write along the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:01 AM

Is it that they actually never learned to write properly or is there some form of undiagnosed or undisclosed dyslexia there?

If dyslexia can be ruled out, then yes, I'd say the education system was at fault and people are become much more accepting of the typed and spellchecked work than the handwritten word.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:44 AM

I doubt if it's dyslexia. I suspect it's more a matter of commitment- that "in this age of electronic communications", there is no longer a requirement to learn to write clearly and logically, and that the machine will take care of the spelling. The attitude seems to be a little like our attitude to rhetoric in spoken debate- that it's no longer relevant. In the case of rhetoric, there's some justification, in that it was used as often to fool the simple listener as to forward the considered evaluation of issues.

Perhaps you could get her to "show her working"- to write notes on what the important issues are, to write a line or two showing why the issue is a problem (or not), and to write the report and its conclusions from the notes.

I also think that the formm in which undergraduate exercises are presented often gets in the way of proper discussion. They are often told to write x hundred or thousand words on a subject- I spent so much time with my own youth trying to get him to read around the subject, only to be told that there wasn't space to get it in the space available, so it would be wasted.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:19 AM

Sorry, that should have been 'have become more accepting'... back to school for me!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: bfdk
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:49 AM

Or "are becoming".. :-)

A few years back an acquaintance asked me to help a friend of hers with proofreading his major thesis for his Master's degree. Incidentally, this was a psychology student, too. I accepted the challenge, but lived to regret it. I had never ever seen anything like it before, and I sincerely hope I'll never see anything similar again. He didn't lack words - far from it - but he totally and utterly lacked the ability to tie the words together into comprehensible sentences. At the same time he had a distinct fondness for long, complex sentence structures, structures which he didn't master. I did my best, tried to split the long and unwieldy sentences into smaller entities. I quizzed him about what he actually wanted to say and often gave him two options based on the text in hand. He remained vague, didn't really know that himself, by the sound of it. I gave up interfering with the sentences where he himself was uncertain about the meaning and corrected the rest as best I could.

I never dared ask my acquaintance what the eventual outcome was..

Bente

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:16 AM

I once was 'privelged' to hold in my hands a large tome which was impeccably grammatically correct. It wsa someones' 'life project; of several hundred pages.

If I read only half a page - any half page, anywhere - at a time, it made perfect sense (I had no idea WHAT IT WAS ABOUT, but it made sense!). Any attempt to read even a few pages at once left me with a headache.

I wanted to keep it, but he considered it was so important, that insisted that I hand it back...

I still have no idea WHAT it was about...

I'm not making this up you know...

I'm not sure of his sanity level, btw, he once lived in the air conditioning ducts of a uni library for several months...

AND I'm REALLY not making THAT up you know...

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 07:44 AM

US graduate schools (and I recently finished a post-retirement graduate degree in history) do seem to emphasize volume and quotations over analysis and conclusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Essex girl
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:26 AM

My, son who up until last year could write quite well has now dropped into the "text message" syndrome. When he e-mails me from Uni there is no punctuation and no capital letters.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:51 AM

Yo, Mentor...

There's an ol' blues song entitled "Before You Accuse Me" that came to my mind while reading your post. Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best speller or typist in the world but if y6ou were to take your post to an English professor I am sure that professor would have something to say about your use of commas. Now I love a comma as much as the next guy but I remember well the words of my college English Comp professor on the use of commas. He said, "When in doubt, leave it out."

(LOL...)

But seriously, writin' ain't what it used to be...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:04 AM

Bobert - are you talking about the little full stop with a stiffy or the orange and brown butterfly found in the UK?

I like the butterflies, they're pretty and don't hurt anyone.

As for the punctuation, you missed out three.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:12 AM

When my friend Mary, Associate Dean of a Midwestern law school, can't get the law students to write clearly (she gave up on concisely because it IS a law school!) it's the fault of their previous education. It also explains some of the laws being passed these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Green Man
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:54 AM

Its not just the US Educational system that is at fault. The way to maintain and improve standards is to refuse to accept inferior work.

My son who has just finished a sixth form course in art can not spell, neither can he write in any meaningful way.

I feel responsible however, I was taught grammar and puncuation at school whereas it seems that these are not things that are taught any more.

As for graduates not being able to express themselves in writing it is unsurprising when you see the state of some university tutors.

GM

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:04 AM

Part of the problem that happens in schools all over the English-speaking world is that the English language is perceived to be the domain of the English teacher. It shouldn't be. So, for example, perhaps the math teacher doesn't correct mistakes in spelling or sentence structures, diction or grammar, etc. Kids usually have about one class (of eight or so classes per day) of English. Subsequently, many things slide.

Another difficulty is thr ready convenience of garbage grammar checks and less than enviable spell checks; the easy type of writing that occurs on chats like MSN 'if u no what I mean'. There seems to have been a general lowering of standards. The solution? I wish I knew.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:07 AM

I wish to address one more thing: The people under discussion are graduate students. So, multiple but related questions pop into my head at this early hour. The students 'passed' their high school years and gained admittance to college or university. HOW did they get through two to four years of post-secondary school without being hauled up by the short and curlies?

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: goatfell
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:13 AM

that's the same for anywhere else because people now a days text everything or nearly everything even e-mails or messages on this site, and some of them can't spell, at lest I know I'm terrible at spelling and I admit that but the texting or writing that some people do it really rubbish.
And that goes for Students as well

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:14 AM

Your point about perceived domain is telling, I think.

Possibly they stopped doing the "haul 'em up by the curlies" thing at lower levels? Not PC, donchaknow.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:43 AM

I recall taking two English courses through my high school years: English composition and English literature. So, in a day with eight classes, two of them were English. The history teacher marked for the busy-ness of English and actually had the temerity to expect complete sentences that created complete thoughts. So too did the Geography teacher. Then the darned French teacher wanted the same in THAT language. The biology teacher expected reports that made sense and followed the generally accepted rules of writing. Seemed like it never ended. Simply stated, I do not see that today.

We do know (in a pedagogical sense) that students who read lots write better English as a result of that reading. Part of the problem starts there. Kids do NOT read enough.

When I worked in industry, I saw many job applications with misspellings, poor punctuation, etc. I felt sorry for those people who didn't get interviews simply because of that. Folks, it can be corrected, but it starts at home. Always has. When I was a little kid, my grandparents expected that I write correctly, spell correctly, read the classics (whether I wanted to or not). Having had/having hyperlexia pretty much ensured that I read. Even today, with my eyesight starting to fail--either that or my arms are shrinking--I will read anything that my eyes see. When I do write well (that happens now and then), I credit the years my elders spent making sure I attended to matters of the language. That is tougher to make happen today. Many homes are 'single-parented' and others are run by adults, both of whom have to work to make sure ends meet. Poor English is a result of the times. How we reverse that is beyond me. I hope it isn't beyond everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:08 AM

US graduate schools (and I recently finished a post-retirement graduate degree in history) do seem to emphasize volume and quotations over analysis and conclusions.

I wrote a pithy 57-page thesis for my English M.A. I stopped at 57 because I'd said what I needed to. And since that was the case, the department didn't insist it have more content to pad it out. Brave department, based on Art's observation!

LTS, with spell checks and given time to let a document cool, dyslexia isn't a competent excuse for bad writing. I have dyslexia, and yes I make some standard typos that I don't see on the first pass of proof reading. Given a little time, I catch them.

Bruce is correct about who should teach good writing. Every professor who assigns papers should be paying attention to style and grammar as well as content. It's lazy on the professor's part and a disservice to the student to pass them and figure someone else will sort out the bad writing.

I took a graduate teaching assistant seminar in grad school, and I would have loved to teach English composition, but I had a job already and couldn't afford the lost wages were I to go into teaching. Sorry state, isn't it?

The debate rages--should you clamp down on bad grammar and incomplete sentences or muddy thoughts for fear of chasing off a student altogether? "Look at what they're trying to say, not how they say it" is the PC approach to teaching English composition. It is possible to have a distinct voice, and a clear "accent" (even written in English). But that means an examination of the writing that is out there, to let students see how writers from many cultures and backgrounds manage clarity and good communication. You can't just rest on the approved text book to accomplish this.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:37 AM

The written "boards" for ordination in our denomination are coming up, and it's been years since the exam readers thought the writing skill was sufficient. Three years in seminary for the MDiv that precede the GOEs (General Ordination Examinations) apparently don't make up for the poor writing skills that pass people through their bachelors'degrees, and our GOE readers will be glad to know it's not the only professional field (masters degree minimum) that is this way. And I know when I read teachers' notes, newsletters, and event publicity that our teaching degrees aren't much of an imprimatur on writing skills, either. Yet on oral exams people seem to do so well.

Something is broken here, folks. And has been, for quite some time.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,GI Joe
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 12:24 PM

I have always had the same problem . And at 79 still cant spell.
Years ago my company said they would pay if I would go back to school and get my masters degree. The pres. of the university looked my origional request 10 years back for a BS and asked me how I spelled several words. Of course I still couldnt spell them. At which point he blew up and screamed " How do you expect to get a masters if you cant spell?

My answer was quite simple. I had been in the service, had 2 Govt clearances, A clearance w/ the AEC, Was running a labratory and had 2 men working under me, and was doing legal work for several lawers, as well as 2 other companies. I TOLD HIM IT WAS MY JOB TO WRITE THE REPORTS, MY SECRETARY TO CORRECT THE SPELLING AND THE ENGLISH.    I was accepted...      ending up 3 degrees Education, Art, Microbiology and Animal disease. And I still can't spell.
Hell Get the girl a SECRETARY

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:46 PM

Foolestroupe,

I had a book like that once in a database class I was taking. the course book was so bad that it was unreadable. There were even sentences without a verb. I'd read them over and over again but still couldn't understand them.

When I was teaching computer science, my students were most upset when they lost marks because of their bad spelling. I used to tell them, 'When you leave here you will be getting a job and you boss will care about your spelling AND the compiler won't work unless you get it right'

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,graduate student
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:56 PM

Will all you old people out there get a life?

We are alot happier than all you old hippies because we don't have all those rules that you people have to tie us up in knots.

G.S.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:59 PM

OK. So logic isn't his long suit . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:03 PM

But he seems to be able to spell ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:05 PM

However, kidding aside, it's interesting that Grad Student would make the assumption that people who know about the busy-ness of English are old. The implication from that statement is that younger people wouldn't. Interesting, to quote Mr Spock.

BTW, GS, there are many younger people on this forum, and some may have posted to this thread. It's a shame you dislike older people. You could likely learn from a few of them. Best wishes to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,GI joe
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:11 PM

Some day you will be old there is no way to avoid it. and then your grand ch will call you an old f--t.. to quote the old song "You'll never get out of this world alive"

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:12 PM

"Some day you will be old there is no way to avoid it."

O, ye of little faith.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:15 PM

Right on Peace ol' buddy. I think GS needs to take a COBOL class where even a misplaced period will result in 300 errors.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:16 PM

I first encountered the problem as a graduate student and assistant. The professor assigned essay-type reports and tests to his undergraduates, first and second year students, but gave them to the assistants to read; he said the poor writing ability of the students made him ill.
Over the three years I read these reports, other assistants and I noticed that student writing fell into three groups: well-written, few spelling or grammatical errors, thoughts clearly expressed; thoughts and conclusions understandable, but many 'little' errors; thoughts and conclusions muddy or confused, bad spelling and grammar.
The first group was small and the others were not clearly separable.
We (the assistants and some professors with whom we discussed the writing) became interested and looked into the student records. The good papers were by graduates of (only) four high schools in the state. As some might expect, the worst mostly were from small schools in poorer areas of the state (Texas). The large group in the middle showed no discernable pattern. Our approach was superficial and composed of personal opinions, so no significance should be attached, with the exception perhaps of our agreement on the four schools whose students were at the top on writing ability. Two of these were Sunset (I am unclear on details, too long ago), I believe in Dallas, and Masonic Home(?) of, I think, Fort Worth. I have forgotten the other two.
It was obvious that language ability received much attention at the four schools, and, as Bruce suggested, all of the instructors cooperated in teaching it.

SRS- any comments? It was over 50 years ago and the situation has undoubtedly changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:11 PM

Dear Guest, Mentor Torment,

I edit bad writers' (primarily engineers') work for a living. Often I am in despair over just such quandaries.

I have fairly significant expertise in the fields of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I also have a fair degree of disdain for the modern "specialized" education. Moreover, I am a notoriously obsessive proofreader (though not always of my own posts -- sigh).

However, that said, in my professional capacity I would be much more alarmed by your grad student's evident inability to construct and then follow a well-thought-out, logical outline (thesis, evidence, conclusion...) than by her lack of grammatical and spelling expertise. The latter is relatively easy to fix by any competent "live-ware" proofreader; the former, however, can be very difficult to repair, and to do so will probably require the skills of someone who has expertise in the subject matter (and the time to go out and re-research the topic). I speak, here, from a great deal of experience.

At any rate, you might consider giving your problem-child some remedial training in outlining.

It is amazing to me that she could have gotten through graduate school without being able to construct a logical argument. Peace speaks well about every professor's responsibility for a student's writing, but I would take it a step farther and urge every mentor to take responsibility for a student's ability to make and prove a point. Without that skill, I can't think of any profession in which one might excel.

Just my two cents...
Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:20 PM

Graduate school admission is based on grades, which are frankly inflated at a lot of supposedly very good schools so nobody's kid has to suffer with a 2.1 GPA; and on GRE scores, which come from a multiple choice test. That's how you get grad students who can't write.

Mentor, can I suggest you stop taking this on as your problem, something for you to feel guilty about? The main thing I learned in graduate school was to stop being spoon-fed, formulate my own work, and have it meet professional standards, and these non-writers have failed to do this.

You could just have a frank talk with the lady, saying 'your writing is not at a professional level. Go get some books and take a course in technical writing and work on improving your skill.' Leave it up to her. If she gets pouty, she can leave, and you can hire a new candidate, who can hopefully pass the written interview questions you could use to weed out these types.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: freightdawg
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:20 PM

I was recently afforded the opportunity to grade some papers that were prepared as a part of the writing portion to pass a state's final effeciency exam for high school graduation. We, the graders, were specifically told that we were to grade on thought process only, and we were to overlook spelling, grammar, etc. That meant we were not only to overlook the horrendous mistakes of the worst, but we were not to credit the really intelligent writers who used polysyllabic words and complex sentence structures. After the second night of training I washed out. There was simply no way that I can divorce thought process from technical skill.

Political correctness is killing education in the country. I graduated from a top-flight public school, and thought I had done pretty well in my college English class, but you want to know who taught me the most about English composition? The professor I had for Old Testament history and theology. He simply would not let a misplaced comma or poorly constructed sentence pass muster. His point? Who cares how brilliant your analysis if it cannot be understood when written! An educated response is one that is both brilliant in preparation and presentation.

My grandfather only had an eighth grade education, but he never misspelled a word. If he felt he did not know the correct spelling, he grabbed an old, worn out dictionary and made sure of his work. He never wanted anyone to know he didn't finish high school. And he took great pride in his work.

I used to think that the "real world" would break the uneducated and make them return for proper learning. But, as "mentor" points out, all the uneducated are accomplishing is reduced production as properly educated supervisors must spend hours and hours reworking worthless output.

In the last years of his life, my father worked with college students in architecture who were interning with his firm. Many could not tell him the difference between a ceiling and a roof.

And we expect to send men back to the moon?

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:35 PM

Send people back to the Moon? Hell, we can't even get the fuel sensors to work -- even with three backup sensors!

If you cannot express your thoughts in a way that is clear and succinct I pity you. Your secretary can clean up your spell and grammar, but only you can express the initial thoughts.

My nieces and nephews have lousy handwriting, but they read, oh boy do they read! And as a result they can express themselves well, although spelling does suffer at rare times (and they are rare).

Perhaps its high time we stopped worrying about self-esteem and started educating the next generation.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:41 PM

There is little excuse for spelling errors in this age of spell checking programs, (except for those who actually don't KNOW the difference between 'there', 'their' and they're' and related words).
But when a person, no matter how much information they have or how well they understand a subject, cannot impart that information coherently to others, there will always be a problem! Correct punctuation and sentence structure are some of the major ways we make thoughts clear and useful. I suppose that, if a person in certain situations has an editor to translate their written meanderings, it can be tolerable - but I have seen practically incoherent pages presented as finsihed products - and had to grade many when I was a graduate teaching assistant years ago.

There ARE ways to explain why grammar, punctuation and sentence structure (and, of course spelling) make communication easier, but if not done early on, it is difficult to 'fix' later.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:46 PM

My father wrote for his living and made a good living doing so. One of the most pithy things I remember him saying about it is, "It's not the writing that gets you down; it's the thinking." It is clear evidence of murky, unfiunished thinking when the expression comes out as murky, inchoate writing.

Even at a more primitive vocab level, a clear thinker can express himself beautifully, and a muddy thinker with a grad-school vocabulary will (to the discerning ear) still sound muddy and inchoate.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:59 PM

My son has been diagnosed as suffering from disgraphia. That means he has lousy handwriting.

Rather than correct the problem or at least get his skills to reach acceptable levels, he is currently in a special school where everything is done on a keyboard. Unfortunately, that means he will be in real trouble the first time he hits a job application which must be done in person.

In the good old, pre-disability days, I suffered from the same problem. The onus was put on me to provide acceptable product. I did. My handwriting was still lousy but readable.

I am furious and have been for many years that it is acceptable to tell a child that it it acceptable not to work up to his or her capability because it is too much work to overcome a minor problem.
Telling him "it's okay not to work hard because you have a problem" does not in any way prepare him for either college or the workforce.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:59 PM

You mean Amos that bad thinking is like you know not like logical or something? And that if you think bad you don't write good? It that what you're like you know trying to say?



(Death to punctuation!)

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:03 PM

(and a horrible death it was!)

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:19 PM

Like, I uh, like have ta agree with like Rap, man, like, uh, un, yeah

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:26 PM

EB:

I have had lousy handwriting all my life and they never gave it a big Latin name like that!

What cracked it gfor me was being made to sit down and slowly and carefully duplicate well-formed upper and lower case cursive letters from a book, for several hours, several days in a row. By the end of it I could turn out reasonably well formed rapid script.

Back in my day this was called "training" and was used in a variety of subjects, configured to fit the circumstance, of course.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:31 PM

Amos, training is something that current pedological theory says is only for animal-type critters.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:40 PM

That is the capo of all absurdities, seems to me, art. It's not like all the skills of mankind are so natural and intuitive that one can just flow into them instinctively!! Gimme a break!!

So, in this brave new age where training is only for animals what do they call those little sidewheels people used to put on their bicycles while learning the trick of riding them? "Instinct wheels"??? :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Melissa
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:48 PM

A few years ago, my niece told me they were learning Creative Writing at school. I thought maybe it was some sort of new technique for teaching structure, punctuation and orderly thought.

"Creative Writing" is not the proper term for what they were learning.
All spelling rules were bypassed and there wasn't even an emphasis on the students being able to read what they'd written.

She was in second grade at the time.
What do you think about the possibility of her classmates catching a firm grasp on basic writing/communication sometime during the rest of their years in school?

It's a relief to know she'll be able to skate through grad school with whatever she doesn't manage to unlearn..

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:50 PM

I suffer from both would-be lawyers and would-be business law students who are apparently unable to express a train of thought in writing.

It drives me to drink.

Happily.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:11 PM

Sorry folks...

That was me... You know, GUEST, Grad Student...

I was stuck at the library and just got bored and there was a pudder so I said, "What the Hell" and then I learned just the freedom one gets from being able to post as a GUEST...

Plus, the thread wasn't moving along so I figured it needed a little spice...

It weren't meant to be too serious...

Nevermind, I'll take myself to the woodshed now...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:40 PM

As an old fart who, when a child, was taught 'proper' by teachers who were certainly competent and often skilled I have seen many of the things noted above. Poor spelling, woeful grammar, inconsequential structure; yup, I've seen them all. When teaching biology to undergrads and marking their assignments I'd rip into all those faults and more and their response was usually along the lines of,
"The assignment was on biology. Mark that, not the English!"

For all the reasons given by previous posters I would sock it right back to them. And I often won them over.

But I suspect that blaming their inadequacies on "PC" might be incorrect; I don't see it as relevant in the parts of Oz where I've taught, although it may be relevant in some other cultures.

In a context where we're all exhorted to "Look at the big picture" I'd be more inclined to blame 'lack of attention to detail' for some of our students' inabilities. A recent thread got into a discussion of how to diagram sentences. I was intrigued and guessed it was about parsing; it turned out my guess was correct. I vaguely remember a few classes in junior high school that mentioned parsing and I even remember some of the terminology but I doubt I could do it. I certainly understood the structures of the various (supposedly tricky) examples used but I wouldn't be able to teach it, because I don't know the detail well enough.

For a better example from much basic biology lab work and we would teach how to set a microscope up so that it gave proper resolution; we'd also teach the difference between resolution and magnification and give them a competency test three weeks into the course. But it was only one of a dozen prac tests that they did and even many of those that set up their microscopes correctly forgot how to do it over the rest of that year. Some of those students of 12 years ago are now lecturing in that subject and requiring their students to sit the same competency tests.

Even if the lecturers 'cleaned up their act' and learned how to do it before teaching, they still approach the subject with the experience of "Don't worry too much about it", leaving unsaid the phrase "I got to be your teacher without worrying too much about it."

If insufficient attention to detail proves, by experience, to be acceptable in such technically-specific areas like biological microscopy (where at least the teachers can claim to be authoritative experts) what hope is there for schoolteachers of English, where they're in a minority of 'voices with authority', competing with TV and the students' parents and peers?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:13 PM

Back when I was a manager in (UK) Industry I had two young(ish), new graduates working with me for a while. They were both highly ambitious - but not particuarly talented (I'm sure they're both doing very well now!).

At the time we were engaged in a project which was to last for 3 or 4 months. I was writing regular interim reports on this project so that senior management could be kept abreast of developments. The two graduates were continually pestering me to let them write a report (presumably so that they could get themselves 'noticed'). I was a little reluctant to let them do this as their writing was of a fairly poor standard. At the end of the project I relented and asked them to have a go at writing the final report - but asked them to let me review it before it was published.
I was shocked at the result! They had merely taken one of my interim reports and substituted the latest figures into it; there was no sign of recommendations for futher work or a conclusion to the project. But the point that really shocked me is that their report was headed "Interim Report" - just as my previous ones had been! I realised then that they didn't even know the meaning of the word "Interim"!
I was, of course, labelled as an 'oppressive monster' just for pointing all this out.

Just what do schools and universities teach people these days?

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Mentor Torment
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:07 PM

I just had a quick look at what I started here! I haven't read all the comments yet, and will post a longer comment after I do, probably during the weekend. But I'd like to thank everyone who has commented here, and I'm very heartened to see so many people are interested in this issue.

I've come across a few things here I hadn't thought of at all, such as the possibility that this woman has dyslexia or another similar reason for having difficulty with her writing.

I've also been musing about this more myself. I think two things in particular have helped with writing. (Besides having good teachers and instruction.) I've always loved to read, and just as with music, probably picked up a lot via the Osmosis Method. I also think that studying other languages has made me more aware of vocabulary, syntax, etc. in English.

Anyway, I'll say a bit more after I've had time to read everyone's comments.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Mentor Torment
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:17 AM

Actually, my page has an ad for this site:

Rising Son Records
Arlo Guthrie's Record Company Newest CDs, Tour Info, Merchandise

Perhaps if she studies this, she'll end up writing like Arlo.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:59 AM

I was diagnosed at age 40 as having 'classic symptoms of' Micro Motor Disorder - acquired during the birth process - and had suffered with poor handwriting.

Now, the nice lady was able to demonstrate that it was 'classic', because in a totally silent room I could copy the most intriciate squiggles exactly. When she even just whispered my name in an ear, this accuracy would instantly dissapear. She said it was not unlike the ability of 'foot & mouth painters' who could summon other parts of the body to do tasks that they could not perform due to bodily damage - but with MMD, as soon as the cannabilised brain circuits needed to revert to their original tasks, the ability to perform the 'secondary tasks' vansihed.

This nicely explained WHY I was the despair of my primary school teachers, able to be 'looking like I was improving' while being 'kept in' after school, but reverting to unitelligible scribble the very next day. How the bloody hell was a child supposed to know what was wrong with him?

I can well remember being dragged out in front of the class and ridiculed for my 'chicken scratches' (well, we DID write with nibs and liquid ink in those days BEFORE 'Biros') - nowadays they would rightfully call that 'child abuse'...

Now the rest of my brain seems to have 'overcompensated' as I was Wasir tested (a couple of weeks before this - whic is WHY I was referred for this test as my only area of poor performance was in the 'clerical abilites' area) with a IQ at SD+5... :-)

I was however well schooled in Primary in pedantics of spelling, grammar, sentence construction, Latin & Greek roots, etc...

Yes, I know, a smart arsed untidy bastard...

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 03:58 AM

I teach graduate and undergraduate students. Postgraduate students are a big source of income for Universities here in the UK. For an overseas pgrad student their fees run to about £10,000 per student. Often we get people who have English as a second language. They are supposed to have passed a certificate in English. They do produce this at interview, but we have no way of telling if they sat the exam themselves or got someone else to do it for them (quite common, it seems).

I despair of many of my students' inability to express themselves through writing. Many of them email me using 'txt speak' and without signing their name. They add smilies to their emails. It's only 10 years since I was an undergraduate, buut I would never have been so informal when writing to an academic. I hope I'm not just being old-fashioned - I was at a training day yesterday with other young academics and we're all worried about it.

The system is not ideally set up for us to correct it though. Contrary to popular belief we do not have an easy life of 10 hours giving lectures a week and nothing else. The rest of my working week - which is frequently 50 or 60 hours long - is spent with final year dissertation students, pastoral care with our tutees, departmental administration roles, course management, and then the biggy - independently atteempting to generate thousands of pounds worth of grant money so we can do one of the main parts of our job: research.

I would love to be able to spend the time teaching grammar, spelling and basic literacy to students. As it is, I correct it on a basis of feedback. It's not enough, they ignore it, I get the same mistakes over and over again. Plagiarism is an even bigger problem - I spot plagiarised material about once a fortnight. That's despite dire warnings and a lot of education about how NOT to plagiarise.

The whole Higher Education system is flawed. Many students are on the conveyor belt degree system where they turn up and do the minimum so they can graduate and get a degree. Is it political? Are they all, as someone I spoke to yesterday described them, mini-Thatcherites who feel entitled to a degree a money making job straight after? Is that all they seek? I have a couple of students who actually want to learn and who enjoy their course and make a contribution. They're a joy.

The Labour government wants 50% of the population to have been through Higher Education. That is possibly the most stupid and devaluing thing I've heard from them.

Crap, I have to go to work now.
Oh well, it's the last day of term: I can finally start my research for this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 05:41 AM

The standard of many school leavers is abysmal. When I was an employer, some of the job applications I received would make you weep.
Still, as there were so many applicants, it made the primary sorting of applicants easy, and it usually resulted in about 50% of them receiving a 'Thanks but no thanks' letter by return of post.
They should not be allowed to leave school until such times as they achieve basic literacy at the least.
G

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Slag
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 05:45 AM

There seems to be a strong consensus here which is heartening. My experience on the 'cat (whether pro or con on whatever the topic may be) is that the large majority of 'catters are intelligent and write well. Kudos!

Creative writing was my minor in college and a professor friend of mine invited me into his office one day and during the course of our conversation he handed to me about a ream of theme papers from a freshman composition class. I was stunned. Almost none of the papers had coherent sentences, proper paragraphing or logical structure. It seems to be a universal problem.

And yes, I would lay most of the blame on sub par teachers and the idea that it is better to pass the student along with his peers than to make sure that he has actually learned something. Appalling!

Words are the stuff of thought and tools of logic are necessary for sane thinking. Today, when a kid gets a diploma, it may just be furthering the delusion that he is educated. The ramifications of this problem are indeed far reaching and not just a little frightening. We (and I don't mean just any one nation) may be very technologically advanced and could still witness another "Dark Ages".

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:23 AM

About half-a-lifetime ago I left teaching. One of my reasons for doing so was being roundly told off by a HM Inspector of schools for teaching a class on poetic metre. He also expressed to me quite clearly that the necessity of teaching grammatical parsing and the art of letter writing were less important than ensuring that "the children were able to express themselves in any form they saw fit without fear of censure".

Please don't blame the teachers. We tried and were shut down by the same politicians who were then pushing child-centred learning and now want to bring back phonics and cursive writing practice because they have re-discovered what we already knew. That it works!

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:29 AM

I suppose the kids that killed Jamie Bolger were just 'expressing themselves'
A lot more education and a lot less self expression I say.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:50 AM

John, while I agree with you that we expect school leavers to leave school with basic literacy, I am not persuaded that your remedy would work. Just try keeping bored sixteen year olds under control in a classroom, so that the others can do their work. Many teenagers would be better off getting (some sort of) work experience rather than wasting theirs and the shcool's time in the classroom. We can not force people to become literate, but we can make them aware of the consequences of being illiterate. A year or two of cleaning toilets, digging trenches or mopping up vomit and excrement might help somw young people to understand what some of the possible alternatives to having an education are.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:52 AM

I remember seeing a paper posted to an undergrad English class discussion board by one of my classmates. My friend and I (both Communications students happening to be taking an English class) read through it together, and were always somewhere between hysterical laughter and actual physical pain at looking at such horrible writing.
Terrible sentence structure, terrible spelling, using the wrong words (STRAIGHT, not STRAIT!), and a terrible structure for the whole essay were featured in this case. Ick, ick, ick.
Cheers,
Seiri.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,HuwG at office
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:53 AM

I once read an appraisal of a work colleague's performance. The manager (ex-forces) had written, "I hope X never goes to prison. He simply cannot complete a sentence."

I have myself passed memoranda around an IT department, asking people not to use text-speak or bloglish in e-mails or other communications. "pls" might mean "please", or the author may have meant a multimedia playlist format, or a Programmable Logic Sequencer. I shouldn't have to submit a simple e-mail to detailed analysis to find out what the author is thinking even in general terms.

Information Technology is regrettably a poor place for clarity of verbal or written communications. I have a text book on the C++ computer language by Bjarne Stroustrup; after trying to read it, I filed it on my shelves alongside James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake", as being equally obscure.

Bert, a misplaced period ? I once submitted a shoebox full of punch cards as a COBOL program. The first one said "Idetification Division". Spot the deliberate error. The compiler certainly did; the error printout was two inches thick, and of course quite useless, since every single word was described as "Unrecognisable input; program structure not defined".

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:25 AM

Pedant alert:

The period or comma should go inside the quote, HuwG. :)

"Finnegans Wake",

. . . Wake,"

. . . defined."

etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:38 AM

SRS, that is apparently the convention, but it is open to misinterpretation, since teh full stop is not (I think) part of the quote. Further, if it is, then there is no full stop that is part of the text of the sentence to terminate the sentence.

I therefore breach that convention.

(or, for Americans, I think, "I, therefore, breach that convention.".)

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:42 AM

I do too, Richard. SRS is correct, but that convention is one I can do without, much like the period after Mr or Mrs.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:16 PM

Them grat studens i no kin rite gud, like me. Unnergrat studens gif grat stutens a bd nm.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: ClaireBear
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:32 PM

That punctuation-before-the-end-quote rule is for U.S. English; the rule is different for British English.

I am fairly up on this subject, as I spend rather a lot of my time translating from one to the other in the course of my work.

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 02:14 PM

I follow convention with quotes (SRS) but occasionally I put the (") inside (HuwG) because I get an impression that the quote and my sentence as a whole seem unclear. Some book publishers follow a system with single stroke quotes; I am unsure of their rules.

Some commas are necessary for clarity, others are there because of convention. Style manuals and grammarians now tend to eliminate the unnecessary ones.

Mr and Mrs seem to be common UK usage now, but the Mr.-Mrs. hang on in the U. S. and to some extent in Canada. I agree with Peace that they are unnecessary.

Many publishing houses have strict rules, and some publish their own style manuals. I have one for Harcourt Brace Jov. ("Harbrace College Handbook," which now is almost 30 years old) and others. These crutches are handy but no substitute to a good foundation.
I was an editor for a time with one journal (international) and also had to proof some papers from my company that were being submitted to a couple of American journals. For these, I had to eliminate UK usage. 'Recognise,' 'whilst, 'army are,' 'aluminium,' etc., had to be changed. Both UK and American 'languages' were acceptable to the international journal.

Looking back, it was evident that the writing skills of professional employees of the Company, mostly English Canadian but also Dutch, UK, American, etc., were high. (Careful selection by staff and recruiters?)
Attached to the Library support group was a dragon who read and corrected papers submitted for in-company publication and was a great help when preparing papers for journals. Most of her work consisted of eliminating repetition and fine tuning. I don't recall many complaints about incomprehensibility. Spelling was generally good but some had trouble with words ending in -or and -er or similar small problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:47 PM

Part of the problem seems to be that folk are curiously reluctant to give a failing grade. Why should this be? If they don't graduate, then tough.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: number 6
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:52 PM

"That punctuation-before-the-end-quote rule is for U.S. English; the rule is different for British English."

That's what I was taught in high school.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: bobad
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:21 PM

I think it is those kind of conventions that lead to the pushing of child-centered learning.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Slag
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:42 PM

Ah, the Americans and the English, two peoples separated by a common language. Who said that? Winnie? Can't remember. Wilde?

Freedom's foundation is based upon certain inalienable rights. If you don't know your rights, you have no rights. If you cannot read, how can you know your rights? If you want to destroy a people attack their education at the most fundamental and earliest level.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:45 PM

The various versions of Micro$oft Word that I've used allow one to select which convention is accepted by default. As a user in Oz I've learned to root out all the US versions of dictionaries if I wish to type undistracted by attempts to change my usage. It's not much good substituting (what Micro$oft calls) "Australian English" either, as the programmers seem to believe we're all honorary Americans. I have to select "UK English" to achieve some accord with what I was taught at school, where I was also taught to honour conventions until and unless they led to confusion, when they were to be avoided.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:00 AM

Rowan- I just got a new computer, and it put me into something called Winword. All of my old stuff is in Word. I don't know what English is built in to it, but it doesn't like either my punctuation or grammar. Lots of underscores. I had tamed my old Word pretty well to my brand of the American language.
Comment by number 6- I think his high school may have "done him wrong." I buy a lot of books, some printed in UK, some in Canada and some in USA.
The quotations in tbe UK books are usually enclosed by a single (') rather than by (").
Example- 'It means you can have it in both ways.' Pike held Peel's formidable stare. 'Find out what I know and keep an eye on me at the same time.' Typeset at Lymington, Hants. The marks are outside the stop just as they are in books printed in USA and Canada, but marks are single.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:11 AM

G'day Q,
The convention I learned about quotation marks required double marks for exact quotes; one could use square brackets for inserted words of an explanatory nature and ellipses to indicate omissions. [On Mudcat many people seem to prefer italics for exact quotes and they do seem to be more easily discerned when lenghty.] Single quotation marks were used to indicate approximated quotations and/or allusions, 'so to speak'.

Best of luck with your retraining.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:50 AM

I've posted before about the grading I did for a high school English department. The experienced teachers welcomed my meticulous notations on the children's essays; it was the brand-new, first year teacher who had a cow and refused to even hand them back to her students saying they would be devastated by all of the red marks. She didn't even notice that I included some kind of positive remark or suggestion on each one, to encourage them to improve, progress, etc. This was at the beginning of the school year so they ahd plenty of time to do so. When I called the head of the English dept. at the college, he told me they routinely had freshmen students who couldn't write to save their lives.

Now that I am vetting manuscripts, mostly fiction, I am finding it runs the gamut of well-written to really poor attempts.

I know of some schools which are returning to what they call a "Classical" education which teaches much as they did when I was in school. Unfortunately for some of us, where we are, most of them are fundamentalist Christian-based schools. To each his own, just not my cup of tea.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 05:58 AM

Language and grammar both 'evolve'

Current practice in UK English is to use single quoatation marks.

'The news is bad,' he said.

Although 'The news is bad' forms a complete sentance in itself, it is not ended with a full stop because it is here part of the larger sentence ending with 'said'.

- an example of modern English usuage from The Cassell 'Guide to Common Errors in English'

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:21 AM

ooops! I think my rather 'personal' spelling style must reveal my life long battle with dyslexia.

Nevertheless, I hope I have not found this a barrier to constructing well formed, intelligible reports although I confess to having access to audio typists during and after my professional training.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 09:43 AM

When I was teaching English at a community college, I was encouraged to spend more time on oral presentations. "Industry wants people who can speak in public," I was told by the administration. "They are less concerned about writing abilities."

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 03:47 PM

English is confusing enough without adding to the confusion by not learning various conventions of the written language. We talk in a time when "I don't want no potatoes, thank you" means the same as "I don't want any potatoes, thank you." Shakespeare used double negatives occasionally, and Mick Jagger brought it back into usage when he said, "I can't get no satisfaction." I don't know where I was intending to go with this line of thought,

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 04:17 PM

but hark, the lark sounds appropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 04:51 PM

That must have been it!

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 08:31 PM

Cassell's recommended usage is British. It is not accepted in American publishing.
"The American Heritage Book of English Usage" is a current book of accepted practice.
English Usage

Recommended-
"The Chicago Manual of Style," 2003 ed., compiled by the staff of the University of Chicago. The American Library Association, in a review, says "Chicago" offers "sensible, clearly articulated and defensible advice to authors and editors who want to do their best to present an author's text to readers."
I would add that the book will help anyone who does a lot of writing.
Available from any book dealer, and at $36 from Amazon; the 14th ed., available for very little, 1993 date, would probably be sufficient for most purposes.

Note- UK writers have their choice of Fowler's or Cassell's.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: EBarnacle
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 11:55 AM

A certain amoount of the responsibility goes to the teachers.

About 30 years ago, I was in charge of an out patient program for adolescent mentally ill clients. The teacher was a very nice, very popular non-white who somehow got through college and was a certified teacher. She could not spell or do math. Her other skills were questionable. She was lazy to the bone.

When the entire program was being cut back, the decision was made [over my strong objections] to retain her and get rid of the hard working, non-degreed program assistant [who was also a minority].

I found it incomprehensible then that the decision could be made to keep the incompetent in favor of the competent.

The administrators are as responsible as the teachers in defining what is acceptable work, both from teachers and students.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bert
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:32 PM

If you think that the standard of writing is bad, then you should check out the Engineering students.

I knew a degreed mechanical engineer who couldn't do simple trig (with a full function calculator) and who couldn't calculate the weight of a pressure vessel.

Another couldn't get the tube out of a spray bottle, it had fallen off inside the bottle and the lip at the top of the bottle had him completely fooled. I straightened a paper clip and stuck it down the tube. He was amazed and said he'd spent half an hour trying to get it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:52 PM

Good Lord. I was searching news regarding storms in the US and eastern Canada. Here's one headline with a few sentences.

'Young Man Dies in East Palo Alto While Hanging Christmas Lights

A 23-year-old man was electrocuted while hanging Christmas lights in the San Francisco Bay Area city. The man, who climbed at about 60 feet up a tree, has died instantly.'

I have nothing to add.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 03:55 PM

The Chicago Manual of Style is also available on-line with full search functions, Q&A section, etc. It's an invaluable resource. It also allows non-subscribers to search certain free databases for help with their questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:46 PM

The Chicago Manual of Style is, in the US, the preferred reference for most book publishers in the non-fiction field ¹.

If you are writing in some other genre, there probably is an "industry standard style reference" and Chicago is quite likely to be acceptabe, but you should check with the publisher (confirmed or potential). Quite obviously, in some fields of writing, the correct reference must be "None" but it doesn't hurt to check.

The Associated Press Style Manual is another that's widely available and is apparently in every newsrag editor's desk; but little editing seems to be done. The AP manual is much looser about what's acceptable – except in a few very specific cases, mostly where the publisher might get sued if you do it wrong.

If you're writing for magazine publication, it's almost mandatory that you know what the conventions are for the individual publisher(s) to whom you might be submitting your material. This is especially true for "technical" magazines, some of which have (or have had) some rather "arcane" requirements. Many of the more respected(?) magazine publishers may have in-house editors to clean up things for you; but others may expect you to meet all their rules from scratch.

A factor perhaps in the "grad students who can't write" is that most schools, where a thesis is required, have their own "thesis style specifications," and it's not uncommon for each school/department within a university to have "unique requirements." Students who have spent time and effort conforming may "just assume" that their thesis represents style and methods applicable everywhere. While quite obviously this is often not the case, their thesis may actually be the first thing they've ever written that was subject to "critical review" [with the obvious possibility that they may have been forced to conform to "personal preferences" of an idiotcynicratic professor who was assigned as their thesis advisor].

It appears that the main complaint in this thread though is not about the lack of style, but about basic illiteracy. No arguments on that.

¹ This may be a rather loose categorizing. It is quite well known that Microsoft Press claimed to use Chicago, at least quite recently. While the enforcement of "style" there obviously isn't too "tight," the real question is whether Microsoft publishes "non-fiction," which can be quite legitimately debated.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Peace
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:47 PM

I am NOT illiterate. My parents were married when I was born.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:53 PM

Emma B and Q have kindly mentioned the various style manuals regarded as authorities in the two centres of English writing in the northern hemisphere. South of the equator, where our use of the language may well be regarded as idiosyncratic by those north of it, we are well versed in taking on some uses and discarding others.

Old farts, like me, may have been taught well enough and have learned our conventions well enough; at the time I was at school, British conventions would have predominated. But evolution does indeed proceed apace. When I got to uni I had to learn other conventions, especially for citations and bibliographic referencing. This is where I learned to use italics for book titles, so "The Chicago Manual of Style" and Cassell's 'Guide to Common Errors in English' would both drop all quotation marks and become The Chicago Manual of Style and Guide to Common Errors in English respectively.

Of course, we do have our own Style Manual, published for a while by the Australian Commonwealth Government Printing Service, but I can't find my copy. Many Australians don't know of its existence and I suspect there are many more quite happy to live up to their reputation for insouciance in the face of authority and thus happy to ignore its recommendations. Sigh!

So, we keep labouring in the vineyard, encouraging clear communication and felicitous expression.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 05:02 PM

The Aussie Gov't style manual reminds me that I've also run into the US Government Printing Office Manual, usually referred to as the "GPO Manual." It's less available outside US government, but perhaps is one that should be included in the list.

It must be noted that elected members of government are mostly exempt, even/especially at very high levels.

(Maybe that manual also applies only to non-fiction.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 06:09 PM

Rowan, italics are commonly used topside in North America. I didn't mention them because I was too lazy to look up how to post italics in html, although the recipe is easy to find in Mudcat because FAQ has instructions.

When preparing a paper for publication, a real bugbear is the Reference list. Different journals have different rules on abbreviations, order of items in a citation, etc., probably set by some editor in the dark ages, and which may not follow recommendations in any style manual. And of course magazine citations are different from book citations. Fitting to a publication's stone tablets can be a real headache.
This has little to do with a student's writing ability.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 06:53 PM

G'day Q,
You're quite correct. I was just demonstrating how I learned how I could weasel out of the " vs ' situation when dealing with book titles. You probably already know this but EndNote is a popular (and, very good) bibliographic database for dealing with the various conventions and requirements used by editors for citations and reference lists. When I last counted there were more than 250 different templates for different journals and none was the exact way that the two Oz archaeology journals wanted theirs; I had to make up templates for use by local students.

Which requires one to understand syntax, in much the same way as I had to when writing Fortran. And when John wrote
A factor perhaps in the "grad students who can't write" is that most schools, where a thesis is required, have their own "thesis style specifications," and it's not uncommon for each school/department within a university to have "unique requirements." Students who have spent time and effort conforming may "just assume" that their thesis represents style and methods applicable everywhere. While quite obviously this is often not the case, their thesis may actually be the first thing they've ever written that was subject to "critical review"
I was on very familiar ground. I've lost count of the variations described by different parts of some universities as "Harvard" rules for citation and referencing.

This may excuse some confusion among graduate students when dealing with specific techniques but, as you and John both point out, the topic of the thread is really about felicitous (rather than barely functional) literacy.

As I implied above, many of the teachers of graduate (and other) students are unable to write correct (however defined) English; what's worse, they're apparently ignorant of their own ignorance.

That's one of several bugbears. I happen to think that lack of attention to detail is one and Katlaughing's description of a teacher who refused to even hand them back to her students saying they would be devastated by all of the red marks speaks to me of another. I'd interpret that teacher's reaction as showing she is more concerned about her standing with students than about substantive content; such concerns are common among beginning teachers who have not yet developed their armoury of 'classroom' techniques.

Rant subsiding.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 07:27 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 05:35 AM

Monkeys can do mental math, too

Rhesus macaques perform quick addition almost as well as college kids

I really should just stop with the headline and let everyone wonder ... but:

MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 7:50 p.m. CT, Mon., Dec. 17, 2007

Rhesus macaque monkeys performed nearly as well as college students at quick mental addition, researchers reported Monday, adding to the evidence that non-verbal math skills are not unique to humans.
The study from Duke University follows findings by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game.

Prior studies have found that non-human primates can match numbers of objects, compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects.

"This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make explicit decisions that were based on mathematical types of calculations," said Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at Duke whose work appeared in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.

"It shows when you take language away from a human, they end up looking just like monkeys in terms of their performance," Cantlon told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Her study pitted Boxer and Feinstein — two female rhesus macaques named after U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California — against 14 Duke University students.

"We had them do math on the fly," Cantlon said.
The task was to perform mental addition on two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen.
The humans were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. The monkeys and the humans all typically answered within 1 second.

The college students answered correctly 94 percent of the time, while the monkeys were right 76 percent of the time. Both the monkeys' and the students' performance worsened when the two choice boxes were close in number, following a similar downward-sloping curve.

"If the correct sum was 11 and the box with the incorrect number held 12 dots, both monkeys and the college students took longer to answer and had more errors," Cantlon explained in a Duke news release. "We call this the ratio effect. What's remarkable is that both species suffered from the ratio effect at virtually the same rate."

Cantlon told Reuters that the study was not designed to show up Duke University students. "I think of this more as using non-human primates as a tool for discovering where the sophisticated human mind comes from," she said.

The researchers said the findings shed light on the shared mathematical abilities in humans and non-human primates and shows the importance of language — which allows for counting and more advanced calculations — in the evolution of math in humans.

"I don't think language is the only thing that differentiates humans from non-human primates, but in terms of math tasks, it is probably the big one," she said.

As for the teams, both were paid. Boxer and Feinstein got their favorite reward: a sip of Kool-Aid soft drink. As for the students, they got $10 each — enough for a beer or two.

This report includes information from Reuters and msnbc.com.
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

They didn't say they tested the monkeys against grad students, but the results likely wouldn't have changed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 07:11 AM

Monkeys are brighter than students. No surprise there.

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:10 AM

Not necessarily brighter than. ... ... Just not much different than.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:35 AM

EBarnacle

Your comments about which worker to keep reminded me...

Aussie nurses once used to have start as 'pan scrubbers', and work their way up. Well, you know what I mean ... :-P

Now they all have to do a 3 year full time Uni course. This has bred a category of nursing known in the trade as "hands off nursing"... :-)

I'm not making this up you know...

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 01:18 PM

Ah John, But the monkeys didn't have the disadvantage of having to attend our schools.

Subject: BS: Graduwat stewdunts hoo carnt spel
From: skipy
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:01 PM

knot liyk i cann
skopy

Subject: RE: BS: Graduwat stewdunts hoo carnt spel
From: Azizi
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:30 PM

C u can spel rite 2 w/o efen tryin 2 do it!

Subject: RE: BS: Graduwat stewdunts hoo carnt spel
From: skipy
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:33 PM

I waz doin my besht
Skoppy

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:42 PM

Jasper Fforde's Well of lost plots might explain what's happened to Aziz and Skipy.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Graduate students who can't write
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 10:42 AM

"Her study pitted Boxer and Feinstein — two female rhesus macaques named after U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California — against 14 Duke University students."


            The real Boxer and Feinstein, however, have proven themselves to be terrible at math. Look at the budget resolutions they've both voted for.