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Decline in writing accuracy.

Is it just me? Lately many of the things I read contain glaring errors. It first hit me while reading Tim Tyler's Memetics.

"If memetics explains only explains the imitation of observed behavior, ..." (p 96)

"Perhaps biological an cultural differ..." (p 173)

"Genetic engineers can now take information form wherever they like..."

"However, not everyone seems agree that ..." (both on p 184)

"The upright gait hypothesis hypothesis is interesting for several reasons." (p 206)

I thought, "Didn't the editor even read this? Who was this?" But, lo, no editor was credited. There was no editor! Is this a new cost-cutting trend in publishing?

But the news lately has been just as bad.

It is original from the Andean area of South Africa and widely grown in both the north of Chile and Argentina and the south Mexico, especially Ecuador.

A Promising Fruit: The Tree Tomato

That sample was from today's Science Daily. Yesterday I noticed four or five glaring errors. This is disorienting, even a little scary. Has literacy decline has crossed a tipping point?

Tags: writing literacy decline

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 1, 2013 at 9:47pm

In the 6th grade, when my teacher, Miss Rousseau and principal, Mr. Wildey had their debate about commas, I don't remember the correct options, I only remember they debated. Well, I will have to turn to resources suggested by my friends here and mentally return to 6th grade English class; Miss Rousseau will have her hand on my hair and give me a tug when I make mistakes! My one and only interest was science.

Permalink Reply by Nerdlass on March 2, 2013 at 8:26pm

Everyone here has already made wonderful and valid points. I want to add onto this. There are now more non-native speakers of English than native. Due to English's adaptability and integration into multiple cultures, we now live in a world with multiple Englishes, not just British, Standard American, or Aussie. Take, for instance, where I live: Japan. There are times when I have to take a step back and realize that if I teach the "proper" way of a grammar point, the student may end up missing a point on her entrance exam, when it comes to going to university.

Other blatant errors are sometimes taught, because it's a carry-over from how Japanese sentence structure is framed.

Students learn in middle school, the following:

I like ____.

Because it's very _____.

Oh, the fragments! I try very hard to teach my girls to work around this error they've been taught. The easiest way is:

I like ____.

It's because it's very _____.

From there, I can sometimes get them to go to:

I like ____ because it's very _____.

But, the reason it's taught like that in the first place is because 'because' in Japanese does not work the same as it does in English. It doesn't cause a fragment, in Japanese. That it does in English can be a difficult concept to get across.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 11, 2013 at 2:17pm