Writing Across the Curriculum

HANDLING GRAMMAR & MECHANICS

     You don’t need to be an expert in grammar to give students meaningful feedback on grammar, punctuation, mechanics or style.  In some instances, you don’t need to comment on grammar or mechanics at all.  For instance, if you use short and/or impromptu writing-to-learn assignments, you probably don’t need to comment on or correct grammar.  It is confusing to students; marking errors on writing-to-learn assignments detracts students from the main purpose:  learning ideas.

     In instances where you must comment on grammar and mechanics, you can save time and maximize feedback by using a shorthand that works for you. 

     a. Peter Elbow describes using straight and squiggly lines in the margins (or under selected words/sentences) to indicate, respectively, strong or correct writing and confusing or problematic writing.  (See Elbow, “High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing,”  pp. 5-13 in Sorcinelli and Elbow, eds.  Writing to Learn:  Strategies for Assigning and Responding to Writing Across Disciplines.  San Francisco:  Jossey Bass, 1997) 

b. You can use proofreader’s marks.  If you are not familiar with these, you can see a list of standard marks and examples at http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/proofrea.htm

or http://www.bartleby.com/61/charts/A4proof.html

     c.  At USM, many faculty use the codes from the detailed menu of Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference.  Students are usually familiar with this text since it is used in all sections of ENG 100 at USM and in many writing-intensive courses.  The detailed menu offers a shorthand for identifying problems and directing students to the appropriate place in The Writer’s Reference to learn how to correct the problem.  For instance, next to a run-on sentence, the instructor can write "Hacker G6" to direct the student to the appropriate section of the text.

     Finally, make students responsible for polishing their papers.  Formal papers do need to be edited and corrected, but it is not necessarily the job of faculty to do this.  Some ways to ensure that students edit carefully include (a)  basing a significant portion of the grade on the ease of reading and grammatical, mechanical, and stylistic correctness, (b) refusing to grade papers until they are polished, (c) suggesting or requiring an appointment with a writing tutor, and (d) offering opportunities for peer review. 

This page was last updated on March 5, 2004.