I wasn’t going to write another blog entry until this weekend; but I changed my mind, perhaps because, over the past few days, I have graded about a zillion student papers (or so it seems) and my brain has earned a much-deserved respite, one that can only be found in writing a blog entry. The poor thing is feeling a bit fatigued at the moment; and if you don’t understand why this is the case, I suggest that you read about a zillion student papers, all of which address the same topic, and all of which contain countless errors upon which you have commented in previous papers but feel obligated to comment upon yet again. Then, trust me, you will understand how my poor brain feels at the moment.

Personally, I have to wonder if students even bother to proofread their work. Of course, I know that some do; but based upon experience, I would argue that most don’t. Heck, some students don’t even bother to set the language or activate Spell Check. They instead leave those tasks for the instructor; and trust me, that is exactly what I do. Of course, the first thing I do is click on “Word Count” to see if the paper meets the word-count requirement; but after using Word Count, I click on “Language,” followed by “Set Language” (English, not Russian or Chinese or Arabic), after which I make certain that “Do not check spelling or grammar” is not checked.

And, boy howdy, you should see that paper light up. Voila! Suddenly and quite miraculously, it lights up like the proverbial Christmas tree. There are red squiggly lines under misspelled words. There are green squiggly lines under grammatical errors. Plus, the little office assistant (mine is a cat) slaps on its glasses, whips out its notepad, and starts scribbling like mad. (Not that Word catches all errors. Instead, that odious chore is left for Ms. Carol’s brain, an instrument that far exceeds any computer program when it comes to identifying mistakes in student papers, which is probably why it is so often exhausted to the point of total collapse.)

However, grammatical and spelling errors aren’t the only flaws I find in student papers. Another, and far more egregious, error I encounter is a total lack of coherence. For example, on many occasions I will read a sentence not once but twice or even three or more times and still have absolutely no earthly idea what the writer was attempting to convey when he or she tossed together what amounts to a veritable chef’s salad of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and random interjections, then spilled them onto the page.

“Ah, come on,” you say. “It can’t be that bad.”

It can’t? As proof, I offer exhibit A:

A titanic corporation may specialize in particular departments, and at a time of the business, functioning the corporation may not make contact with the particular departments; whereas a smaller corporation should be able to give more attention to the company, but at the same time, the service to the company can come to the slow pace of doing business.

And, trust me, I could not, try as I might, make up such a sentence. Nor would I want to make up such a sentence, not even in jest. In fact, were I even to attempt to compose such a mishmash of words, my poor brain would probably go into some kind of cognitive meltdown and never fully recover; and at least as things stand at the moment, after a good night’s sleep, my brain will once again be functional. Or at least I hope that’s the case. Then again, perhaps this last barrage of student papers did irreparable damage to my poor brain’s synapses. Only time will tell for sure. But that’s enough about my brain, for I do have a point I wish to make.

“Argh,” you groan. “You mean there’s a point?”

Of course there’s a point. Isn’t there always? And my point tonight is this: There has been a marked decline in writing skills among students over the past ten to fifteen years. I have noticed this decline, so has Chet, and we’re both teachers so we are exposed to many examples of writing, which makes us semi-experts on the phenomenon. And of course the question that rears its ugly head is this: To what can we attribute this marked decline in writing skills? Well, although I am sure there are several—

You say, “I think it’s because—” 

Pardon me, but this is my blog. As I was saying, although I am sure there are several contributing factors, I believe the major villain is technology. Yes, that’s right, technology. Why? Well, because technology has given us the World Wide Web; video and computer games; high-definition televisions; IPods; cell-phones that double as cameras, computers, navigation systems, and calculators; along with myriad other high-tech gadgets that devour young people’s time. So, with that in mind, the answer is obvious.

“It is?” you now say, looking befuddled.

Yes, it certainly is. See, back in the old days when I was a girl growing up in rural Georgia, we didn’t have all these high-tech gadgets. What we did have, however, were books. That’s right, we had books. And we actually read those books; and by reading those books, we not only learned about the world in which we lived—past and present—we also learned how to write sentences that actually made sense. 

And with that I rest my case.