Writing Should Come With A Manual

     As much as we would like to think that the English language has a set of strict guidelines that apply to all writing, Hjortshoj refers to our language as a “wonderfully complicated, living system” (81) with varying rules and exceptions for nearly every situation.  The continually evolving nature of English, however, can put a serious strain on students as they attempt to establish a definite set of rules for writing their essays.  Comments teachers make in the margins are oftentimes vague, and confused students may believe that those corrections are all-encompassing and apply to every essay they will ever write.  When various teachers offer contradicting critiques, writers become frustrated and wonder why a common standard for all English writing still eludes us.

     In this chapter, Hjortshoj explains the two different ways through which we learn the proper patterns of the English language: primary knowledge and secondary knowledge.  The former is almost instinctive – we have learned what is and is not grammatically correct by reading and listening to basic patterns of speech.  The latter, however, must be taught, as it involves all of the complex names for grammatical concepts that many forget shortly after leaving their middle school English classes.  We typically rely upon primary knowledge when drafting and revising our writing, mainly because, as Hjortshoj explains, we can “hear and correct the error before we can explain it.” (84)

     This concept of audibly catching mistakes is an extremely useful one that I have seen applied successfully in numerous situations.  In my high school’s writing center, we would frequently have the younger students who needed help with their grammar go out into the hallway with their paper and read it aloud.  When they re-entered the room, they would immediately take a pen and fix half of the mistakes without the consultants having to say or do anything at all.  I have also witnessed firsthand the usefulness of this technique here at Richmond.  During my observation last week, I noticed that the consultant read much of the paper out loud – it was remarkable how many times the writer would interject mid-sentence to admit that something sounded awkward or needed to be rephrased.

     Although this verbal editing technique is indispensable, it still does not address the larger issue of the English language’s lack of an absolute standard for writing.  Yes, reading aloud will enable you to detect subject-verb agreement errors, but how will it help guide you when your history teacher comments that your sentences are too cumbersome, yet your English teacher notes that your sentences are underdeveloped?  While I am in no way trying to insult educators who merely seek to improve their students’ writing, the tendency of individual professors to act as if their rules are absolute and universal is a great disservice to developing writers.  Many students want to approach writing as a rigid step-by-step process that can be applied to any essay and result in a desirable grade, but the absence of one generally accepted writing guide combined with teachers’ my-way-is-the-only-way attitude makes a “formula for success” unattainable.  Although I embrace the notion that language should be flexible and subject to change, I believe that these ambiguous yet authoritative corrections are what cause many students to become frustrated and declare writing to be one ridiculous game that is impossible to play due to the absence of a rule book.  Just as Hjortshoj discussed in an earlier chapter, students oftentimes find themselves “writing for a specific professor” because no one in the academic world can seem to agree once and for all as to what constitutes proper English.  While I can appreciate that each teacher has his or her own stylistic preferences, they need to help students understand when a correction is a mere personal preference and when an error violates a conventional grammatical rule.  If educators are going to force students to adhere to one strict set of rules for that class, then they should write something more specific than simply “awkward” or “unclear” in the margins.

Madeline Smedley