cengland wrote:

Have you learnt how to seek out multiple sources from different perspectives, to read them critically, and to form careful conclusions?

I only wish all university students were like that...would have saved me a few grey hairs.

I don't think it's just you.  Language standards across the board have dropped.  Universities prefer to pass as many students as they can.  If students don't pass, they don't come back next year, so their fees are lost to the university.   If universities failed students for poor grammar, punctuation and spelling, large numbers of students would fail.

The problem begins at schools, with clear written communication not being taught adequately there.  When I was a History or Theology or Religious Studies lecturer at a university, it was not really my job to teach students grammar, punctuation and spelling (although I did spend a lot of time, and go through many pencils, pointing out grammar, punctuation and spelling errors on students' papers).

I think that poor written communication is not just a problem for getting through school or graduating from university.  We use written communication a great deal in our personal and work daily lives, especially with the advent of the net.  Poor written communication means lost productivity, as a lot of time has to be spent on clarifying the meaning of what a writer has written, when it cannot be understood. 

I think the problem is also there, although to a lesser extent, in oral communication, with people not being able to articulate what they are thinking clearly.

Last edited by cengland (Fri 05 Nov 10 8:00am)

I have a simple question, which canadian law makes it illegal?  The bill number for that law and a direct quote of the appropriate passage would be appreciated.   








  I actually know the bill number most often quoted for these statements  and have read the thing in its entirety. I have no concerns about it. Past problems   like fen-Phen, or hydroxycut which were touted as Natural Supplements but had severe health side effects, make me  quite happy to see some regulatory controls being installed by bill C-51 .        Told ya I knew which one. 

Last edited by Ashen (Fri 05 Nov 10 8:33am)

Ashen wrote:

I have a simple question, which canadian law makes it illegal?  The bill number for that law and a direct quote of the appropriate passage would be appreciated.   








  I actually know the bill number most often quoted for these statements  and have read the thing in its entirety. I have no concerns about it. Past problems   like fen-Phen, or hydroxycut which were touted as Natural Supplements but had severe health side effects, make me  quite happy to see some regulatory controls being installed by bill C-51 .        Told ya I knew which one. 

luv ya!

and yes schooling is getting dumbed down. the uni i was at had to start spending the whole of first year getting science grads up to speed recently.

Mummza, I wasn't saying anything about intelligence, or the right to be at university for that matter.  Please don't make such assumptions.  I was talking about certain skills.  Of course facility with language is not the marker of 'intelligence'; intelligence is a multi-faceted thing with many measures.  Language and communication skills can be learnt and improved by almost anyone, if they are taught well.

There are students with disabilities, and efforts are made to assist them as much as possible, with both personal attention and technology.  I have taught autistic, blind and dyslexic students, among others; they often do as well as or better than students without difficulties.  But students with disabilities do not account for the very great numbers of students with rather poor written communication skills, who can be helped greatly in their writing if they are just shown how to do it, and encouraged to take care and to proofread.

Meanwhile, I have often noticed that the English language skills of foreign students can be better than those of Australian-born students, because the foreign students have been taught, learnt and practiced their English in an organized, methodical way.  But we also allow for and give special assistance to students from LOTE backgrounds who are struggling.

I am therefore not saying that there are any groups of people who should be considered 'less intelligent', or excluded from university, or any such things.

I'm not a fan of computer spell checkers and grammar checkers myself.  They aren't much use if you can't understand why the computer is telling you to change something.  Moreover, as you note, they're not reliable.  A spellchecker will check if individual words are spellt correctly, but take no notice of the words in context.  Hence one cookbook recently said to add 'black people' instead of 'black pepper' to a dish; a spell checker also can't tell you when to use 'there' instead of 'their', 'pore' instead of 'poor' or 'pour', etc.