"This isn't English class, so I'm not going to grade on grammar." Dangerous practice?

[DiosaBellissima]

Throughout my seemingly endless collegiate career (when will it ever end? No one knows!), one thing has shown itself to be abundantly clear: science majors can not write. Alright, generalizations are bad for everyone, but it is my (somewhat limited) experience that if a person isn't a humanities major, they can't write a readable essay if their life depended on it. Don't get me wrong, I see plenty of humanities majors who lack in the written communication department, but - as a whole- humanities majors seem to at least be able to communicate in a somewhat passable manner.

Woo, that was wordy.

While I understand that the emphasis in, say, a Biology degree is obviously Biology and not writing, I often wonder how professors can justify grading lab reports and not deducting for atrocious grammar. For instance, my friend is a Biology major and while she is incredibly intelligent in many ways, her writing is absolutely awful. I'm not just being a grammar snob here or anything, as she writes at what I would consider maybe a 9th grade level (she's a college senior). Whenever she finishes up a lab report or essay (whether for Bio or some humanities class she's taking), she asks me to look it over for her and while I am more than happy to oblige, I'm taken aback every single time. The girl seriously doesn't know how to properly use a comma or a semi colon! If this were just limited to my friend, I'd just say she was a bad writer and forget about it, but this is a theme I see with all the science majors who ask me to check their work for them.

In the case of my friend, when I offer up tips for more complex writing, she often brushes it off and says, "Diosa, this is SCIENCE, ok. That stuff doesn't matter! The professor wont care anyway. Science has a different type of writing that you just don't get." Alright, I'd buy that, except my major is Political Science and we use APA for our lab reports, too.

I've read some of my friends' graded work and I'm always blown away by the way that the professors virtually ignore glaringly bad writing. I'm not talking about more complex things like proper semi colon use, but rather things like properly making a list (you know, with commas and such- very high level stuff!).

To me, this is a symptom of a much bigger problem that starts much earlier than college. I remember sitting in AP chemistry, physics, and geology and having the teachers tell the class that they absolutely, positively will not grade on grammar or spelling. Spelling I suppose I can understand (I mean, I can barely remember the names, let alone the proper spelling!), but grammar?

So, is it true? Does writing just not matter if you're a "science person"?

As I see it, writing is a universal skill that we all should have a somewhat respectable grasp on- particularly people pursuing any type of collegiate education. Sure, not everyone needs to be able to write an essay without pronouns (I once had a professor who had this policy!), but surely everyone should be able to use commas and conjunctions properly. Right? Right? :eek:





Oh yes, and commence ripping apart my grammar in this post in 5. . . 4. . .3. . .2. . .

[Otto]

Yes, it's an enormous mistake not to crack the grammar whip at every level of education. It is inexcusable that a senior in college is unable to punctuate sentences correctly. If she thinks it doesn't matter because it's science, then she's stupid. No one should be issued a college degree if they can't pass a basic writing test. No one should graduate high school unless they can pass a basic writing test.

[CalMeacham]

I made it a practice not to grade on grammar when grading assignments and lab reports, since it was the science I was interested in. But maybe I should have deducted points for poor presentation.


But -- and this is important -- poor grammar was the LEAST of my complaints. I didn't deduct points, but made big red marks around the following:


1.) The guy who wrote his report in the form of a spiral. He started at one corner and wrote all around the edge of the paper until he got to his starting corner, then moved slightly inward on the page, proceeding in this fashion until he reached the center, and ran out of blank paper.

2.) The Guy Who Couldn't Spell to Save His Life. Deciphering his papers was a real challenge, filled with new physical concepts such as "Excelleration"*.






*"Accelent", I wrote underneath.

[DiosaBellissima]

If she thinks it doesn't matter because it's science, then she's stupid.

Well, in her defense (if there even is one): if this is what she's been told by her classmates and professors for four years, what on Earth is she supposed to think?

Until recently, the only non-science classes she took were lower divisions, so grammar wasn't part of the grade then either (why? I don't know). Actually, she was in the class with the professor I mentioned who said we weren't allowed to use pronouns in our in-class essays. How she passed that class is a mystery to me (I think I was the only one in a class of 50 to get an A, though).



*"Accelent", I wrote underneath.


$10 says he didn't get it. :p

[Hippy Hollow]

1.) The guy who wrote his report in the form of a spiral. He started at one corner and wrote all around the edge of the paper until he got to his starting corner, then moved slightly inward on the page, proceeding in this fashion until he reached the center, and ran out of blank paper.
What? You actually graded this? If he turned that in to me it would have been returned to him ungraded.

I use rubrics when grading, and grammar is always a section, as well as presentation. It sucks that kids never get called on this until they encounter that one prof in college or grad school. It would be wonderful if we all had the same high standards for our students.

[Santo Rugger]

If it's atrocious, mark it. Points don't need to be deducted, IMHO, but students who give a shit, in general, don't like their papers to be marked up.


ETA: In other news, when writing up reports for group projects, I was always elected (or chosen by default) to be the final editor of all our papers. I've always considered myself a good writer, and when I take my time, can churn out a nicely polished project.

I strongly disagree with the statement that technical writing is funadmentally different than creative writing in terms of structure. Style, of course, are very different, but the key in both is to effectively communicate your thoughts, ideas, and/or results to the reader. The grammar doesn't change just because the genre does.

1.) The guy who wrote his report in the form of a spiral. He started at one corner and wrote all around the edge of the paper until he got to his starting corner, then moved slightly inward on the page, proceeding in this fashion until he reached the center, and ran out of blank paper.


How'd you make big red marks around the spiral? :o

[LVgeogeek]

So, is it true? Does writing just not matter if you're a "science person"?

I think it is extremely important for science professors to grade on grammar as well as content.

In the real working world, which sadly many professors have no idea about, grammar is extremely important for, example, scientific and technical reports that go out to clients or to environmental or other regulatory agencies. If your reports/documentation are full of bad grammar, it makes one look uneducated and therefore the information presented may be looked at as less correct or less believable.

Then again, my high school and university science courses did have a focus on technical writing skills. I got dinged for spelling a lot. Grammar I know, but I cannot spell for shit [I love you spell checker].

[hajario]

All mechanical engineering majors where I went to school were required to take a technical writing course. In fact, I was a T.A. for that course twice. We are also required to take a two upper division lab courses where long reports on the experiments were assigned. You better believe that grammar counted. We didn't mind, or even necessarily know, if a comma went where a semicolon belonged but students would be marked down if their communication wasn't clear.

Good communication is essential for engineers. Depending on the product or design, lives could be at stake. If not lives, millions of dollars.

[ArizonaTeach]

Absolutely, positively, definitely maybe.

I'll say this - there are times that I don't even grade on grammar in my English classes.

Ok, yeah, there's a reason, though. It's all about the six-trait rubric. If I'm teaching a specific concept (say, Voice), and I have the kids write a paragraph where I stipulate I'm grading on Voice, then I give them a score based on Voice, grammar be damned. Grammar falls under the Conventions category. It's actually entirely possible (though unlikely) to get a very high score at the state level and have atrocious grammar, as grammar, at the most, only counts for 1/6 of the points. Messed up, but there you go.

However, I am of the opinion that Writing Across the Curriculum is a good thing.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

You go to college, you should be able to function at a college level in all classes. I understand that a biology class isn't very English-centric, but that doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't be able to convey your thoughts in the written word.

The problem with that is that it doesn't work very well the other way. English class is in everything, but not everything is in English class.

[dangermom]

I completely agree. Grammar (and usage, punctuation, all that) is a foundational skill; if you can't use your language properly, you're crippled. Teachers and professors don't do anyone any favors by letting grammar fall by the wayside.

[DiosaBellissima]

Well, to me, it's like algebra: everyone in college should have at least a moderate familiarity with algebra.

I'm not a "math person" in even the most general sense of the phrase (I'm pretty good at Statistics, strangely, but that's neither here nor there) and yet, if you put some algebra equations in front of me, I could do them. Sure, it might not be as instinctual to me as it is to my "math" friends, but I can do it with probably 90% accuracy.

To me, that's the same as a "math person" writing. Algebra is on the same intellectual level to me as 9th grade writing: commas, proper sentence structure (I had a friend who once spent an entire HOUR arguing with me as to why her sentence was correct. What was the sentence? It wasn't a sentence, actually, but was more or less "went to the store." I tried to explain to her that there was no subject and even showed her sentence diagramming, but to no avail!), and perhaps more advanced stuff like proper pronoun and semi colon use.

[Madd Maxx]

Actually, one of my professors mentioned that our school (Penn State) is putting more of a emphasis on proper spelling and grammar for all written assignments regardless of major. Engineer's were/are infamous for having horrible writing skills and now all assignments are supposed to be written as though it was for an English class. I haven't had any marks taken off any of my papers, but I have always been good at writing papers for English classes as well, so it may just be that my writing isn't that bad to begin with.

I think it is a good idea because clear communication, especially with people outside your particular field of study, is going to be required at some time or another for any position, whether you're an engineer or a programmer or in sales. And by judging some engineers I work with, maybe remedial English classes should be offered at work too.

[WhyNot]

I don't think it's imperative to grade on things like commas and semicolons, as long as the meaning is clear. But if the communication ain't happenin', then the paper needs to be redone.

Yes, it's a bit subjective. But, as has already been stated, even engineers have to communicate their ideas, and often in writing. If they can't communicate while their brains are in Science Mode, then they can't be effective. That's why writing can't be strictly compartmentalized to the English department: someone who writes an intelligible paper to get the pass in English, but can't use those skills in Science is not going to be a functional scientist.

...Heck, if nothing else, they're probably going to have to write a grant proposal, sooner or later!

[Otto]

Well, in her defense (if there even is one): if this is what she's been told by her classmates and professors for four years, what on Earth is she supposed to think?
She's supposed to think that she lacks basic literacy despite supposedly having a near-complete college education. Does she not have to read textbooks and published papers as part of her course work? Does she see those riddled with improperly punctuated sentences that a fifth-grader should be able to get right? Actually, she probably does, given the laxity that's been creeping into publishing for the last couple of decades. And, since she doesn't know how to punctuate a sentence properly, for all she knows the books and journals she reads are riddled with mistakes.

[Eureka]

I think there is a balance--no grading on grammar suggests that good grammar doesn't matter, which in the real world is not true. On the other hand, the quality of the thought process and the science should count for more than one's comma placement.

But my engineering professors encouraged us to learn some style conventions of the world of engineering. And I had one professor who would point out more grammatical details in well-written lab reports than in poorly-written ones. His explanation was that the more effort you put into your work, the more effort he put into grading it. And so, a badly written short report would get a lousy grade and not much red ink, but a well-written longer report would get a good grade and often significant red ink. (Especially since persons turning in well-written long reports which got much red ink were frequently students for whom English was not their first language.)

[susan]

I count organization more than grammar and spelling on in-class writing. Anything else of significance has organization, grammar, and spelling in the rubric, as well as correctly spelling my name, the student's own name, the name of the class and its course number, and the names of any clients or subjects in a book or film.

[DiosaBellissima]

And, since she doesn't know how to punctuate a sentence properly, for all she knows the books and journals she reads are riddled with mistakes.

Actually, I think that may be it. I recall one time, her showing me a sentence out of one of her text books that was just riddled with errors- I have no idea how it got by the editor, as it was BAD. She caught that and was quite proud of herself, but yeah.

[Sunrazor]

I'm an English teacher, so having colleagues in other disciplines say that spelling, grammar and punctuation don't matter really chaps my ass. But on a practical matter -- what if the misspelling or poor grammar or poor punctuation results in an error in the lab? Would it be important then? And how can scientists share their findings if they can't communicate with the rest of us?

[Spatial Rift 47]

I'm a physics grad student who also happens to enjoy and value good writing. I believe that the ability to communicate one's ideas to others is an invaluable skill in any profession, technical or otherwise.


In short, my students are lucky that I have not yet had to grade anything requiring substantial writing. Physicists are some of the worst offenders in this regard, because physics coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate level often simply does not entail significant writing, and then what writing is done is not graded for grammar.

[Spoons]

Engineer's were/are infamous for having horrible writing skills.... I haven't had any marks taken off any of my papers....You will if you keep this up. Gotcha! :)

I taught technical writing at a college once. Most of my students were engineers, and had been told all along that "English doesn't matter." It showed in their writing. We generally did an intensive review of grammar and punctuation, and it was all new to some of them. Of course, some asked why it was so important, and my answer was always the same: "You may be the world's greatest engineer, but if you cannot communicate your ideas clearly and concisely in writing, nobody will want to hire you. Because that's how ideas are communicated in the business world, where people don't want to waste time and money trying to figure out what you might be saying." It usually did the trick.

[dangermom]

She's supposed to think that she lacks basic literacy despite supposedly having a near-complete college education. Does she not have to read textbooks and published papers as part of her course work? Does she see those riddled with improperly punctuated sentences that a fifth-grader should be able to get right? Actually, she probably does, given the laxity that's been creeping into publishing for the last couple of decades. And, since she doesn't know how to punctuate a sentence properly, for all she knows the books and journals she reads are riddled with mistakes.IME a lot of people without education in language use can't see a lot of those errors. Many of us can absorb general language skills through lots of reading, but lots of people can't, or don't do enough reading to make up the difference.

I absorbed a lot of good language by reading, but I also have gaps--and I don't know those gaps are there until they're pointed out to me. Without systematic language education, the lucky folks wind up with blind spots and a vague feeling that they aren't really properly educated. The unlucky ones float in a sea of confusing and muddled words, not realizing that language can be clear and precise. For those people, gaining a knowledge of grammar is a bit like putting on glasses for the first time--"Hey! Trees have leaves! They're not just fuzzy blobs!"

[Cub Mistress]

2.) The Guy Who Couldn't Spell to Save His Life. Deciphering his papers was a real challenge, filled with new physical concepts such as "Excelleration"*.



*"Accelent", I wrote underneath.

This sounds like my older sister. She is very intelligent but cannot spell. It's a learning disability of some sort. Spellcheck has been life-changing for her.

Some friends of mine in school ask me to proof-read for them and I have been shocked by some of the writing. "I got nervous when I seen the patient was a girl only a year younger than me" is the first example that came to mind. My green editing pen has become a class resource. On the other hand, I always have someone proofread/edit my work. I get too attached to my prose and it helps to have a fresh set of eyes look it over.


Otto's right about the errors in textbooks, too. I'll be reading along and all of a sudden a error will jump out at me. Some of my books are in the 10th editions; do the publishers want to hear about errata?

[Anne Neville]

Physicists are some of the worst offenders in this regard, because physics coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate level often simply does not entail significant writing, and then what writing is done is not graded for grammar.

When they become postdocs or professors, they're going to spend a fair bit of time writing grant proposals. Mr. Neville tells me that "are you bringing in money from grants?" is a very important question in a tenure review. If they want to be professors of physics, some writing skills will be required.

[Bayard]

And tell her that email has displaced a lot of face-to-face discussion and meetings. You have to be able to carry on coherent discussions in writing in most offices, or you look like a fool. I'm an IT guy, and I spend about 25% of my day just writing emails. One time, a guy wrote me an email requesting that I design a query to "compulate" some figures. I marked him down in the "fool" column. One of my current co-workers is a super nice guy, but writes completely incoherent emails, even by IT standards. I finally ran out of patience and responded to one of his emails with a single word: "What?" Now he just calls me.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

So, is it true? Does writing just not matter if you're a "science person"? I've had to edit copy from "science people" on several occasions. If their grasp of grammar is truly atrocious, they can't communicate their science ideas effectively.

I recently witnessed (well, not in person, I saw the email exchange) a conference speaker be un-invited to present at a conference because no one could understand what the hell his abstract was trying to say. His hand out materials were so confusing and difficult to decipher that they were practically meaningless. Sentences had no subject or predicate and he used punctuation in the most bizarre ways, "including" randomly putting "quotation" marks "around" words. He liked using big words, but they often didn't really go together. (Hard to explain. Sort of like using inappropriate modifiers that didn't quite fit what they were modifying.... like... I'll make some up: "tinted running", "machine-pressed solitude", or "proficient deadness".)

English is his first language, he has a Bachelors Degree in science and is a practicing lawyer. He refused to let our professional proofreader modify his work, insisting it had to stay the way it was.

Other speakers were concerned that his session was undermining the credibility of the event. He seemed to be able to speak well, but his articles were utterly incomprehensible, even by people who were experts in the topic.


I think there is a balance--no grading on grammar suggests that good grammar doesn't matter, which in the real world is not true. On the other hand, the quality of the thought process and the science should count for more than one's comma placement. Aye, that's the rub. The above dude's grammar was so bad, you couldn't follow his thought process, let alone evaluate the quality of his ideas.

[pravnik]

IAAPhD!! I pnwed teh teoretcial fizzics!!!1one1 w00t!111!!

[dangermom]

And tell her that email has displaced a lot of face-to-face discussion and meetings.
This reminds me of my husband's frustration with the project he was working on a couple of years ago. He does a lot of physics and high-level calculus in his job, and was working with a physics professor on the other side of the country, mostly through email. The professor's emails were so incoherent and frustrating that it seriously impeded the work; my husband would ask about some specific element of the project, and he would receive a mass of nonsensical rambling that didn't appear to answer the question at all. It could take weeks to figure out what the guy was saying.

My husband is working at a new company now, and recently came back from a two-day meeting on his project. He said it was an absolute joy; everything was clear, they communicated well and made a lot of progress and now he knows exactly what the requirements are. His work is significantly easier with these folks who can tell him exactly what they need.

[pbbth]

It isn't just the fact that the business world revolves around coherent writing skills but that many other parts of her life will require written communications as well. What if she ever wants to take out a personal ad? What about writing letters to the teachers and principal at her child's school? Does she ever want to be able to send a letter of complaint if she purchases a faulty product? She will be judged, often times harshly, based on her ability (or in this case inability) to communicate through writing.

[Blaster Master]

I'm a science PhD student, and even when I was an undergrad, I was a good writer. I think it is ridiculous that anyone can get a degree (much less a high school diploma) with some of the terrible writing I've seen from PhD students. If you're smart enough to wrap your mind around theoretical physics, molecular biology, electrical engineering, computer science, etc., you're damn well smart enough to know how to construct an intelligible sentence. What's the point of learning these things if you cannot express your thoughts about them?

IMO, the solution is to have more and stricter language arts requirements so that professors shouldn't be stuck with these sorts of dilemmas. However, in the same breath, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to penalize excessively for grammar. Many of my professors, when they have to read something hand-written, would make statements like "If I can't read it, I won't grade it." I would probably make the same stance with regard to grammar. If I can understand it, then I'd grade it, if I can't, then I wouldn't.

I would, however, reserve the right to dock points for things presentation, of which grammar would be a part. If someone ends a few sentences with prepositions, I wouldn't worry, but if it looks sloppy or careless, then they deserve the same amount of effort getting it graded as they put into it.

[RickJay]

I guess the critical question I have is, when you say you're "Grading for grammar," are you dinging the student for every conceivable error, or are you marking whether or not the student's paper has grammar good enough that it doesn't interfere with the purpose of the paper?

It's unreasonable - to be honest, it's probably impossible - for most people to compose a 5,000-word report and not come up with at least a few errors. You're at least going to throw a few silly tautologies in there; lots of people who fancy themselves good writers will write things like "plan ahead" and "past history," which are absolutely, unquestionably bad English, or confusing "contagious" with "infectious," also bad English. I'd bet 500 bright posters on the SDMB have used the word "sentient" when they actually meant "intelligent," and lots of seemingly bright folks will still use the wrong choice between its and it's. But if there's one "plan ahead" in a 5,000 word essay that's otherwise written at a level appropriate for the class, is that worth deducting marks? I don't think so.

On the other hand, if the sentence structure actually forces you to go back and think "now, just what the hell does she mean here?" then I think docking marks is appropriate.

I also agree with those who've pointed out that anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a professional needs a good command of written English. Someone who actually types "supposively" or "for all intensive purposes" makes a terrible impression no matter how smart they might be when not using a keyboard. The quality of one's writing can have a tremendously negative impact on one's reputation if it's blatantly ignorant.

[DiosaBellissima]

On the other hand, if the sentence structure actually forces you to go back and think "now, just what the hell does she mean here?" then I think docking marks is appropriate.



This is more in line with my feelings, though I wasn't entirely clear in the OP. I can't tell you how many times I've been called upon to proof read final drafts of essays for friends, only to have no fuckin' clue what they are trying to say.

(Way bad example, but it's all that comes to mind at the moment):

"There are 4 kinds of fish in the experiment, blue ones; red ones; purple ones; and black ones. It needed the water two times warmer than the rest of the fish to survive the waters because it needs that kind of climate to survive."

Using "it" improperly drives me insane. Like I said, it probably goes back to ye olde professor who wouldn't let us use pronouns, but SO MANY PEOPLE use a pronoun when there is no obvious subject reference.

Anywho, the above is unreadable. THAT should be marked off and someone should explain why, exactly, the deduction of points happened (incorrect list, no subject-pronoun relation, etc.).

[Capt. Ridley's Shooting Party]

All undergraduate computer science students now have to take a course in technical writing and professional issues as part of their degree, in order to qualify for BCS exemption, in the UK, I think, for precisely this reason.

Apparently one of the major complaints about new graduates from employers is that they are near illiterate.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

I guess the critical question I have is, when you say you're "Grading for grammar," are you dinging the student for every conceivable error, or are you marking whether or not the student's paper has grammar good enough that it doesn't interfere with the purpose of the paper?I would assume that profs are being discretionary. My boss will send copy along to me for editing only after he's approved it. I'd say a good number of the employees here don't know how to use hyphens or emdashes correctly a very, very few seem to be able to remember the rules of capitalization. Mostly it's small styleguide stuff, no big deal. My boss doesn't give a rat's ass about that, he approves the copy and passes it along to me.

If however, basic grammar and syntax is so far out of whack that stuff doesn't make sense, he'll send it back for them to revise, and that has occasionally meant the employee has missed a deadline and lost out on a bonus related to that deadline. In his opinion, "muddled writing is a sign of muddled thinking!"

[Spatial Rift 47]

When they become postdocs or professors, they're going to spend a fair bit of time writing grant proposals. Mr. Neville tells me that "are you bringing in money from grants?" is a very important question in a tenure review. If they want to be professors of physics, some writing skills will be required.

In a perfect world, this would guarantee that physicists had a modicum of writing ability. In practice, the people reviewing the grants are themselves physicists, who themselves have a general lack of writing ability. So while the grant proposal process does ensure some level of communicability, it doesn't require good writing.

[Oredigger77]

In practice, the people reviewing the grants are themselves physicists, who themselves have a general lack of writing ability.

This has been my general experience. I recently graduated from an engineering school that didn't even have an English department. The closest thing we had was a Liberal Arts and Internationals Studies department and all of those classes were electives of which you had to pick three. I am an awful speller and my grammar is probably worse if not for spell check and grammar check I would be worthless. But I have those things and I use them. Although when I'm in a rush I do have a tendency to forget to copy and paste into Word.

I don't think that a meaningful part of the grade in any work outside of English classes. You should be graded on the information presented and if that information is lacking due either to being incomprehensible or wrong then the grade should be reduced. this happened to me quite often on hand written papers because on top of the other problems my handwriting is illegible to me at times. But I don't understand why it should be necessary for me to cut my run on sentences if you understand after reading it that the bridge will fall if the wind speed is over 20 knots.

Since I've been in the working world my bosses and the people who read the well plans that I write care less about grammar then my teachers did all they want is to be able to read it and go ok I can do that and so I see no reason to understand how to join two sentences with a semicolon for better writing. On the other hand I don't use pronouns in my writing unless there could be no confusion and I try to just write 5-10 word sentences. this post being the obvious exception.

Oh by the way I misspelled grammar every time I typed it for this post. :smack:

[JustThinkin']

Oh. My. I have so much to say on this subject, I hardly know where to start.

I'm a technical writer. I'd like to be a science writer someday, but haven't worked too hard to move in that direction, yet.

Academic writing in general -- even the best of it -- sucks. It's not only a matter of grammar and punctuation, but a matter of style. The academic style of writing has gotten so bloated and dysfunctional that it's hardly recognizable as English sometimes. Unfortunately, the same is often true of writing in business and engineering and other fields.

In other words, the commonly accepted idiom prevents folks from seeing that they. Just. Don't. Make. Sense.

Some specifics:

Overuse of passive voice. Og forbid we should have a recognizable subject, verb, and object. Omitting the actor, or relegating the actor to the end of a long convoluted sentence, confuses the reader.

Nounification (it's made up, but it works). Don't turn a perfectly good verb into noun and then help it along with another weak verb. Don't "make a proposal" when you can "propose."

Deadwood. "Due to the fact that" = "because." All those extra words just muddy the water.

I could probably go on. Were I to grade science papers, I'd mark the grammar and punctuation and downgrade if I have to read a sentence more than once to understand it.

Good writing is invisible. Bad writing gets in the way, and worse, leads to misunderstanding.

<bows head and waits for Gaudere's Law to strike>

[DiosaBellissima]

Some specifics:

Overuse of passive voice. Og forbid we should have a recognizable subject, verb, and object. Omitting the actor, or relegating the actor to the end of a long convoluted sentence, confuses the reader.

Nounification (it's made up, but it works). Don't turn a perfectly good verb into noun and then help it along with another weak verb. Don't "make a proposal" when you can "propose."

Deadwood. "Due to the fact that" = "because." All those extra words just muddy the water.

[/SIZE]

I've had several professors say that if you switch into passive voice at any point throughout a paper, they will stop reading it. I've been told on numerous occasions that there is absolutely no excuse for passive voice in a paper.

The other two, well, those are major point deductions with any of my professors.

Then again, I'm a Poli Sci major, so maybe this is just another example of the difference between humanities and sciences.

[Septima]

Makes me remember one of my history lecturers, who was walking us trough the obligatory "how to write a paper" segment of the class (they have to go through this in every low-level university class here, at least in humanities - no idea what the science people do.)

Anyway, he spent a few minutes ranting about all the silly nonsense people generally manage to turn in - footnotes refering to Wikipedia, misspelled names, all that stuff. The thing I remember most from him (a wonderfull lecturer), is the complaint "...and I spent half an hour wondering 'Who the Hell is General Asemblie!?'"

The mythical General Asemblie, presumed to be African, possibly involved in WWII, has since been the subject of much speculation and ridicule.

I agree with the general (ha!) consensus here - a typo here and there, or comma out of place shouldn't matter. Total and complete nonsense should.

[eleanorigby]

This thread scares me. So many supposedly learned people cannot seem to write a complete sentence. And what is a complete sentence but a complete thought? Augh.

You should see some of the charting that I have read in my time. Nurses cannot spell, cannot conjugate, cannot punctuate. It's frightening. The docs are somewhat better, although that's mostly because their handwriting is illegible.

I say, haul out the big guns (aka the Red Pen) and mark away. True, points don't necessarily need to be taken off if the assignment was for Voice (like upthread) but the student should be aware of the mistakes.


IMO, this all starts waaaaay back in upper elementary or middle school. Somehow these folks got through HS (and college essays on applications!) and now here they are. It's a kindness to be hard on them now.

[sunstone]

I taught Biology for thirty years, and grammar and spelling did count in addition to the actual knowledge presented.

One year myself and another teacher (English) were partners in a course that was based on science literature rather than the classic based literature course. Sadly, I was much more demanding regarding writing skills than my partner.

It seems to me that being able to write well is a basic requirement in any field; your thoughts may go unread if you write poorly.

[RickJay]

I've had several professors say that if you switch into passive voice at any point throughout a paper, they will stop reading it. I've been told on numerous occasions that there is absolutely no excuse for passive voice in a paper.
I was always taught that the only excuse to use passive voice was when it places someone or something of personal importance into the subject, and does to to avoid the appearance of clumsiness or abruptness. For instance:

"A car hit my dog."
"My dog was hit by a car."

Though passive, the second sentence is actually preferable; the first is too abrupt. The important part of the sentence is my dog, not the car.

That's the ONE situation where passive voice is preferable. And even then it's likely overused:

"Robert Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan."
"Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy."

I'm not certain #1 is better than #2. In that case it's a close call. Robert Kennedy is more important than Sirhan Sirhan, but it's not of personal importance to me or, probably, the reader.

[GorillaMan]

I've had several professors say that if you switch into passive voice at any point throughout a paper, they will stop reading it. I've been told on numerous occasions that there is absolutely no excuse for passive voice in a paper.
...
Then again, I'm a Poli Sci major, so maybe this is just another example of the difference between humanities and sciences.
There's not such a clear divide. Having within reach a significant recent article in a major musicological journal, I read through an entire randomly-selected page without getting out of the passive voice. I don't think it's just a collective bad habit, as JustThinkin' suggests, but maybe the principal actor in one scene doesn't merit any prominence in the wider scheme of things?

[Hostile Dialect]

I think the idea that there is no excuse for passive voice, ever, is absurd. It exists because it's useful. It's one of those prescriptivist screeds that even the prescriptivists forget is such a big deal when they are writing. (Or speaking, for that matter.) Of course, it's important to avoid overusing the passive voice--that is what needs to be taught. Teaching kids (or college students) that it is That Voice Which Must Not be Used is like teaching them that smoking pot will make them shoot up the school: all it does is leave the victims of the lesson more confused and ignorant than before.

As for the question in the title, yes, absolutely, it's dangerous. People in the professional world need to know how to communicate effectively through the written word. FTR, when I went to the University of Arizona, it was their stated policy to require writing in all subject fields and grade for grammar (at least to some extent).

The other somewhat-related problem I see at my school is that the English writing center's "tutors" don't seem to actually teach anyone anything, they just correct papers. It basically amounts to a free 100% in grammar and spelling for anyone who asks for it. That's an issue too.

[commasense]

Forty-four posts, and no one has called the OP for "alright"? :D

[bitwise]

I majored computer science and mathematics, and I've worked for several years as a programmer; and I must confess that people have told me that my writing confuses them. I doubt, however, that the problem is with my grammar or punctuation. I've found the most significant problem is that the audience lacks familiarity with the content; it's often difficult to place oneself in the audience's shoes and forget what one already knows.

The second most significant problem is actually a matter of style. For instance, consider the sentence I've written below:


Not having a better way, I decided to implement a simple solution: check that the number of valid sales for the current day is at most a certain number of standard deviations away from the mean for the last 30 days; and likewise for the number of invalid sales and the number of duplicate sales.


Besides lack of familiarity with terms like "mean" and "standard deviation", I've found that many people have trouble dealing with words that express inequality, such as "at most", "at least", "no more than", "no less than", "less than", "greater than", "3 or fewer", and "3 or more".

Another problem is that many people have trouble with multiple restrictive phrases. However, I often must specify the entities that I'm am talking about very precisely. I could write several sentences introducing each entity before I talk about the relationship between them; but if I did that, my writing would grow to a tedious length. I could introduce mathematical symbols that would allow me to express my idea concisely and precisely; but that would make most people's eyes glaze over. I could omit details and risk the possibility of ambiguity, hoping that the audience can infer what I left out. That's the strategy I chose in the above quote. Ideally, I would have specified that the standard deviation is for the number of sales for the last 30 days, that the mean is for the number of sales for the last 30 days, and that the "last 30 days" does not include the current day. Also, instead of using "likewise", I would have specified the conditions for the number of valid sales and the number of duplicate sales in full.

I've also found that people have trouble with logical connectives and quantifiers. For instance, I remember someone not understanding me when I told her, "We will show the item if the condition holds for at least one distribution." She did not understand me until I rephrased that sentence in the contrapositive: "If the condition holds for no item, then we will not show the item." I found this quite puzzling, because to me the second sentence seems harder to understand since it contains two negatives.

[Shalmanese]

I really question how much of a deal the whole "kids can't write these days" meme is overblown. This quarter was my first time as an American TA, it was a junior level engineering class at a large state university, required for everyone in the major and a good mix of domestic and international students.

Going into it, I had a lot of apprehensions but overall, I've been stunned with the level of writing acumen displayed. There hasn't been a single paper which I would call atrocious, maybe 3 or 4 people in a class of 40 who I would classify as struggling but this was largely due to their evident foreign status. For the rest of the students, I've had nothing but concise, well written, grammatically correct if occasionally stunningly dull papers.

I can't be too abnormal in this regard. Is anyone else here perfectly ok with the level of writing their students exhibit?

[Hostile Dialect]

Several of the essays I've had to peer-review in English classes have been absolutely atrocious. I'm sure it varies a lot by state and by school, BTW--California is known for its abysmally shitty public school system, especially in comparison to its awesome community college and state university systems, so the locals don't necessarily come to school fully prepared to live up to that school's standards.

[MsRobyn]

While I was a student in a writing-intensive major, I saw my share of really, really bad writing. But I think there are some reasons for this. These are true for Pennsylvania, but some of them are probably nationwide, if not universal.

First, the emphasis on the five-paragraph essay in high school and freshman composition has to stop. I understand that it's a standard format, and I understand that that format is a requirement for the statewide standardized test. Unfortunately, it's an example of form over substance; it doesn't matter what you say as long as you've got perfect form. As I've said time and again, do you want to be "correct" or do you want to be understood? English composition emphasizes the former, technical and business communication the latter.

Second, many teachers view the rules of grammar as absolute. Never using passive voice is a good example. As Hostile Dialect pointed out, passive voice exists for a reason, and I can think of two good reasons to use it: when something is not capable of acting on its own, or when the actor is not essential. Always using active voice can lead to some very tortured sentences that would have been clearer in the passive.

Third, I think the lack of consistent style even within the disciplines is an issue because it leads to confusion, particularly with respect to punctuation. For example, my field of communications requires APA style, which involves one set of rules, but I've had to use MLA, Chicago and Associated Press, each of which has its own rules. I know I'm never going to use MLA or Chicago again, so I'm not willing to invest the time and energy to learn those two, and I'm sure other students don't want to, either.

Finally, as others have said, there is a significant lack of attention to technical and business writing, forcing students to adapt freshman composition skills to areas that really aren't suited for that kind of writing. For example, I knew science majors who had gotten As in college writing, but who couldn't write a simple lab report because they never had to take a technical writing course, nor did the professors within their respective departments bother to go into it. I know time and expertise are finite resources, but there is no reason not to include a technical writing course, at least for those in the hard sciences.

Robin

[JustThinkin']

I majored computer science and mathematics, and I've worked for several years as a programmer; and I must confess that people have told me that my writing confuses them. I doubt, however, that the problem is with my grammar or punctuation. I've found the most significant problem is that the audience lacks familiarity with the content; it's often difficult to place oneself in the audience's shoes and forget what one already knows.

The second most significant problem is actually a matter of style. For instance, consider the sentence I've written below:
I frequently edit highly technical content and freely admit that I don't understand always understand it. Understanding it isn't necessarily my job. However, I apply the "gist" test -- if a non-technical person like me can get the gist of it, then it's probably written pretty clearly. If I have to read it over and over to figure it out, then I'll rewrite it and mark it for the SME to check for accuracy.

Not having a better way, I decided to implement a simple solution: check that the number of valid sales for the current day is at most a certain number of standard deviations away from the mean for the last 30 days; and likewise for the number of invalid sales and the number of duplicate sales.
I can see several ways you could write this more clearly. It's not bad -- I get the gist -- but it's wordy. Any sentence that contains both a colon and a semi-colon should be rewritten. ;)

[JustThinkin']

I think the idea that there is no excuse for passive voice, ever, is absurd. It exists because it's useful. It's one of those prescriptivist screeds that even the prescriptivists forget is such a big deal when they are writing. (Or speaking, for that matter.) Of course, it's important to avoid overusing the passive voice--that is what needs to be taught. Teaching kids (or college students) that it is That Voice Which Must Not be Used is like teaching them that smoking pot will make them shoot up the school: all it does is leave the victims of the lesson more confused and ignorant than before.

I agree. Passive voice can be a useful tool, but too many people use it as their default voice. One book I read recommended forcing yourself to write in all active voice until it becomes a habit, then allow passive voice to creep in when it's useful.

As much a stickler as I am for using active voice, I know my speech is mostly passive and that I write more passively in casual communications. It really seems to have become the default of American English (listen to the news for it). Someday I ought to start a thread about whether the preponderance of passive voice in communications affects how we interact with the world. :p

[Bayard]

While I was a student in a writing-intensive major, I saw my share of really, really bad writing. But I think there are some reasons for this. These are true for Pennsylvania, but some of them are probably nationwide, if not universal.

First, the emphasis on the five-paragraph essay in high school and freshman composition has to stop.

I just wanted to point out that you (almost) wrote a perfect five-paragraph essay there. You just forgot your summary paragraph (and you added one more main point, but that's OK).

I agree that the five-paragraph essay is not the be-all and end-all. But, I'm glad my high school pounded it into my skull. I might have been lucky in that they beat it into us in our freshman and sophomore years, and then forced us to grow out of it. I think the format--make a statement, back it up with evidence, start new paragraphs for new ideas--is a great tool. My composition teacher, at least, did not emphasize form over substance. He was a tough sonuvabitch on form, but it was always in service of the substance. He was a great teacher, by the way. Thanks, Bojo!

[guizot]

I strongly disagree with the statement that technical writing is funadmentally different than creative writing in terms of structure. Style, of course, are very different, but the key in both is to effectively communicate your thoughts, ideas, and/or results to the reader. The grammar doesn't change just because the genre does.With this one point I don't agree. In scientific writing, for example, the passive voice is appropriate more often than in creative writing, just as in daily news journalism. Maybe you'd call this simply a matter of "style," but it's a grammatical function.

But as to the OP, I find it really annoying when undergraduates in fields like engineering, science, and architecture say, "I don't care about writing. It's not important in my field." Architects, engineers and scientists do a whole lot of writing, and often their jobs depend on it.

In fact, there's a book by a guy named Bruno Latour (Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts, 1986, Princeton University Press) wherein he describes how most of what scientists at the Saulk Institute do is writing.

[guizot]

I really question how much of a deal the whole "kids can't write these days" meme is overblown.I remember reading about some professor complaining about how "modern" undergraduates couldn't write anymore.

He was a professor at Yale. 130 years ago.

[JustThinkin']

With this one point I don't agree. In scientific writing, for example, the passive voice is appropriate more often than in creative writing, just as in daily news journalism. Maybe you'd call this simply a matter of "style," but it's a grammatical function.

I assume you're probably referring to the need for objectivity? In my experience, most passive sentences can be written in active voice without sacrificing objectivity a bit. My experience includes technical, scientific, and business communications. As a reader, I think it holds true in news, too. Passive voice is just a habit and a crutch in most situations.

[Fretful Porpentine]

Some random thoughts, in no particular order:

1) Yes, I think instructors across the curriculum should hold students responsible for writing competent English. It's difficult for students to make a persuasive argument or disseminate information in any discipline without convincing their audience that they have something worthwhile to say, and being able to write clear and literate prose is one element in establishing their credibility.

2) Very often, there's a mismatch between what faculty in other disciplines expect freshman composition instructors to teach and what these instructors actually do teach. English professors, in general, are less likely to emphasize the mechanical correctness of students' writing than faculty in other disciplines. People who specialize in rhetoric and composition are less likely to emphasize mechanics than other English instructors. In other words, instructors who have NOT had formal training in teaching writing tend to care more about surface-level errors; those who have such training tend to pay more attention to the larger issues of content and organization -- evidence, argumentation, analysis, coherence, focus. In fact, when I was in mandatory comp-instructor boot camp in grad school, we were actively discouraged from offering formal instruction in grammar, on the grounds that research had shown that such instruction had absolutely no effect on students' writing. I'm agnostic about whether this is true (I'm skeptical about a lot of rhet-comp research), but I do agree that the freshman comp instructor's primary job is teaching students the higher-level skills that they're going to need in most of their college classes, such as how to tell the difference between a scholarly article and a Wikipedia entry, how to write a thesis that makes a clear and arguable point, and how to read a text critically. Much of the work that comp teachers do is invisible if you're looking only at grammar and mechanics, or if you're placing undue weight on one particular pet peeve, such as passive voice or redundancy.

3) What counts as "good writing" in one discipline may well be horrible writing in another discipline. Scholars in the humanities encourage active voice, discourage formulas, and generally have no problem with limited use of first person; the standards for a lab report in the sciences are entirely different. I prefer that my literature students use MLA-style parenthetical notations (although I'll accept ANY citation style as long as it's used consistently); my undergraduate history professors hated parenthetical notes and wanted Chicago style. I want students to quote extensively from the texts we're reading because they are primary sources and the students are supposed to be doing close analysis of the language; a social science professor whose students are reading mostly secondary sources might regard too many quotations as a sign of lazy writing. Students do not, generally, understand disciplinary differences unless these differences are taught, and the best people to teach them are instructors in the target disciplines.

4) Students tend to compartmentalize knowledge -- they often have a hard time applying something they've learned in one course to a different course. Part of a college professor's job is to break down those mental boxes and show the students how the different subjects they study fit together, but this is hard work, and it's seldom done in a semester or two. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep fighting the good fight.

5) The students in my literature classes grump when I mark mechanical errors in their papers, so I hate to think what they say when science professors do it!

... Uh, yeah, I think I fail at having a thesis that makes a point :) I guess what I'm saying is that writing instruction across the curriculum = good, but immensely complicated. And please don't blame the freshman comp instructors for all weaknesses in student writing -- sometimes their goals are different, sometimes the students haven't yet internalized what they learned in freshman English.

[Sitnam]

Lets not be leaving out the Humanities students, often their papers are just as bad. When I was in school our International Literature teacher had us get into separate groups by the book we chose and read each others essays on it. As I sat and read each essay, while intermittently glancing down at the Rubric, I wondered if anyone else in class actually understood the assignment. You can't help someone who isn't even close.

[dangermom]

I remember reading about some professor complaining about how "modern" undergraduates couldn't write anymore.

He was a professor at Yale. 130 years ago.So, shouldn't we have improved by now?

[RancidYakButterTeaParty]

If I assign an essay in my math class, the students are expected to use paragraph structure, correct punctuation, and correct grammar. I also require them to spell all mathematical terms correctly. These items are included as part of the rubric for their grade. I'm a real hard-ass about it, but I've often surprised other teachers when they've told me that "Jane can't write an essay to save her life"--and then I've been able to produce a quality essay from that student.

I teach 6th grade, if that matters to anyone. I also believe that this decision, along with many others, is made easier when I follow my class motto: What you allow, you encourage.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

I can't be too abnormal in this regard. Is anyone else here perfectly ok with the level of writing their students exhibit?I don't work with students, I edit co-workers' material. Out of a team of 9, we have 3 that are very competent writers, two who write very well but need a grammar and punctuation clean-up crew to polish their work, and four that suck to varying degrees of suckitude.

But of the less-than-stellar copy writers, one is writing English as a third language and is learning fast and getting better and better. Another is leaving the company because it is so obvious that he lacks the skill to fulfill even the most basic writing requirements of his job here (his copy is utterly unusable and his boss has to rewrite it every time).

So since I've been working here (almost ten years) I'd say that at any given time, half of the people here whose jobs recquire copy writing are good at it. And when they are good they are usually really good and 20-25% need to be taken out back behind the shed and shot.

Note well: The job is not a "copy writing job" but is a job for which copy writing skills are required.

[Sailboat]

I assume you're probably referring to the need for objectivity? In my experience, most passive sentences can be written in active voice without sacrificing objectivity a bit. My experience includes technical, scientific, and business communications. As a reader, I think it holds true in news, too. Passive voice is just a habit and a crutch in most situations.

Well, coming from my perspective as a government contractor working alongside scientists and engineers, I see passive voice used almost exclusivley in many documents. It may be my own personal bias to think this, but I think that it's not just a habit, at least the way these folks use it -- I think it's a deliberate defense. In government, most of the time, one doesn't want to be the actor, or otherwise call attention to whose fault something might be. These writers are intentionally hiding in the passive voice.

I've been asked by a supervisor to go back and amend something into the passive voice specifically to make it less clear. I'm paraphrasing from memory here: "Instead of saying, 'we did x,'" he said, "why don't you say, 'x occurred;' there's no reason to emphasize who did it." I swear I've seen people look pained when they hear the active voice.

Outside of government, I think people might still be using the passive voice -- unconsciously, but deliberately, to obfuscate. If one is copying labwork, it feels safer to say "The Bunsen burner was turned on at 9:00," than to say "I turned on the Bunsen burner" when the burner in question was actually turned on by your buddy Steve and "I" was sleeping in.

edit: Even when they're not hiding anything, I think many people feel comfortable in the passive voice, the way a partridge is comfortable in dense ground cover.

Sailboat

[Oredigger77]

I was actually told in many of my lab classes to use the passive voice because who turned the burner didn't matter just that it was done.

[Gangster Octopus]

While I don't think I would grade on grammar and spelling (unless it was really bad) I would try my best to correct mistakes, so the student can learn, encourage them. But if they demonstrated the necessary knowledge I wouldn't deduct points.

[JustThinkin']

Well, coming from my perspective as a government contractor working alongside scientists and engineers, I see passive voice used almost exclusivley in many documents. It may be my own personal bias to think this, but I think that it's not just a habit, at least the way these folks use it -- I think it's a deliberate defense. In government, most of the time, one doesn't want to be the actor, or otherwise call attention to whose fault something might be. These writers are intentionally hiding in the passive voice.

[snip]

Outside of government, I think people might still be using the passive voice -- unconsciously, but deliberately, to obfuscate. [snip]

edit: Even when they're not hiding anything, I think many people feel comfortable in the passive voice, the way a partridge is comfortable in dense ground cover.

Sailboat

Alas, you're too right.

[BlinkingDuck]

Well...

I've noticed that Humanity majors can't seem to integrate their way out of a wet paper bag.

How they get through life...I have no idea.

Pathetic.

[Hostile Dialect]

First, the emphasis on the five-paragraph essay in high school and freshman composition has to stop.


This reared its ugly head recently when I got a paper back from peer review with a reminder in red pen that I forgot to put my thesis statement at the end of the introductory paragraph. :rolleyes: Of course, it wasn't freshman comp, so I knew it didn't matter. Still, it made me shake my head.

I agree. Passive voice can be a useful tool, but too many people use it as their default voice.

Then I'm not entirely sure we agree. I can't recall reading a lot of prose that made me think, "Man, that guy needs to use the passive voice less."

I remember reading about some professor complaining about how "modern" undergraduates couldn't write anymore.

He was a professor at Yale. 130 years ago.

Isn't it possible that it was true then and it's true now? It could be that the standards for undergraduate writing skills have been slipping this whole time, or maybe that they improved for a while and then declined again.

As for the old canard that the passive voice is used to dodge responsibility:

The committee will review all applications in early April.

In early April, all applications will be reviewed by the committee.

Where is the evasion of responsibility? Where is the anonymity of the writer? Sure, plenty of people do hide from responsibility and identification in the passive voice, as in Reagan's "mistakes were made", but the problem is not the use of the passive voice, it's the omission of the actor. Railing against the passive voice based on this is like invading Iraq to go after bin Laden: You're in the right ballpark, but you're not playing the right game.

[jackdavinci]

If someone were writing a research paper in real life, obviously grammar would be important, so yeah it should factor in the grade. But it's not a big factor, so maybe 5% or whatever for writing skills in general, and maybe another 5% for general presentation.

[guizot]

I assume you're probably referring to the need for objectivity? In my experience, most passive sentences can be written in active voice without sacrificing objectivity a bit.No, it has nothing to do with objectivity; it's about cohesive discourse and sentence focus. Take a description of some hypothetical medical research:

"Half of the participants in the study were given injections of X, while the other half were give placebo injections. The former demonstrated an improved..."

What good does it do to say:

"Assistant Jane Smith gave half of the participants injections of X, while assistant John Doe gave the other half a placebo. The former demonstrated an improved..."

We don't care about the agent of the verb give, so it's poor writing. The focus should be on the patient of the verb (participants in the study), and how they reacted to the medicine being tested--so put them in the subject position of the first sentence.

Also, in the second example, the place taker ("the former") is muddied because it's supposed to refer to the patient of the verb, but appears on face-value to refer to the agent of the verb, because English discourse normally follows place-taking topic repetition in subject position.

This would go for newspaper articles as well. What point is there to replace:

"A Mid-City man was robbed and beaten last night on the X block of Washington Ave."

With:

"Someone robbed and beat a Mid-City man on the X block of Washington Ave."

Yeah, of course it was "someone": it wasn't the Easter Bunny.

[guizot]

Isn't it possible that it was true then and it's true now?That was my point. Most freshmen of any class will have comparatively little exposure to academic written discourse. Usually high school English teachers have you read a bunch of literature (fiction, usually), and then say, "Write an essay on...." ("Essay? What's an essay? I've never seen one.") Or assignments are often things like, "How would you feel if you were character so-and-so in that situation?"

When the typical undergraduate gets to college, he/she is expected to expound on much more subtle points, more restricted by the instructor's more precise prompt, which requires more complex language. So s/he has to grapple with more precise word choice, more complex sentence structures, and more abstract expression.It could be that the standards for undergraduate writing skills have been slipping this whole time, or maybe that they improved for a while and then declined again.That would be hard to determine, because the data is so sketchy, but from what I've read, it's always been this way with public school educated college students, and probably won't change much for a while.

[MsRobyn]

I just wanted to point out that you (almost) wrote a perfect five-paragraph essay there. You just forgot your summary paragraph (and you added one more main point, but that's OK).

I agree that the five-paragraph essay is not the be-all and end-all. But, I'm glad my high school pounded it into my skull. I might have been lucky in that they beat it into us in our freshman and sophomore years, and then forced us to grow out of it. I think the format--make a statement, back it up with evidence, start new paragraphs for new ideas--is a great tool. My composition teacher, at least, did not emphasize form over substance. He was a tough sonuvabitch on form, but it was always in service of the substance. He was a great teacher, by the way. Thanks, Bojo!

Old habits die hard. :D

It's not that the five-paragraph essay is bad form. It's not. It's a convenient way to organize thoughts into a cohesive and coherent format. My objection is that so many people are attached to it that students (and some professors) can't get past it. I've had to explain to journalism students that it's best to forget everything they learned in freshman comp and just focus on what they've learned in their journalism-writing courses, and that journalism writing would also work well for academic papers in their other courses. The students who chose to take that advice ended up doing well. The ones who didn't, well, didn't.

Robin

[MsRobyn]

I agree. Passive voice can be a useful tool, but too many people use it as their default voice. One book I read recommended forcing yourself to write in all active voice until it becomes a habit, then allow passive voice to creep in when it's useful.

As much a stickler as I am for using active voice, I know my speech is mostly passive and that I write more passively in casual communications. It really seems to have become the default of American English (listen to the news for it). Someday I ought to start a thread about whether the preponderance of passive voice in communications affects how we interact with the world. :p

(I just now saw this, so forgive the double post.)

My own freshman comp instructor had a theory about this. He began his college teaching career just as standardized testing became big. He felt that high school English teachers were teaching students not to take a definite position about anything, lest a test grader take offense and mark the essay down, and thus encouraged passive voice. Active voice, on the other hand, forces the writer to take a position and defend it. He had a hell of a time getting students to un-learn what their high school teachers had taught.

OTOH, one of my other English professors in college graded standardized essay exams in graduate school and she said that if the grader does take offense with a particular essay, the grader has no business grading essays.

Robin

[guizot]

Old habits die hard. :D

It's not that the five-paragraph essay is bad form. It's not. It's a convenient way to organize thoughts into a cohesive and coherent format. My objection is that so many people are attached to it that students (and some professors) can't get past it. I've had to explain to journalism students that it's best to forget everything they learned in freshman comp and just focus on what they've learned in their journalism-writing courses, and that journalism writing would also work well for academic papers in their other courses. The students who chose to take that advice ended up doing well. The ones who didn't, well, didn't.I find this surprising since most journalism isn't essays. But even that which is, (e.g., Anna Quindlen in Newsweek) certainly isn't in the "five-paragraph essay form."

It's easy to teach and easy to learn, which is probably why it will never die. But it certainly is pretty dull to read.

BTW: Anyone out there who has to take freshman comp, see if you can do it in the Rhetoric Department. Their TAs study writing itself, and how it works, and in my experience, they're better able to explain to you how writing works, and see from your point of view. TAs in the English Dept. can tell effective writing, but they're not usually trained in how to explain why it's effective to a beginning academic writer.

[MsRobyn]

I find this surprising since most journalism isn't essays. But even that which is, (e.g., Anna Quindlen in Newsweek) certainly isn't in the "five-paragraph essay form."

How is that surprising? As I said, for some things, the five-paragraph essay is just fine. But it's not appropriate for everything, and I've gotten more mileage from my journalism training than from my freshman comp course. In fact, most of my professors liked my writing style because my papers were short, sweet and to the point. The sole exception was my literature professor who felt that my papers were not always written in English-approved style, but I still got an A- for the course.

Robin

[guizot]

How is that surprising? As I said, for some things, the five-paragraph essay is just fine. But it's not appropriate for everything, and I've gotten more mileage from my journalism training than from my freshman comp course. In fact, most of my professors liked my writing style because my papers were short, sweet and to the point.I misunderstood, apologies. It was the word "essay," and I was thinking about regular, typical published journalism. On re-read, it makes sense.My own freshman comp instructor had a theory about this. He began his college teaching career just as standardized testing became big. He felt that high school English teachers were teaching students not to take a definite position about anything, lest a test grader take offense and mark the essay down, and thus encouraged passive voice. This, however, doesn't make sense. Passive voice has nothing to do with taking a position or not. You can say, "The Federal government should decriminalize marijuana," of you can say. "Marijuana should be decriminalized." They both take a stand.

Besides, what makes him think readers would grade them down? I used to read Subject A compositions for students coming into the University of California, and not only does the prompt ask you to take a position, we never cared what the position was so long as it was supported sufficiently and appropriately.

[Indistinguishable]

I've been asked by a supervisor to go back and amend something into the passive voice specifically to make it less clear. I'm paraphrasing from memory here: "Instead of saying, 'we did x,'" he said, "why don't you say, 'x occurred;' there's no reason to emphasize who did it." I swear I've seen people look pained when they hear the active voice.
Just a pedantic nit, lost in the sea of the thread, but "x occurred" is not in the passive voice; it's in the active voice. "x was done by us" would be passive, as would be "x was done", which, yes, does not specify who did x. Incidentally, "We did." would be active and not specify the "x" (or, better active voice examples like "I came, I saw, I conquered." Saw what? Conquered what?), yet no one rails against the active voice just because it sometimes leaves some things unspecified, even though plenty of people complain about the passive voice for just that reason.

I think a lot of the problem is that people don't really have a great grasp of the passive/active voice distinction in the first place (and the unfortunate misleading names certainly don't help): they just apply some sort of semantic considerations in their attempts at grammatical analysis, instead of a proper syntactic analysis. "Oh, the undertaking of 'x' can't be doing anything very active itself, it's just an event. Only the instigators of the event can be the active ones, and they're not even mentioned in the sentence, so this sentence can't be active. It must be passive." That sort of mistaken thinking.

[MsRobyn]

I misunderstood, apologies. It was the word "essay," and I was thinking about regular, typical published journalism. On re-read, it makes sense.This, however, doesn't make sense. Passive voice has nothing to do with taking a position or not. You can say, "The Federal government should decriminalize marijuana," of you can say. "Marijuana should be decriminalized." They both take a stand.

Besides, what makes him think readers would grade them down? I used to read Subject A compositions for students coming into the University of California, and not only does the prompt ask you to take a position, we never cared what the position was so long as it was supported sufficiently and appropriately.

As I said, it was a theory he had, it wasn't based on any sort of hard evidence. It just seemed to him that a lot of people were using passive voice and blaming it on their high school English teacher who taught them to write that way. So the instructor took it one step further as he lectured the class on active voice. Notion, not fact.

Robin

[JustThinkin']

No, it has nothing to do with objectivity; it's about cohesive discourse and sentence focus. Take a description of some hypothetical medical research:

"Half of the participants in the study were given injections of X, while the other half were give placebo injections. The former demonstrated an improved..."

What good does it do to say:

"Assistant Jane Smith gave half of the participants injections of X, while assistant John Doe gave the other half a placebo. The former demonstrated an improved..."

We don't care about the agent of the verb give, so it's poor writing. The focus should be on the patient of the verb (participants in the study), and how they reacted to the medicine being tested--so put them in the subject position of the first sentence.
I certainly agree that passive voice has a legitimate place in good writing. My argument is that it's too often used as the default without any real thought about effective sentence structure or clarity. For example, I'd rewrite your illustration thus:

"Half of the participants received injections of X; the other half received a placebo."

The sentence is active AND emphasizes the appropriate agent.

I agree that your second example. . .

"A Mid-City man was robbed and beaten last night on the X block of Washington Ave."

. . . is a legitimate use of passive voice.

[Dangerosa]

IAAPhD!! I pnwed teh teoretcial fizzics!!!1one1 w00t!111!!

That was my first thought. If you aren't going to grade on grammar (and spelling), you are going to open yourself up to the most horrid conventions of texting imaginable. And you SAID you weren't going to grade on grammar - so anything goes. As an instructor, I'd be doing myself the favor of leaving myself as open as possible to 'flexible' grading - and that has nothing at all to do what the importance of teaching even Science majors how to write.

[Indistinguishable]

I certainly agree that passive voice has a legitimate place in good writing. My argument is that it's too often used as the default without any real thought about effective sentence structure or clarity. For example, I'd rewrite your illustration thus:

"Half of the participants received injections of X; the other half received a placebo."
Your active voice rewrite is a perfectly natural, well-written, appropriate sentence. But in what way wasn't the passive voice original also just as perfectly natural, well-written, and appropriate? That is to say, what substantive advantage is gained by the rewrite?

[Clothahump]

Throughout my seemingly endless collegiate career (when will it ever end? No one knows!), one thing has shown itself to be abundantly clear: science majors can not write. Alright, generalizations are bad for everyone, but it is my (somewhat limited) experience that if a person isn't a humanities major, they can't write a readable essay if their life depended on it. Don't get me wrong, I see plenty of humanities majors who lack in the written communication department, but - as a whole- humanities majors seem to at least be able to communicate in a somewhat passable manner.

Woo, that was wordy.

While I understand that the emphasis in, say, a Biology degree is obviously Biology and not writing, I often wonder how professors can justify grading lab reports and not deducting for atrocious grammar.

They can't. Obviously, the purpose of the degree or the paper is to effectively communicate knowledge. If the means of communication is not much above the Tarzan of the Apes level, it's not very effective.

[JustThinkin']

Your active voice rewrite is a perfectly natural, well-written, appropriate sentence. But in what way wasn't the passive voice original also just as perfectly natural, well-written, and appropriate? That is to say, what substantive advantage is gained by the rewrite?

1) Less words to slog through.

2) The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.

I don't believe that switching to active voice guarantees that something will be well-written. There's a lot more to good writing than only that. I've noticed for myself, however, that trying to write active sentences makes me a lot more aware of the nuances of meaning, word choice, and word order. It makes me a better writer.

[Indistinguishable]

1) Less words to slog through.
All you changed was "were given" to "received" (in two clauses). That's one less word to slog through, and it's not like it was a slog in the first place; it makes absolutely no difference.

Also, I doubt you would say that an active voice "took the throne" should be replaced with a passive voice "was crowned" just because it saved one word. I don't think blind word count minimization is really a consistently applied criterion.

2) The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.
No, I don't think so. They both sound equally natural to me. I can't think of anything the active voice version does that the passive voice version didn't; it certainly doesn't contain more action or any such thing, since the two pretty much identically describe the exact same action. I think this is just the terminology's effect on people jumping in. It might have been better had grammarians called them "Left voice" and "Right voice" or something instead; then perhaps there would be less claims that "left voice" sentences do things that "right voice" sentences don't.

I don't believe that switching to active voice guarantees that something will be well-written. There's a lot more to good writing than only that. I've noticed for myself, however, that trying to write active sentences makes me a lot more aware of the nuances of meaning, word choice, and word order. It makes me a better writer.
It may well be that for whatever reason, you have become aware of nuances you weren't aware of before and that you have become a better writer; I don't know your history. But in this case, I think any advantages you see to the switch are spurious.

[Indistinguishable]

Also, let me say, the worst academic articles and books I ever had to slog through, I can't recall their problems stemming from the passive voice; they may have been bad, and they may have used the passive voice (well, of course they did, everyone does), but the latter seems like a red herring in terms of something to blame for the former. If you think otherwise, could you perhaps link me to an actual awfully written article or paper or what have you whose problems are attributable to an overuse of the passive voice?

[Hostile Dialect]

Exactly what I wanted to say, Indistinguishable, but better. Thanks.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Exactly what I wanted to say, Indistinguishable, but better. Thanks.
When I first saw the thread title, I assumed for some reason that it was about high school. I came in here to say that teachers in different subjects need to work together to produce a well-rounded individual. Accepting poor grammar in math class, poor math in physics class, and poor geography in English class just teaches that none of the subjects apply across their whole life.

Seeing that it's college (and science no less) boggles my mind. If you're going for a degree in science, you are probably considering a career as a scientist. Do you know what scientists do? They write. A LOT. Grant proposals, papers, experimental results, lab notebooks, instructions for assistants, instructions for subjects (if working with people), specifications for software and equipment that may need to be customized, and a whole lot more.

Writing should be a very strong part of any science curriculum, and should be taken into account in all grading in all classes.

An anecdote: In a company I started some years back, I developed a new technology (well--a new application for an old technology, but let's not be picky). I wanted to hire a writer to take some of the load off of me. He would do principally marketing work, but would help in other areas as well. My partners insisted we hire an MBA so that he could help them with some other projects, too.

So, we have an MBA with a minor in marketing communication. His first assignment was to create a white paper about my new technology so that we could show it to prospective customers and investors. He talked to me at great length, went away for a week, and came back with a paper.

I couldn't understand his paper. I invented the technology, and his paper didn't make any sense to me. It was so buried in fifty-word sentences and loaded with academic double-speak that I stopped reading after the first page. I went to him and said, "Rewrite this from scratch. If a tenth-grader can't understand it, it's not acceptable."

(No, the technology itself was not beyond the grasp of your average tenth-grader)

[bitwise]

I frequently edit highly technical content and freely admit that I don't understand always understand it. Understanding it isn't necessarily my job. However, I apply the "gist" test -- if a non-technical person like me can get the gist of it, then it's probably written pretty clearly. If I have to read it over and over to figure it out, then I'll rewrite it and mark it for the SME to check for accuracy.


The problem is that often the gist is not good enough. It may not be your job to understand more than the gist, but it is my job to communicate the exact details, not just the gist, to non-technical people. If I want product managers to verify that the software does what they intended, I need them to understand exactly what it does, not just the gist of what it does.



Not having a better way, I decided to implement a simple solution: check that the number of valid sales for the current day is at most a certain number of standard deviations away from the mean for the last 30 days; and likewise for the number of invalid sales and the number of duplicate sales.

I can see several ways you could write this more clearly. It's not bad -- I get the gist -- but it's wordy. Any sentence that contains both a colon and a semi-colon should be rewritten. ;)

OK, how would you rewrite it? Surely, the thing about the colon and semicolon is not a hard rule. Also, you may think it is wordy, but I've already trimmed it down significantly at the risk of leaving too much open to interpretation.

[bitwise]

2) The active version does something. It carries the reader more naturally through the thought and moves them to the next sentence. I realize that this is a subjective concept, but think about some of the worst academic articles and books you had to slog though in school. If passive voice predominates, the effect is stultifying.

The worst academic articles and books suffered from a problem that should have been caught by the editors: typos. I remember reading one book that was littered with typos: this plus-sign should be a minus-sign; this p should be 1-p; this 0 should be a 1.

(There I go with the colons and semicolons again. Perhaps, it's a habit. And reading what I wrote again, I see that I've used the passive voice twice, both times in restrictive clauses. Did that actually impede understanding?)

[Indistinguishable]

The worst academic articles and books suffered from a problem that should have been caught by the editors: typos. I remember reading one book that was littered with typos: this plus-sign should be a minus-sign; this p should be 1-p; this 0 should be a 1.
Man, tell me about it; along with your name, that brings the memories flooding back. There was this one book I read on bitwise operator identities. I can't remember the name, but it was fucking riddled with these kinds of things: this & should be an |, this | should be an &. And, god, there were so many missing ~s! They'd be missing on constants, they'd be missing on half the arguments to ^. A total mess...

[Argent Towers]

Neglecting grammar in non-English related subjects is like a music teacher instructing his students on getting all the notes right but not teaching them proper intonation.

[Otto]

1) Less words to slog through.
Fewer.

[JustThinkin']

Quote:
Originally Posted by JustThinkin'
1) Less words to slog through.
Fewer.

Heh. I'm surprised this is the first I've been called on. That's the problem with getting into a discussion about writing -- it just taunts Gaudere's law.

From Indistinguishable:

No, I don't think so. They both sound equally natural to me. I can't think of anything the active voice version does that the passive voice version didn't; it certainly doesn't contain more action or any such thing, since the two pretty much identically describe the exact same action. I think this is just the terminology's effect on people jumping in. It might have been better had grammarians called them "Left voice" and "Right voice" or something instead; then perhaps there would be less claims that "left voice" sentences do things that "right voice" sentences don't.
<Shrug> It's not my job to convert you.



From Bitwise:
The problem is that often the gist is not good enough. It may not be your job to understand more than the gist, but it is my job to communicate the exact details, not just the gist, to non-technical people. If I want product managers to verify that the software does what they intended, I need them to understand exactly what it does, not just the gist of what it does.
I apply this mostly in the context of highly techical content written for a technical audience. If I'm writing for a non-technical audience, I apply much different criteria.

From Bitwise:
OK, how would you rewrite it? Surely, the thing about the colon and semicolon is not a hard rule. Also, you may think it is wordy, but I've already trimmed it down significantly at the risk of leaving too much open to interpretation.
<Sigh> It's Sunday. I don't want to wrok that hard. :)

[guizot]

For example, I'd rewrite your illustration thus:

"Half of the participants received injections of X; the other half received a placebo."

The sentence is active AND emphasizes the appropriate agent.Semantically, the subject of receive is not an agent. It's an experiencer. It works in this case because receive is the multi-purpose, vague alternate verb for a whole bag of more descriptive verbs. I shouldn't have used give and an example.

Compare:
"The cells were injected with X."

with

"The cells received X."

or at best,

"The cells received an injection of X."

Neither of these is any "better" writing just because it's in the active voice. To mechanically make every sentence active without thinking is to think only on the sentence level and ignore the need for cohesive extended discourse. There's a reason why English has a passive voice, and it isn't just to annoy English teachers. It's a problem only when it makes the text difficult to follow or unclear.

My argument is that it's too often used as the default without any real thought about effective sentence structure or clarity.Effective sentence structure and clarity are things which depend upon the sentences that come before and go after, and often they recommend passive voice.

[Hostile Dialect]

In fact, "the cells received X" is much less communicative, lively, interesting, whatever, than "the cells were injected with X". It leaves the question, how did the cells receive X? Improperly sealed test tubes? Titration? Infection?

[Indistinguishable]

Fewer.
I'll repost what I've posted before (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8988704&postcount=27) about this silly little old wives' tale:

You have been taught, through no fault of your own, an appallingly widespread but absolutely incorrect fact about the rules of English. Let me quote Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage (link (http://www.ldc.upenn.edu//myl/llog/MW_LessFewer.pdf) to the relevant portion):


Here is the rule as it is usually encountered: "fewer" refers to number among things that are counted, and "less" refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured. This rule is simple enough and easy enough to follow. It has only one fault -- it is not accurate for all usage. If we were to write the rule from the observation of actual usage, it would be the same for "fewer": "fewer" does refer to number among things that are counted. However, it would be different for "less": "less" refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted. Our amended rule describes the actual usage of the past thousand years or so.

As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on "less":

"This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think 'Fewer' would do better. 'No Fewer than a Hundred' appears to me not only more elegant than 'No less than a Hundred', but strictly proper." --Baker 1770

Baker's remarks about fewer express clearly and modestly -- "I should think," "appears to me" -- his own taste and preference.

...

The OED shows that "less" has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great -- he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin -- more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially "less" has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that "fewer" might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe "less" used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

A lot of examples then follow to back up the assertion that "less" used with countables remains, as it always has been, a perfectly standard usage.

So, basically, what we have here is a feature of English that has been thoroughly ordinary for more than a millenium. About two hundred years ago, some guy came along and expressed his own idiosyncratic preferences, but this never really took on with the English speaking public at large, and thus never really became a true rule of English grammar, though it ended up being codified nonetheless in an awful lot of wrongheaded usage guides, the sort which rarely bother to take a glance at reality. (Another choice quote from the excerpt: "This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.")

[bitwise]

I apply this mostly in the context of highly techical content written for a technical audience. If I'm writing for a non-technical audience, I apply much different criteria.


The challenge I face is how to present technical content to a non-technical audience. I would not say the content is "highly" technical though, as I try to omit unnecessary details. But I do want them to understand the necessary details. I want to provide more than just a summary, because I feel that a summary often misleads people into thinking they've understood something when they haven't. (Incidentally, this why I think science reporting in the news is so bad.) I don't want them to get just the gist; I want them to walk away with enough information to make informed decisions.

However, I've not found any useful guides on how to do this. So I proceed by trial and error. One thing I've found is that people have trouble comprehending mathematical English. By "mathematical English", I do not mean English with a lot of mathematical terminology. (I did use "mean" and "standard deviation" above. Perhaps, it was bad to assume that someone with a high-school level education understands those terms.) What I mean is the use of common English words to express logical relationships and mathematical comparisons (see my post above). I try to add disambiguating words when mathematical usage differs from normal, everyday English; for example, I'll add "or both" to specify an inclusive OR and add "but not both" to specify an exclusive OR. Even then, I find that people have trouble understanding this style of English. I think to understand it, you must become accustomed to it---and this can only be achieved by reading a lot of it. I find this difference in style to be a significant barrier to communication between technical and non-technical people. (I might be making an overly broad statement here. I should clarify that my technical background is in computer science and mathematics.)

[Indistinguishable]

I just noticed this:

I've also found that people have trouble with logical connectives and quantifiers. For instance, I remember someone not understanding me when I told her, "We will show the item if the condition holds for at least one distribution." She did not understand me until I rephrased that sentence in the contrapositive: "If the condition holds for no item, then we will not show the item." I found this quite puzzling, because to me the second sentence seems harder to understand since it contains two negatives.
It's also not the contrapositive of your original sentence. The contrapositive would be "If we don't show the item, then the condition holds for no distribution." I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that "if-then" indicates "if and only if", but it just goes to show that things aren't as straightforward as you might have thought.

[Indistinguishable]

I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that "if-then" indicates "if and only if"
Sorry, I shouldn't have said "if-then"; rather, the "X if Y" structure. In fact, I think explicit use of "then" actually suppresses the "if and only if" interpretation.

[bitwise]

I just noticed this:
It's also not the contrapositive of your original sentence. The contrapositive would be "If we don't show the item, then the condition holds for no distribution." I think the ordinary conversational pragmatics here, though, are such that "if-then" indicates "if and only if", but it just goes to show that things aren't as straightforward as they might seem.

Oops, actually, I made more than one mistake. I also typed "item" twice. What I actually said was,

"We will show the item only if the condition holds for at least one distribution."

and

"If the condition holds for no distribution, then we will not show the item."

And yes, at the time, I also thought I should use "if and only if" to be strictly correct, but I did not want to confuse her more. I don't think it's straightforward. Even with training, you have to focus your attention in order to write precisely, as I've shown with the mistakes I made above. But I really think this is a different style of communication from what most people are used to. An omitted word or the change in the position of a word can completely alter the meaning. I think perhaps lawyers are good with this kind of English; but their field may be considered technical too.

[bitwise]

And yes, at the time, I also thought I should use "if and only if" to be strictly correct, but I did not want to confuse her more.

On further thought, I think what I really needed here was some kind of modal logic. What I meant by "we will show the item" was, of course, that the code will execute a command to show the item. So what's really needed is some kind of imperative that tells the code to show the item or not. But I don't really know anything about modal logic, and this discussion is becoming too technical. I don't really need anyone to translate the English into a formal language. I just need the (non-technical) readers to be able to understand it and say, "Yes, this is what I want," or "No, that's not right. What happens in the case where ...."

[JustThinkin']

Bitwise -

I sympathize with your dilemma. As a tech writer, I often place myself in the position of translator -- translating technical subjects for non-technical audiences. It can be really hard to find the words and phrases that are both accurate and understandable in context.

In this phrase: "if the condition holds," my kneejerk reaction is to ask: Holds what? Holds a hand? Holds a fork? The word "hold" has several meanings; the most common involves some physical restraint. The meaning you use is one you'd find in the dictionary (I think), but is used most commonly in more technical contexts.

What does "if the condition holds" really mean? Does the condition remain true? Is the program (or whatever) looking for a specific condition?

Don't know if this helps or just adds fuel to any flames coming my way. :D

[JustThinkin']

Ok Bitwise. I've got my Monday morning, working day thinking cap on. Here's your original.
Bitwise's original:

Not having a better way, I decided to implement a simple solution: check that the number of valid sales for the current day is at most a certain number of standard deviations away from the mean for the last 30 days; and likewise for the number of invalid sales and the number of duplicate sales.
And now my rewrite. Keep in mind that I don't have the context or background and might have interpreted your original completely wrong.
JustThinkin's rewrite:

I decided to check the valid sales for the current day against the mean sales for the last thirty days. I looked for standard deviations of X or more [to show or prove what?]. I applied the same method to invalid and duplicate sales.
Comments:

I'm most uncomfortable with the second sentence. The original really doesn't give enough information to be confident that I interpreted it correctly.

You'll notice that I ignore almost everything in front of the colon. IMO, it's just fluff -- it doesn't really add anything.

-JustThinkin'
(Is it weird that I really like doing this?)

[commasense]

[On the usage of "less" and "fewer."]
So, basically, what we have here is a feature of English that has been thoroughly ordinary for more than a millenium. About two hundred years ago, some guy came along and expressed his own idiosyncratic preferences, but this never really took on with the English speaking public at large, and thus never really became a true rule of English grammar, though it ended up being codified nonetheless in an awful lot of wrongheaded usage guides, the sort which rarely bother to take a glance at reality. (Another choice quote from the excerpt: "This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.")Why could I not counter that your supposedly "wrongheaded" guide writers agreed with Baker and passed that advice to their readers, some of whom followed it and passed along the example in their writing?

The fact is, today the countable distinction for the use of "less" and "fewer" has gained a fair amount of sway. Like Baker, I think it sounds better (although perhaps I've been brainwashed by the wrongheaded!), and as an editor I will consistently apply it in the writing that comes under my pen.

There may be a lot of boneheaded "rules" that make no sense (split infinitives, for instance), but once they are out there, good writers and editors will observe them most of the time, if only to avoid annoying corrections from pedants who think they know better. Of course, if there's a good reason to break a "rule," go for it. But don't be surprised when you hear about it.

The thing that cheeses me off about less/fewer is that the "rule" has become so prevalent that some people apparently think "fewer" should always be used instead of "less." I recently heard a reporter on NPR speak about a trip that was "five miles fewer" than some other. :rolleyes:

[Indistinguishable]

Well, as long as you recognize the distinction between a true grammatical error and your own very odd aesthetic preferences (lots of people say they care about the less/fewer distinction, but few actually naturally follow it. I'd be surprised if you truly found its violations jarring; they're simply too common). You can circle one in red ink and say "I prefer the sound of 'fewer' here" if you want, but if an author counters "Well, I actually prefer the sound of 'less' here and I don't see why that should be a problem", will you let it go?


The thing that cheeses me off about less/fewer is that the "rule" has become so prevalent that some people apparently think "fewer" should always be used instead of "less." I recently heard a reporter on NPR speak about a trip that was "five miles fewer" than some other. :rolleyes:
It's not clear to me if you're saying people misunderstand the rule as saying "Never use less; always use fewer", or just that they apply the rule properly but in cases where it reveals itself to be particularly ill-suited. Certainly, strict observance of the rule would demand "five less miles" be replaced by "five fewer miles" , "miles" being countable.

[Tuff Cookie]

...science majors can not write. Alright, generalizations are bad for everyone, but it is my (somewhat limited) experience that if a person isn't a humanities major, they can't write a readable essay if their life depended on it.

Ooh, now I have to defend the geologists.

You should have visited my undergrad geology department. If you didn't write - and write well - you were in big trouble. Now, I agree that some science departments don't emphasize writing skills, but IME, writing was an integral part of undergrad science education. My advisor was a stickler on grammer, spelling, punctuation, you name it. He had to be - we were preparing to enter a field where your job depends on what you publish. Some of us even did publish work as undergraduates. We also wrote constantly. Every class had some sort of writing assignment, from mock grant proposals to literature reviews to our required senior theses.

As a result of all that, I now have an 80+ page honors thesis that I can confidently show to future employers, a professional paper in the works and a grounding in writing skills that I never would have received in a humanities class. (I actually had Religion and English professors compliment me on my writing for their classes. And then act surprised that I was a geology major, but I suppose that's just another reflection of the belief that science majors can't write.)

So, I can at least speak for the geologists that I know when I say that darn tootin' we can write.

[Indistinguishable]

You have five minutes to edit, so you'll want to get in there fast. :)

(Oh, but guests can't edit, can they?)

[commasense]

Well, as long as you recognize the distinction between a true grammatical error and your own very odd aesthetic preferences (lots of people say they care about the less/fewer distinction, but few actually naturally follow it. I'd be surprised if you truly found its violations jarring; they're simply too common). You can circle one in red ink and say "I prefer the sound of 'fewer' here" if you want, but if an author counters "Well, I actually prefer the sound of 'less' here and I don't see why that should be a problem", will you let it go?Well, it's hardly my own or very odd, given how widely the "rule" is known. As for accepting it from an author, it would depend on the context of course, but unless the author was a) a very good writer and b) had a strong argument on his side, I probably wouldn't allow it to stand. But since I'm the final arbiter on style for my publication, that's my prerogative.

It's not clear to me if you're saying people misunderstand the rule as saying "Never use less; always use fewer", or just that they apply the rule properly but in cases where it reveals itself to be particularly ill-suited. Certainly, strict observance of the rule would demand "five less miles" be replaced by "five fewer miles" , "miles" being countable.You don't understand the rule: by countable, we mean units that are natural wholes, not continuous properties. Fewer people, apples, dumptrucks; less distance, weight, etc. It's less than five miles from here, this bag weighs three pounds less than the other.

Oh, and unless you're British, you're pissing me off by putting commas and periods outside quotation marks. Cut it out! :D

[Indistinguishable]

You don't understand the rule: by countable, we mean units that are natural wholes, not continuous properties. Fewer people, apples, dumptrucks; less distance, weight, etc. It's less than five miles from here, this bag weighs three pounds less than the other.
I was simply pointing out that, grammatically, "miles" is a countable noun. I understand that measurable quantities are where "less" is used (thus, "The distance from here to X is five miles less than the distance from here to Y"), but given that "miles" is a countable noun, there certainly seems to be an interpretation of the rule under which "How many miles have we traveled?" "Let's see... eighty. That's five fewer miles than yesterday" is to be used.

Oh, and unless you're British, you're pissing me off by putting commas and periods outside quotation marks. Cut it out! :D
Oh, heh, yeah, I (mostly) follow the British quotation mark-punctuation interaction rules, despite being an American. It's always made more sense to me and it doesn't seem to cause that much trouble. That one I actually see merit in an editor enforcing consistency on, though, so I'd be happy to have you red ink me up on that for an American publication.

[Indistinguishable]

Or, to clarify, when you are counting miles, it seems to me the rule would say to use "fewer". When you are measuring distances in units of miles, it seems to me the rule would say to use "less". But it doesn't matter; it's not really the case that we have "the rule" and "the right interpretation"; it doesn't exist in a single codified universal form (and, of course, my argument was that it doesn't have significant merit or legitimacy to begin with).

[commasense]

Oh, heh, yeah, I (mostly) follow the British quotation mark-punctuation interaction rules, despite being an American. It's always made more sense to me and it doesn't seem to cause that much trouble. That one I actually see merit in an editor enforcing consistency on, though, so I'd be happy to have you red ink me up on that for an American publication.Have you done any computer programming? Most of the Americans I know who put the commas outside do so because in coding putting them inside will usually generate an error. So it is literally illogical.

But in general writing, the justification for the rule is not logical, but aesthetic: a poor little old comma or period just looks kind of naked and lonely outside the nice warm quotes.

[Indistinguishable]

Have you done any computer programming? Most of the Americans I know who put the commas outside do so because in coding putting them inside will usually generate an error. So it is literally illogical.

But in general writing, the justification for the rule is not logical, but aesthetic: a poor little old comma or period just looks kind of naked and lonely outside the nice warm quotes.
Yeah, I have a strong programming background, and I do get the sense that Americans with that background often tend to prefer the British system (or something much closer to it than the American system). I don't decry the American system as entirely illogical, as such, (like you said, it's an aesthetically motivated choice, and like I said, I'm cool with particular publishers enforcing the American style) but I personally prefer the look of the British system. Clearly, there are aesthetic principles beyond the obvious "logic" involved in what I do as well, though; I never write anything like
And then she turned to me and said "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.".
even though the obvious "logical" thing to do might be to use two periods in that fashion.

[Hostile Dialect]

You don't understand the rule: by countable, we mean units that are natural wholes, not continuous properties. Fewer people, apples, dumptrucks; less distance, weight, etc. It's less than five miles from here, this bag weighs three pounds less than the other.


Distance and weight may be continuous properties, but miles and pounds are discrete units that can be counted.


Oh, and unless you're British, you're pissing me off by putting commas and periods outside quotation marks. Cut it out!

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I thought I'd share the reason I put my punctuation outside of quotation marks (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html). (I see in your later response to Indistinguishable that you know that, but others might benefit from seeing the explanation written out.)

[Algher]

When they become postdocs or professors, they're going to spend a fair bit of time writing grant proposals. Mr. Neville tells me that "are you bringing in money from grants?" is a very important question in a tenure review. If they want to be professors of physics, some writing skills will be required.

Bingo - the good old "revise resubmit" can be triggered by poor grammar. I have seen that in more than one review of journal articles. In addition, you can also get nailed for readability in your grant proposal. If the proposal is poorly written, the readers are distracted, and more likely to NOT put in the time to check the actual science.

[bitwise]

Bitwise -
In this phrase: "if the condition holds," my kneejerk reaction is to ask: Holds what? Holds a hand? Holds a fork? The word "hold" has several meanings; the most common involves some physical restraint. The meaning you use is one you'd find in the dictionary (I think), but is used most commonly in more technical contexts.


Perhaps, I should not have used quotes, since that misleads one into thinking that it is a direct quotation. I've forgotten the exact condition; it was years ago. I did not actually say "the condition holds"; I said something like "the account is active". But of course, I don't remember the exact condition.

[bitwise]

JustThinkin's rewrite:

I decided to check the valid sales for the current day against the mean sales for the last thirty days. I looked for standard deviations of X or more [to show or prove what?]. I applied the same method to invalid and duplicate sales.


I'm most uncomfortable with the second sentence. The original really doesn't give enough information to be confident that I interpreted it correctly.


The second sentence is not quite correct. I would say something like this:


I decided to compare the number of valid sales for the current day against the number of valid sales averaged over the last thirty days. If these two numbers differ by more than X standard deviations, then I report an error. I applied the same method to invalid and duplicate sales.


Reading your revision, I suppose I need to work on providing context in previous sentences so that the current sentence can be interpreted unambiguously. I usually use embedded clauses and phrases to restrict my meaning to precisely what I want. But I think when the embedding becomes too deep, readers lose track.

[bitwise]

Yeah, I have a strong programming background, and I do get the sense that Americans with that background often tend to prefer the British system (or something much closer to it than the American system). I don't decry the American system as entirely illogical, as such, (like you said, it's an aesthetically motivated choice, and like I said, I'm cool with particular publishers enforcing the American style) but I personally prefer the look of the British system. Clearly, there are aesthetic principles beyond the obvious "logic" involved in what I do as well, though; I never write anything like

even though the obvious "logical" thing to do might be to use two periods in that fashion.

Yes, many programmers I know use this style of punctuation--I do too. Sadly, it seems that some people were never told that the conventions of style in a natural language should not be applied to the syntax of a formal language.

http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/Its-a-Different-Set-of-Rules.aspx

[JustThinkin']

The second sentence is not quite correct. I would say something like this:


Quote:
I decided to compare the number of valid sales for the current day against the number of valid sales averaged over the last thirty days. If these two numbers differ by more than X standard deviations, then I report an error. I applied the same method to invalid and duplicate sales.

That makes a lot more sense to me, and I believe, makes what you did clear to your non-technical readers.

(I've got to figure out how to do nested quotes.)