In fact the analysis found the effect to be somewhat adverse, perhaps because instruction time is diverted from the actual practice of writing, editing, and proofreading.

In most introductory college writing courses, students will get that practice, along with a review of the conventions of edited American English—grammar, punctuation, and usage. And by the end of those courses, most students can produce fairly well-edited prose, at least if they take time to compose, revise, and proofread.

Still, they may write prose chock-full of errors. Sometimes the problem is lack of practice—editing skills degenerate quickly if not applied. Errors also result when writers take on a new subject or attempt a new form of writing. Researchers Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb noted that when students struggle to master forms requiring insider knowledge, they make predictable errors, such as “say[ing] those things that are ordinarily left unsaid just because they are shared” or using terms in the wrong context. They may also make mistakes in areas they have already mastered, like grammar or syntax, mistakes they can usually correct with more careful editing and proofreading.

Errors often crop up because we tell students we are not grading on “grammar,” only on content. Or students think the writing they do for class doesn’t really matter. Faced with lower grades than he had expected, a young man asked one of my colleagues, wide-eyed, “So this writing really counts?” To show students it does count may take more than grades. Writing for school can seem like an empty exercise. Students like those in Darla-Jean Weatherford’s petroleum engineering class who write for real audiences will take more care with their work and reduce errors.

In a review of the practices of experienced composition instructors, Richard Straub and Ronald Lunsford found that expert readers had a surprising approach to student error. They didn’t mark every mistake and they rarely, if ever, made editorial suggestions. Part of the reason for that hands-off attitude may be that expert readers recognize error for what it often is: evidence of a fertile and inventive mind rushing to figure out and articulate a problem. Students need time and room to make, and also correct, errors, which is why requiring multiple drafts is such a valuable practice.

As novices to the discourse we teach, students are reaching both for language and ideas, for form and content. When we ask them to be concerned with surface errors too early in the process, we invite them to monitor their thinking to such an extent that they censor their ideas and stifle their burgeoning critical judgment.

Too often, students tell me they avoid long sentences (and perhaps complex thoughts) for fear of making a comma error. I don’t want to read or correct their errors, but I also don’t want to read error-free, but otherwise mundane and critically naïve prose.

—Dr. Valerie M. Balester
Executive Director
University Writing Center
v-balester@tamu.edu