Thing is, though, that increasing penalties for minor stuff like this is often the only way to get students to take the issue seriously.
Whether one likes the rules about apostrophes or not, the fact is that it’s not very hard to get it right, and college juniors and seniors should be able to get it right. If i point out to a student, in grading the first paper of the semester, that he or she needs to become familiar with the correct use of apostrophes, then i penalize future misuses because they indicate lack of effort.
Part of writing a paper at the college level is proofreading. I’m always willing to overlook a typo or two in any paper. Hell, published books from university presses often come with a few typos. But if a student’s paper has a bunch of errors, it suggests that the student didn’t take the necessary care in producing the work.
And you wouldn’t believe how hostile students are to all of this, especially in a class that is NOT specifically an English writing class. My end-of-semester student evaluations nearly always contain a bunch of whining about how it’s not fair for me to focus so heavily on spelling and grammar and usage in a history class.
These people don’t seem to understand that conveying your ideas and arguments in an intelligent and comprehensible manner is aided considerably by proper grammar and usage. If you put in apostrophes to mark a plural; if you don’t know the difference between “there” and “their”; if you randomly capitalize non-proper nouns (this is quite common); if you can’t get subject/verb agreement right; if you don’t make your pronoun antecedents clear; or if you consistently make poor word choices, your ideas become lost as your reader tries to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.
I didn’t mean for this to turn into a referendum on my courses, but FYI I don’t mark as “wrong” anything that is allowed by a major style guide my students use in other classes (MLA, APA, Chicago). I have my own private opinions about James’s / James’ membership in the Teachers’ Union / Teachers Union, but I am asking them to follow a style quide consistently, not the idiosyncratic quirks of someone who has been educated beyond his capacity.
When students make apostrophe errors due to traffic, they get a free pass. Likewise other factors beyond their control, such as… well, I can’t think of any.
I certainly agree. Notice that I’m not arguing against penalising students on the basis of their grammar and punctuation. I’m just arguing that disproportionate penalties can be counter-productive. The burned hand may teach best, but that’s not a mandate to go around branding people.
It is made very clear to students that balancing issues of work, play, and college is their responsibility, and that they should factor in outside commitments when deciding how many classes to take. I’m well aware that many students have busy lives, but it’s not up to me to make allowances for that by giving a pass to substandard work.
As an undergraduate, i supported myself, including paying rent on a shared house and taking care of other bills. To do this, i worked part time during the semester and full time for much of the summer. Even my part-time semester job often required me to work 30 hours a week. All of this, combined with my tendency to procrastination, meant that i pulled a lot of all-nighters in order to get my papers in on time. Yet, despite the fact that my papers were often completed at 6 a.m., in a state of extreme tiredness, i still managed to put apostrophes in the right places, and i still took the time to proofread my paper and correct errors before i submitted it.
It’s also not like fatigue is something i can know about when grading a paper. Even if i could, would you then have me distinguish between the fatigue of a working single mom and the fatigue of a student who spent all weekend partying?
Again, I’m not arguing this, you can only mark what is put in front of you. I’m simply saying that penalties for this kind of thing should not be disproportionate or draconian, both words that Dr Drake used is his own description of his marking policy.
I wouldn’t trust a style guide that didn’t know that the apostrophe in “Oakland A’s” doesn’t indicate a plural, but rather a contraction of the word “Athletics”.
Makes one wonder what the plural of “Oakland A’s” is. “Oakland A’ses”? And what about the possessive? “Oakland A’s’s” looks strange. The possessive for “McDonald’s” presents the same problem.
Well, I’m sure that trademark lawyers and company employees would tell you that. But what do people not bound by trademark law do to pluralize “McDonald’s”?
On the other hand, it’s effective. And there are plenty of ways I mitigate it, including explaining that I know the penalty is unusually harsh, and giving them a handout explaining the rules. I’m very fair about it, really: I explain that there are certain environments (e.g. texting) where it is perfectly appropriate to write in informal English, including omitted apostrophes, but they need to learn not to carry informal writing habits into formal contexts. Like it or not, this works, and I have not yet had a single complaint from a student.
You can look at it either way, but I disagree with you there. I see it as a plural of “A,” which is a nickname for “Athletic.” One Oakland A, two Oakland A’s. At least that’s how it would be in my speech. I suppose you could claim the apostrophe indicates a contraction there. I don’t parse it that way.
Fair enough. I agree an explicit warning is appropriate for something like this. I’m in no position to assess whether your policy has a positive or negative impact overall, but I have seen this kind of thing backfire, hence my original comment.
To return to the OP, quite a few people don’t care about grammar and writing style, and it’s hard to remember things you don’t care about. However, others have a mental blind spot for this kind of thing. I find incorrect use of “your” for “you’re” particularly jarring, but when I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road I didn’t notice that he doesn’t use quote marks for dialogue. It was pointed out to me afterwards. That’s a 307 page novel, so several hours worth of reading, and it simply didn’t register.
The OP also talks about official use of apostrophes. The bookshop Waterstones recently removed theirs, as they can’t be used in URLs.
This is the heart of it, for me, and it’s also part of what we are doing at university.
While i’m resistant to the idea of universities as mere vocational schools, the fact is that we’re supposed to prepare our students for the world of employment and citizenship, and part of that involves instilling in them a level of professionalism that allows them to understand the difference between formal and informal communication.
For the same reason, i require my students to use proper sentences and to avoid text-speak when sending me emails about the course. My relationship to my students is not that of a text buddy or a frat brother; it is a professional relationship. I do them the same courtesy, by including a salutation at the beginning of my emails, writing in full and proper sentences, and signing off with my name at the end.
I’m not a college graduate myself (dangit), but I think I understand a few things about it. I’ve gotten the impression — both in this thread and others — that there are a lot of college students who think that college is just like high school, only bigger.
They don’t quite grasp that there isn’t a big, standardized, multiple-choice test at “the end of college”, and then they get their degree. Instead, they get to write a thesis or dissertation (at least for post-graduate degrees), and they have to write this paper regardless of their field of study. And to do that, they first need to learn how to write in a professional manner. Suitable for publication, even.
