Here's your next blog post-- you'll have until Sunday to comment for 1 point. This article is about the sorry state of college writing! Is the author fair? Unfair? Can it really be all this bad? (From my own experience, it's not this bad. This guy's got some gems.) Discuss it.
http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/opinion/columns/michaelolesker/The_sad_sad_state_of_college_English.html
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8 comments:
I am glad that this issue was brought to attention. I feel this way today in class when we were drafting or personal statements. I had written mine and looked over and thought it was ready to go. However, when my classmates revised it, they brought to my attention several issues that I didn’t notice. For example, a phrase that made perfect sense to me, they didn’t quite understand.
I agree with Watson when he says that “Most students make it clear that they don’t like to read, and they don’t want to read. Many struggled tremendously with their reading. So they just wouldn’t do it. And yet it’s so important. This is so true. My lack on drive to read has not only hindered my reading techniques, but also my writing and spelling. As college students these aspects should have already been overcame.
Jill Feimster
I’m not sure that these sentences are all the students’ faults. I agree that my generation of kids hasn’t had to rely as much on reading for entertainment as the generations before. I find that a lot of our flaws in writing also come from technology. We have become very reliant on the tool of spell check in Microsoft Word and as a result will not end up proofreading our own work. I’m sure we all understand though that spell check isn’t checking the coherency of our sentences but in fact just spelling. If I accidently type there when I meant to use the word their, I probably will not notice the error because it is not spelled wrong but in the wrong context.
I agree with Watson, that “we live in a culture where everything moves so quickly that you don’t have time to think about it.” With such things as the internet, cell phones, predict-a-text, and much more, society and technology are making it possible for people to do less and less and come out with the same quality of work. I think it is sad the quality of writing coming out today but there is also a lot of GREAT writing coming out as well that we can focus on instead of the negative.
Evan Harsh
I do agree with Wilson Watson when he states that “they don’t want to read,” in regards to children of my generation. I feel that there was a greater emphasis on reading in past generations, but it continues to decline as we move forward in technological advances. Children get more excitement out of watching television or playing games on the internet than they would by reading. Also, it’s easier for them, and takes less brain power, to watch TV. So when wanting to relax, kids don’t even think about reading. However, I have personally found that as I get older, reading does become more interesting, and I have enjoyed it more. However, the time to read is taken away from me due to the amount of work that is given to college students. Even when I have wanted to sit down and read a book, I’ve remembered the many papers I need to write, the tests I need to study for, and the projects I need to complete. So, because such a huge emphasis is placed upon grades in our society, college students, though interested in reading, put their time into their schoolwork instead.
Also, I feel that Wilson Watson is making the issue sound worse than it really is. I’m sure that he has brought to our attention the worst sentences he has found throughout his career. However, where are the good sentences? I know he has had some stellar sentences that he would never put in this article, in order to prove his point. Also, agreeing with Evan, Microsoft Word’s spell check and its predict-a-word can cause errors in writing that one may not even pick up on. I think this is seen in some of the errors Watson shows, but he doesn’t want to take that into consideration. So, as I do agree that reading has declined, but I don’t agree that it is as much of a problem as Watson is trying to make it seem.
Erin Moskos
As a college student, I am appalled at reading some of the sample sentences this article offered. I am surprised that such syntax and spelling errors occurred at a higher education institution. Although I think this is an issue affecting my generation, I believe that the views in this article are exaggerated. The problem of college students today isn’t necessarily ignorance, but a lack of knowledge. Most students do not know how to compose proper sentences in their writings because of a lack of experience. What is lacking in the school system today is motivation. If our nation stressed the importance of writing as a necessary component of attaining a degree, I believe that students would place more value in writing.
This article is beneficial to every college student. Growing up grammar and the structure of a sentence is stressed so much in elementary school but as you grow up and enter Jr. High and High School small details such as these are ignored. Who can blame these students for composing poor sentences when they haven't been taught in years the proper way to compose one.
Grammar and sentence structure are two of the most important things in English but yet are stressed near as much as being able to write a research paper.In fact a research paper can't be well written without proper sentence structure and grammar.
-Amanda
I was slightly offended to read this article. Because of a few bad sentences, Watson is implying that our entire generation is stupid. I actually read this article elsewhere on another blog, and one of the responses was, "I can't believe these people voted in our last election." Wow. A few bad sentences, and we are unable to make a decision for ourselves now? Also, Watson unfairly stereotypes our entire generation in this article. I don't like saying this, but some students are just naturally smarter than others.
I agree with Erin when she mentions that Watson did not list ANY well-written sentences. In all his years of teaching, I seriously doubt that these, albeit terrible, sentences are as good as it gets. To fairly represent our generation, he should discuss the good with the bad.
I also wanted to add that I read on a regular basis. Again, he is stereotyping. I was extremely disappointed in this former professor's short-sided view of his students.
Kelley Frost
Every person has had grammatical or spelling errors in sentences before. You would be lying if you said otherwise. With that being said, there are certain aspects of the English language that should be second nature by the time you are in college. This does not mean, however, that from time to time college students don't screw up in their writing. I'm sure it happens every day. I think, though, that Watson chose to publish the most extreme examples. I'm sure that for every poorly written sentence Watson came across in his teachings, he also came across more than that number of perfectly expressed thoughts.
It would be interesting to know if any of the sentences Watson used as examples were written in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word. I believe that a major reason of students' lack of spelling and grammar skills these days can be traced back to these programs. Many students rely on the spelling and grammar checks provided by these programs to catch their mistakes. Even using these programs you still have to be half-way intelligent, though, to catch the program's mistakes.
Basically, every college student is going to write incorrect sentences from time-to-time, but that doesn’t mean that we are now a stupid generation.
I agree with Watson when he states that students today no longer want to read and write. Today students care more about entertainment that can be seen or heard. Honestly poor writing has resulted from the TV and radio.
When you think of the past or read past literature, the diction used then no longer is even used for experts in writing. The tv has killed it. In the past people would love to learn to get ahead, today people just try to get done with work to go watch their favorite tv show.
Bhavin Patel
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