Comments for The Salt-Box

Comment on Oi! Stop complaining about student writing by Jason

Jason — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:44:10 +0000

@Roy That’s actually a good point, and reminds me that part of the problem was that students felt impelled to “write like a lawyer,” and stopped trusting what got them there.

@Dance History and English may be too close. But I’ve *definitely* seen students assert that they didn’t think grammar or style mattered on, say, a lab report, or even research papers in relatively quantitative fields.

To be honest, though, my real complaint here is with folks from other departments who feel no compunction about running down students’ writing as “something they weren’t taught earlier”–as if they have no responsibility.

@Chuck and Mike: I don’t mind saying I hate *grading*, though I like reading student work. “Grading” has a bit of an assembly-line feel, especially when you have 100 students in a semester. But this week I’ve also gotten several papers from students just looking for more feedback, and I’m very happy to enagage with them. (*Next* week . . . after grades are due!)

Comment on Oi! Stop complaining about student writing by Roy Jacobsen

Roy Jacobsen — Fri, 16 May 2008 01:54:06 +0000

I’m a bit concerned about those students who were told to “write like a lawyer.” IMO, that’s just about the worst thing you can tell them.

The sad fact is that lawyers don’t NEED to write like lawyers; Plain English is as legally binding as legalese.

Comment on Vitalchek is terrible by R. Engle

R. Engle — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:23:31 +0000

I found the same problem when, a half hour after making my order I received a found a phone number for the Vital Statistics office in question and they said to call vitalchek and cancel your order. Seems the birth certificates I ordered were not the correct ones. Now I am looking for a phone number to call them and cannot find one. I even called toll free information and there is nothing listed.
You are right, though this is partially my fault, I still feel Vitalcheck is a ripoff.

Comment on Oi! Stop complaining about student writing by Dance

Dance — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:56:37 +0000

I’m not quite buying the non-transferable thing—I can see being baffled by being asked to write like a lawyer, certainly, but I don’t see how that bafflement could override notions like “when you make a claim, you need to present evidence to support it.” I feel as though a lot of the complaints I see focus on things that could be solved with fairly basic editing and attention to pretty fundamental skills about how words and sentences should be put together.

I’ve read papers where I thought “oh, very nice command of language, but totally not doing what this paper needs to do”, but I don’t complain about those students as “bad writers”, I complain about students who ignored the assignment.

Perhaps our fault as faculty may be that we make writing seem too idiosyncratic, and don’t emphasize certain common rules enough, so that students fail to realize they do transfer to other classes. But I’m skeptical of the notion that the rule “apostrophes should be used for possessives and contractions” suddenly vanishes when students are asked to write in History rather than English. Maybe the students never actually learned that rule, and just learned by rote and repetition that “Author’s Text” requires a little blob in the right place.

Now, when I see a complaint “oh this student is such a bad writer”, followed by a list of typos and grammatical errors that Word’s spellcheck would have caught, yeah, I think that prof has totally missed the point about what bad writing is.

Comment on Oi! Stop complaining about student writing by Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:36:24 +0000

This is a very helpful explanation for why students seem to struggle with certain writing assignments. Like you, I’ve graded student writing at several universities (five, if I remember correctly), and I’ve tried to account for struggles with certain assignments. This year, for example, my students very clearly struggled with a rhetorical analysis assignment, something that I found surprising (students at other universities had been comfortable with that assignment). Like you, I find the constant complaining about student writing–especially in public venues like blogs and Facebook–unproductive.

Comment on Oi! Stop complaining about student writing by Mike Shapiro

Mike Shapiro — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:33:29 +0000

Thank you for this reminder, jbj, esp. as regards fluctuations in perceived fluency when writers encounter new genres for the first time. (I wince whenever I recall the personal statement that somehow didn’t disqualify me from grad school.)

I would add that there is a new dimension to this as well: colleagues of mine will occasionally complain about writing, or at least grading, on Facebook and in other public venues. If we tell our students that we dislike reading their work, should we be surprised when they display similar enthusiasm when it comes to writing it?

Comment on del.icio.us follow up by Jason

Jason — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:52:59 +0000

Brian–My bad: I didn’t know that was your point. I thought you meant “the post url is so annoying it makes del.icio.us essentially unusable,” which is what some students assert.

Comment on del.icio.us follow up by Brian

Brian — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:51:11 +0000

I just discovered that del.icio.us DOES have a page where you can post a link without using browser buttons. You can find it at http://del.icio.us/post. The browser buttons are more useful, but this makes the service useful to anyone at a computer.

Comment on 5th birthday playlist by Alex

Alex — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:32:54 +0000

By far, the most diversified playlist I have seen. I mean, what else can contain Nerdcore rap, Black sabbath, and ” Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree”.

Comment on Shocking news by tbrock

tbrock — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:29:44 +0000

there are some things in this article that are pretty surprising to a lot of people, however. First, I work in college sexual assault prevention, so it’s not a surprise to me. But, the fact that men are victims is typically not considered. Also, the fact that 25% of women were sexually assaulted is a pretty shockingly high percentage to a lot of people. 1 in 4. Think of four women you know, and then pick one. Sexually Assaulted. Also, the fact that this typically occurs between acquaintances is surprising to a lot of people as well, and is most important for students to be aware of.

My one criticism of this article is the fact that the words “Sexual Assault” and “Rape” were never used. “Unwanted sexual contact” sounds barely like anything. But the fact is, if you are kissed against your will, you’ve been sexually assaulted, and “unwanted intercourse” is Rape. Pure and simple. Let’s not make such a horribly criminal, disgusting, psychologically traumatizing thing seem less then it really is.It’s called Rape. Use the word.