By Kevin Ford
Student Reporter
How closely do you look over your essays for spelling and punctuation errors before you turn them in for a grade? If you type how you text, then you will have quite a few grammatical errors.
March 4 is National Grammar Day. Dr. Kathy Earnest, Assistant Professor of English, teaches English Composition at Northwestern. “Language is flexible, you can be creative, except when Dr. Earnest is grading your composition, use standard rules,” Earnest said.
Less reading takes away from formal language. In today’s society, almost all of our go to communication starts with technology. Social media has grown into the biggest communication platform in the entire world. “With the shift in technology, people find it even harder to find time to read and engulf in written literature,” Earnest said.
College English majors, as well as writers, can always find the time to improve their grammar. Compared to the last two decades, students of all classes tend to struggle more than ever before when it comes to grammar.
We sat down with Earnest and Dr. Roxie James, Assistant Professor of English, to analyze the most common grammatical errors students in college steadily make.
“Grammar is not scary,” James said. The more time you take to look over your paper, the better it will look as a whole. The most noticeable error is “I” not being capitalized. Another common one is failing to put a comma after the name of a city or location. Besides the format guidelines, students do not commit many errors; however, repeating the same mistakes is what usually keeps many students’ grades from being higher. Anyone who has sat down and written a full paper wants to see good results, but proof-reading three or four times should be done to ensure everything looks neat.
“Code-switching” is when students struggle with adjusting between texting, writing papers and blackboard discussions, Earnest said.
College students text a lot, this is what is called informal language. College papers must follow formal guidelines; this is where most students struggle. Technology is a great tool. However, it is important to balance out the use of social media with the use of other resources such as textbooks, literature, magazines or news articles. The more we read and write, the better acquainted we will be with both formal and informal language.
A grammatical error once settled a lawsuit for over 5 million dollars. An article from The New York Times, released on Feb. 9, 2018 addresses the famous case over the Oxford comma.
“The dairy company in Portland, ME., agreed to pay $5 million to the drivers, according to court documents filed on Thursday. The relatively small-scale dispute gained international notoriety last year when the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the missing comma created enough uncertainty to side with the drivers.” Imagine settling for a $5 million lawsuit because of a misplaced comma.
For National Grammar Day, we focus on the importance of reading and writing. Grammar is a reflection of proper communication, whether written or spoken. Author, ee cummings wrote his name in all low caps. Earnest said, “Language is flexible.” However, ee cummings was an author with his own trademark. College students must follow standard rules when writing papers.