By Douglas Perret Starr

Professor of Agricultural Communications and Journalism

d-starr@tamu.edu

Re: Writing Matters, Vol. 4, Issue 6, Fall 2006, pp. 2, 3.

I agree, and I disagree, with Professor Jon Olson and with Dr. Valerie Balester.

I agree with Dr. Olson’s support of professors who pay attention to writing in a discipline other than English because “it shows that writing belongs to everybody.”

I agree with Dr. Balester’s objection to reading “error-free, but otherwise mundane and critically naïve prose.” I like the error-free part, but abhor the mundane and the naïve, critical or otherwise.

I disagree with Dr. Olson’s so-called warning against being an English teacher outside the English department. I believe that every professor should challenge students to explain their work in proper English, else what is college for?

I don’t accept his statement: “If the content is really challenging, you can’t -pay attention to sentences.” My students have completed at least K-12 and two years of college. If they cannot write a clear sentence by now, regardless of the subject matter, perhaps they do not belong in college.

The best research is worthless if the researcher cannot write it in a clear, concise, terse, correct, understandable manner.

I disagree with Dr. Balester’s implication that K-12 strongly emphasized grammar, mechanics, and punctuation. Almost any student from almost any Texas high school will say that grammar pretty much stopped being taught after junior high school, sometimes not at all taught after the sixth grade.

I disagree with her statement that students need to have time to “compose, revise, and proofread.” I agree with the “compose” and the “revise,” but “proofread” is the wrong word. “Proofread” means ensuring that the typeset version is identical to the author’s final draft. But, if the final draft contains errors, so does the published version.

The word, and the action, wanted is either “edit” or “copy edit,” because they pertain to correcting a final draft before it is turned in for typesetting.

Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary, 4th ed., © 2005, provides these definitions:

Proofread — to read and mark corrections on (printers’ proofs, etc.)

Edit — 1. to prepare (an author’s works, journals, letters, etc.) for publication, by selection, arrangement, and annotation; 2. to revise and make ready (a manuscript) for publication.

Copy Editor — a person whose work is editing and correcting the grammar, punctuation, etc. of articles or manuscripts, as in a newspaper office or publishing house. [The verb is Copy Edit.]

After something is written, it is first “edited” or “copy edited,” usually by a second party. After the corrections are made and the piece is set in type, the typeset piece is “proofread.”

It is extremely difficult to copy edit your own work. The best way to copy edit your own work is to set it aside for a day or two, letting the details of the work slip away from your active memory. Even so, you will miss a lot.

The best copy editing is done by someone else, someone well versed in grammar, word use, spelling, punctuation, syntax, all the requirements of fine writing. And leave your ego at home.

I agree with Dr. Balester’s suggestion, contention, actually, that writers should not turn in a first draft, but should revise and rewrite. And I would add, revise and rewrite as many times as is necessary to perfect it.

From my own experience with students and faculty members, I find that students are not the only ones who butcher the language. Professors, the most highly educated people on Earth, who should know better, frequently refer to their degrees as a “doctorate degree” (a doctorate is a degree) or say that they have a “doctorial” degree.

Professors, who have a Master of Science, frequently refer to the degree as a “Master’s of Science” (there is no such degree; read your diploma).

Here are errors that I have been finding in student writing ever since I have been teaching writing.

“First-come, first-serve,” omitting the past tense “served,” probably because they don’t hear the final “d,” or they don’t pay attention when they see the phrase written.

“Suppose,” as in “I am suppose to be at work,” omitting the past tense “supposed,” probably because they don’t hear the final “d.” or they don’t pay attention when they see the word written.

“Comprised of,” an impossibility, because “comprise” is a transitive verb: The whole comprises its parts.”

“Between” is followed by an “and,” not a “to.” And be careful of this, because there is nothing “between Saturday and Sunday” though that phrase is becoming common.

“Podium” and “lectern” are different. “Podium” is what you stand on, “lectern” is what you stand behind and lean on and put your lecture notes on.

“Convince” and “persuade” are different. You “convince” someone “of” or “that”; you “persuade” someone “to.”

“Fellow” is horribly redundant in “fellow shipmate,” fellow classmate,” and the like.

“Is currently” is horribly redundant.

“Try” is followed by an infinitive, a “to,” not an “and.”

“Verbal,” which means both written and spoken, cannot substitute for “oral,” which means spoken only.

These “attributive verbs” are representatives of those that students toss into their writing “to keep the reader from being bored” without realizing that, although they do mean “attribute,” their definitions contain far different meanings.

“Announce” is to make known publicly, formally, officially something presumed to be of interest.

“Assert” is to make a firm statement with confidence but without objective proof.

“Claim” is to something due, or to assert one’s right.

“Comment” is to say casually one’s opinion, usually as a criticism or explanation or interpretation.

“Declare” is to make known openly and formally.

“Refute” is to disprove through logic and evidence.

“Remark” is to say one’s opinion casually.

“State” is to say clearly and definitely, usually in a formal situation.

The “appositive” is misused repeatedly. These two sentences have vastly different meanings, all because omission of a single comma changes the sentence into direct address (talking to someone).

“John, the mayor’s aide said that the economy is great.” The speaker is saying to John that the mayor’s aide made that statement. The identity of the mayor’s aide is unknown.

“John, the mayor’s aide, said that the economy is great,” John made that statement. By the way, John is the mayor’s aide.

“Double attribution.” Grammar requires only one attribution per quotation, regardless of the number of sentences or paragraphs. You open the quotation at the beginning of every paragraph, but close it only once, at the end of the quotation. Do not attribute in each paragraph of a continuing quotation.

In sum, I cannot imagine why these writing aficionados don’t recommend, nay, require, that their students discard the thesaurus and use the dictionary, or, if they use a thesaurus, that they look up the chosen word in the dictionary. It would save a lot of misunderstanding.

Like my student who wrote in the school newspaper about repairs to the University Union. Relying on the thesaurus, he used “the University Union,” “the Union,” “the structure,” “the building,” “the edifice” (though how it could be an edifice is more than I could figure), and finally, “the erection.”

All of those synonyms, of course, have the same, basic meaning, but, my, oh, my! what a difference those additional meanings provide.

Note: I have rewritten this several times.