Lunsford and Lunsford's "Mistakes Are a Part of Life"

Lunsford and Lunsford recreate the same frequency of errors study Connors and Lunsford published in 1988. They reason that in twenty-plus years, writing pedagogy and writing have changed considerably. For instance, in the first study, most of the writing samples were hand-written with just a few typed, and not a single document was computer generated. The single most common error was spelling which accounted for three times the number of grammatical errors. Because spelling represented such a significant number in the first study, Connors and Lunsford did not even consider spelling in their initial article and focused on just grammar. However, because of word processing and spell checks, the current study indicates that spelling has become the fifth leading error in writing.

The current study also differs because of the process of obtaining writing samples. In the first study, invitations to faculty across the nation simple submitted copies of their students’ papers which produced over 3000 samples. However, because of federal privacy regulations, the researchers had to receive permission and student samples through institutional research boards, which greatly curtailed the number of samples to 877.

The twenty most common formal errors in the new study include:

1. Wrong word
2. Missing comma after an introductory element
3. Incomplete or missing documentation
4. Vague pronoun reference
5. Spelling error (including homonyms)
6. Mechanical error with quotation
7. Unnecessary comma
8. Unnecessary or missing capitalization
9. Missing word
10. Faulty sentence structure
11. Missing comma with a nonrestrictive element
12. Unnecessary shift in verb tense
13. Missing comma in a compound sentence
14. Unnecessary or missing apostrophe
15. Fused sentence
16. Comma splice
17. Lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement
18. Poorly integrated quotation
19. Unnecessary or missing hyphen
20. Sentence fragment

What distinguishes some of the differences between the current and past study of errors, is the current study suggests students are writing longer papers (twice as long), focusing on documented arguments, and obviously using technology to write. In terms of grammar errors, the new study now includes documentation errors as part of the most frequent errors.

This is a very accessible article that helps examine the errors that we commonly experience as we write and teach writing.

Lunsford, Andrea A. and Karen J. Lunsford. "'Mistakes are a Fact of Life': A National Comparative Study." College Composition and Communication 59.4 (2008): 781-806.

Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford's "Frequency of Formal Errors"

Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford discuss the analysis of 3000 teacher-marked essays from the 1980s to discover the most common patterns of student errors and to determine which errors are most often marked by teachers.

The twenty top errors (next to spelling which represents three times the number of grammar errors marked by teachers) include the following:

1. No comma after introductory element
2. Vague pronoun reference
3. No comma in compound structure
4. Wrong word
5. No comma in non-restrictive element
6. Wrong/missing inflected endings
7. Wrong or missing preposition
8. Comma splice
9. Possessive apostrophe error
10. Tense shift
11. Unnecessary shift in person
12. Sentence fragment
13. Wrong tense or verb form
14. Subject-verb agreement
15. Lack of comma in series
16. Pronoun agreement error
17. Unnecessary comma with restrictive element
18. Run-on or fused sentence
19. Dangling or misplaced modifier
20. Its/It’s error

This article is very accessible as they explain their research process and results. They also discuss previous studies and those major findings. Connors and Lunsford also suggest that teachers mark a relatively limited amount of errors and that college students at the end of the century do not make more errors than they did earlier in the century.

I remember reading this when the article first appeared. Connors and Lunsford did the original research to help prepare them to write their college handbook--they wanted to know where to focus their instruction.

Connors, Robert and Andrea Lunsford. "Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research." College Composition and Communication 39.4 (1988): 394-409.

Carter's "Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing"

I wish I had read this article years ago to combat a faculty member’s assertions that as English writing instructors we are not qualified or capable of teaching writing outside our discipline. The faculty insisted that we should only teach within our disciplines. However, my position, and the department’s and university’s positions, relies on English faculty’s ability to apply discipline-specific rhetoric and genres to general, multidiscipline writing courses.

Michael Carter maintains that faculty outside a discipline can teach writing within a discipline. Writing within a discipline is the writing specific to particular discipline, “a process of slow acculturation through various apprenticeship discourses” (385). Individuals within the discipline learn through carefully guided instruction and practice the methods necessary for communicating in acceptable and predictable methods governed by that discipline.

Carter explains historically how writing within the discipline began to give way to writing outside the disciplines when university focus began to turn to teaching freshman composition as specific treatments for poor writing skills of entering students—the responsibility for writing, left the disciplines and found place in English departments outside the other disciplines.

Carter explains that the distinction he draws “between writing outside and writing inside the disciplines is the difference between knowledge and knowing, that is disciplines are repositories and delivery systems for relatively static content knowledge versus disciplines as active ways of knowing. Some psychologists describe this distinction as declarative or conceptual knowledge on the one hand and procedural or process knowledge on the other, the difference between knowing that and knowing how” (387). Therefore declarative/conceptual knowledge is knowing that, and procedural/process knowledge is knowing how.

Carter then applies knowing to doing—how particular disciplines “do” their writing as a manifestation of how they demonstrate knowledge. “Because doing plays a central role in this conception of writing in the disciplines, it may be helpful to understand disciplinary ways of doing and the connection between knowing and writing” (386).

“It is this relationship among knowing, doing, and writing that is concealed by the disciplinary focus on conceptual knowledge. Doing is the middle term that links writing and knowing in the disciplines. Thus, the challenge in reframing the disciplines as ways of knowing, doing, and writing is to find a means of describing in convincing terms the ways of doing that characterize the disciplines, convincing, that is, to faculty and students in the disciplines” (386).

Carter explains through his university’s program outcomes necessary for ongoing accreditation and assessment, departments and faculty establish outcomes or what students must “do” demonstrate competence within the discipline. “Doing enacts the knowing through students’ writing, and the writing gives shape to the ways of knowing and doing in a discipline. So instead of focusing only on the conceptual knowledge that has traditionally defined the disciplines, faculty are encouraged to focus also on what their students should be able to do, representing largely in their writing. Having faculty identify disciplinary ways of doing and then assess them through students’ writing is a step toward situating writing in, not outside, the disciplines” (391).

Carter explores approaches to express how disciplines know, do, and write. The three chief approaches include individual disciplines, metagenre, and metadiscipline. Individual disciplines establish program outcomes of what students should do. Metagenre “implies categories of knowing, doing, and writing that cut across disciplines but may be inflected differently in different disciplines and in different contexts” (394). And metadiscipline suggests “that disciplines themselves may be grouped according to common ways of knowing, doing, and writing” (394).

Carter establishes four metagenres in academic writing:
•problem solving
•empirical inquiry
•research from sources
•performance

Problem solving asks students to “identify, define, and analyze a problem. . . ; determine what information is appropriate to solving the problem and then find it. . . ; offer a range of potential solutions according to the establish criteria, choose the most viable solution, and make a convincing case for that solution” (395).

Metagenres and acts of doing for problem solving include, business plans, feasibility reports, management plans, marketing plans, reports to management, project reports, project proposals, technical memoranda, and technical reports (396).

Multidisciplines for problem solving include: accounting, agricultural and resource economics, animal science, business management, engineering, food science, forestry management, mathematics, and psychology.

Empirical inquiry “consists of answering questions by drawing conclusions from systematic investigation based on empirical data” (396). To accomplish empirical inquiry students are to “ask pertinent questions about [a subject]. . .; apply deliberate and thorough observational skills to conduct experiments and collect data; organize and summarize data and present them in a way that is accurate and comprehensible in both verbal and graphical forms; and interpret data and draw conclusions that allow the students to support or refute hypotheses and make a case for alternative hypotheses” (397).

Metagenres and actions of doing for empirical inquiry include laboratory report, poster, poster presentation, research proposal, research report, scientific article, and scientific presentation (398).

Multidisciplines for empirical inquiry “reside in the sciences, both natural and social, such as anthropology, biology, chemistry, geology, microbiology, political science, and sociology” (405)

Research from sources has two primary distinguishing characteristics: “(1) the kind of research that is done, that is not, not based on data gathered from independent observations but largely on sources that have their origins elsewhere; and (2) the goal of the research, which typically does not have extrinsic value, such as solving practical problems or investigating hypotheses, but value that is intrinsic to the discipline” (398). Generally research from sources “pose an interesting research question about [a subject]; locate relevant primary and secondary sources for investigating a research question; critically evaluate primary and secondary sources in terms of credibility, authenticity, interpretative stance, audience, potential biases, and value for answering the research question; and marshall the evidence from the research to support an. . . . argument for an answer to a research question” (398)

Metagenres and actions of doing for research form sources principally are research papers. However, Carter maintains that different disciplines have different purposes behind their research papers. For instance in literature research the goal is “to enable students to read and understand literature from historical, cultural, and theoretical perspectives” (400).

Metadisciplines for research from sources include history, literature, multidisciplinary studies, philosophy, religious studies, gender studies, and humanities.

Performance denotes both the “act and the resulting object of a performance, but particularly the primacy of the object as evidence of success in learning to perform the act, doing the performance” (400).

Metagenres and actions doing for research from sources does include fine arts performances; additionally, but it also applies to rhetoric and writing: “In rhetoric, writing, and language, the focus is mainly on written performance including such genres. . . as documentation, editorials, feature articles, news stories, proposals, and technical reports, but also certain media such as PowerPoint presentations and websites” (402). Metagenre for performance also includes assessment documents such as “the artifact, a portfolio of artifacts, and the critique” (406).

Metadisciplines for performance include architecture, art and design, graphic design, industrial design , landscape architecture, and language, writing, and rhetoric.

Carter concludes: “By questioning the strict boundaries that mark off the disciplines one from another, postdisciplinarity also implicitly questions the assumed disjunction between the specialized knowledge of a discipline and the generalized knowledge of writing: the former is not so special; the latter is not so general. It may be, then, that writing is located neither fully in nor fully outside the disciplines because disciplinary boundaries themselves are porous and in flux; the disciplines are not fixed containers at all. Projecting the disciplines as ways of knowing, doing, and writing tends to emphasize not disjunction but junction, the intersections of disciplines, the connection between research and teaching, and the ties between writing and knowing. From this perspective, it is not so much writing in our outside but writing of the disciplines” (410).

Carter, Michael. "Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines." College Composition and Communication 58.1 (2007): 385-418.

Nancy Sommer's "The Call of Research"

Nancy Sommers begins to report on Harvard’s five-year study of the writing development of a class of students from their freshman through senior years. I have heard her discuss this research and process several times at CCCCs and NCTE. They have collected over 600 pounds of student documents for 400 students and continue to analyze document the significance of their findings.

Their overarching research question is “Do students leave college stronger writers than when they entered?”

Sommers explains that in college, “students are asked to write more than plot summary, more than a cut-and-paste presentation of secondary sources. Rather they are instructed in the language of analysis, argument, and counter-argument and are urged, in our responses to their drafts to ‘analyze more’ and to ‘go deeper into their sources’” (152).

She uses the metaphor of students entering the university seeking the secret handshakes and esoteric codes and passwords practiced in the writing of their disciplines only to find that as they move across the curriculum those handshakes, codes, and passwords change—writing continues to be a mystery for many students for much of their academic experience. Student writing continues to develop throughout their studies.

Sommers admits that their study offers “two paradoxes of writing development: (1) writing development is not always visible on the page—students may be able to articulate standards of good writing before being able to put them into practice; (2) writing development involves steps both forward and backward, gains and losses, and requires some amount of ‘bad’ writing while new skills are practiced” (154)

Sommers study does admit that what students learn in their first-year writing classes are not adequate to prepare them for later college writing: “Such a foundation [first year writing classes] is inadequate for the more and deeper research assignments they [students] are asked to complete in their junior and senior years. Why some students prosper within their disciplines, while others stall, is one of the perplexing questions we explored, and a question that is intimately connected to issues of audience. Students who prosper as writers, we observed, cultivate a desire to enter disciplinary debates and to find their place in an academic exchange, with something to gain and much to give” (155-56).

To illustrate the necessity of students involving themselves significantly into discipline conversations, Sommers chronicles the experience of one student, Luisa from her freshman year which Luisa calls herself the “queen of the B minus” (156) through her senior year’s 75-page original political science research paper. Sommers explains: “if Luisa is to engage others in the arguments that matter to her, she needs to explain her logic by employing the methods and conventions of the disciplinary communities she enters. . . . She needs to learn their language and use their methods and approaches, not just her own idiosyncratic frame of reference. To reach an audience of political scientists, she needs to write like one—testing theories and hypotheses, synthesizing large bodies of information, and anticipating and refuting counterarguments” (157).

Luisa learns to achieve this success through “practice, repetition, and instruction” (157). And Sommers observes that Luisa “succeeds not by writing out of expertise but by writing into expertise” (157).

The principle of gaining knowledge and expertise comes throughout students’ university experience: “The critical role of expertise and knowledge play in preparing students to address an audience helps to account for may patterns we observed over four years. Students do not simply struggle with audience at the beginning of their college careers: they struggle with it whenever they find themselves as novices, unfamiliar with the ideas and methods of a particular discipline or subject matter. Expertise—or more accurately, the lack of it—also helps explain why students who never pursue one subject or one discipline in depth have more difficulty engaging readers” (158).

“Every time students read new texts, enter new debates, or practice new sets of disciplinary conventions, they must in effect, learn how to address a new audience. . . . If students learn to write to and for an audience, it happens because of a confluence of desires: an institution desires its students to receive explicit, sustained, and incremental instruction in thinking and writing; and students desire to see their writing not as an isolated exercise but as part of an ongoing academic exchange” (159).

Sommers explains that a single element influencing students writing development is never sufficient for students to succeed as writers—many elements must mesh: “Any single element necessary for development is never sufficient for students to succeed as college writers. For instance, close reading is necessary but not sufficient in itself for making arguable claims. Learning to question sources and pose counterarguments are necessary to establish a place in an academic debate but not sufficient to engage readers if a student lacks expertise in the subject matter or lacks expertise with the disciplinary methods of engagement. And learning to ask questions that matter to a student is necessary but not sufficient, especially if these questions matter only to the student and not to a community of readers” (161).

Sommers concludes with a reference to Luisa: “It is through writing that Luisa learns to shape her personal interests into public ones, moving into the wider world as a thoughtful and educated citizen” (162).

Sommers, Nancy. "The Call of Research: A Longitudinal View of Writing Development." College Composition and Communication 60.1 (2008): 152-164.

WPA Outcomes

I had forgotten “WPA Outcome Statement for First-Year Composition.” I was reminded of these outcomes when Nancy Sommers referenced them.
After reviewing these outcomes again, I’ve decided to use them in my English 450 Rhetorical Studies as the framework for their final class period. The students will review these outcomes and use them as the foundation for establishing what they perceive to be the outcomes for English 450. The students will suggest how the course does or does not adheres to their outcomes.
By the end of first year composition, students should:
Rhetorical Knowledge
•Focus on a purpose
•Respond to the needs of different audiences
•Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
•Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
•Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
•Understand how genres shape reading and writing
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
•Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
•Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
•Integrate their own ideas with those of others
•Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power
Processes
•Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text
•Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading
•Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
•Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
•Learn to critique their own and others' works
•Learn to balance the advantages of relying on others with the responsibility of doing their part
•Use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences
Knowledge of Conventions
•Learn common formats for different kinds of texts
•Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics
•Practice appropriate means of documenting their work
•Control such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Composing in Electronic Environments
By the end of first-year composition, students should:
•Use electronic environments for drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and sharing texts
•Locate, evaluate, organize, and use research material collected from electronic sources, including scholarly library databases; other official databases (e.g., federal government databases); and informal electronic networks and internet sources
•Understand and exploit the differences in the rhetorical strategies and in the affordances available for both print and electronic composing processes and texts.

Writing Program Administration. "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition." WPA: Writing Program Administration 23.1/2 (1999): 59-66.

Les Perelman's "Information Illiteracy"

Les Perelman critiques the College Board’s assertions that its new SAT writing essay and AP Language and Composition essay are responsible for improving writing instruction in America. Perelman contends, “instead of fostering good writing and critical thinking, [these essays] encourage students to embrace habits that produce mechanistic prose lacking any intellectual substance” (128).

To demonstrate his point, Perelman “coached” three students in writing an essentially non-sensical, information-inaccurate essay. The students followed the “rigid structure of the five-paragraph essay, fill up both pages of the test booklet, include lots of detail even if it is made up or inaccurate, use lots of big words, especially substituting ‘plethora of’ and ‘myriad number of’ for ‘many,’ and to insert a famous quotation near the conclusion of the essay even if it is irrelevant to the rest of the essay” (128).

The College Board scored these essays 5/6 with the criteria “effectively develops a point of view on the issue and demonstrates strong critical thinking, generally using appropriate examples, reasons, and other evidence to support its position” (129). College Board asserts that the reader’s scores are validated, which suggests accurate.

Perelman uses these examples of poor writing as illustrations of “information illiteracy” in which writers have so much information to choose from that it becomes “differentiate between truth and falsehood” (1300. He actually clarifies that “information illiteracy” is the negative form of “information literacy” which is imperative in today’s information age. “Information literacy” are “abilities to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, effectively use, and communicate information in its various formats” (130).

The American Library Association defines an “information literate individual” as someone who can:
• Determine the extent of information needed
• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally (130).

Perelman states: “Information literacy is an inherent component of almost all writing and, as such, constitutes part of general literacy” (130).

Perelman claims that “data smog” is when “there is so much information coming at us, from so many directions and so quickly, that it is difficult if not impossible to differentiate good information from incomplete, biased, misleading, or just incorrect information” (131).

Perelman encourages teachers to “teach students to seek, when possible, the original source of a quotation rather than just citing a secondary source quoting the original. . . to evaluate the quality of information, . . . use citations for substance rather than show, for dialogue rather than diatribe” (134).

The pervasiveness of information illiteracy hit me hard last week while I read an advanced business writing group researched article on leadership. While addressing the leadership qualities of BYU-Idaho President Kim B. Clark, one of the students used a 1989 Ezra Taft Benson quotation praising President Clark. The student didn’t even recognize that Benson’s “President Clark” is J. Reuben Clark, a former member of the First President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who died in 1961. The student assumed that the quotation about President J. Reuben Clark, undoubtedly found through a quick electronic search, was about President Kim B. Clark presiding at BYU-Idaho in 2009. The student dumped the quotation in the paper and continued on. The student did not evaluate the information; rather he just unthinkingly incorporated distorted information.

Perelman calls on educators “to design assessments that would reinforce the acquisition of information literacy and real critical thinking, instruments that would reinforce learning goals rather than subvert them and help our students become smarter rather than dumbing them down with word bites” (139).

Perelman, Les. "Information Illiteracy and Mass Market Writing Assessments." College Composition and Communication 60.1 (2008): 128-140.