They call me “Maxey the Merciless.” I use the highlighter tool on my MS Word program to critique, correct, cajole and (occasionally) compliment my online students as I assess and grade their work. I admit, however, I sink to the depths of sarcasm late at night, when the student has butchered the first page of his or her paper so badly, that I am greatly distracted from the content and sorely irritated at the lack of decent grammar.
Is it a good idea to irritate the instructor as he reads your online submittal and admires your creative use of the King’s English? Probably not. Yet, I continue to be amazed that many of my online students, virtually all of whom are adult learners, cannot write to a standard that would be expected in middle school. Undoubtedly, the intervening years between high school or college, and the inevitable rusting of grammatical brain cells, contribute to the lack of quality. However, it’s also knowing that they did not bother to read over what they wrote, and that is the time when the irritability quotient rises to where it is grade-affecting.
Having written online courses and taught them for a small university for some years, I have seen just about everything. As adult learners re-entering the education arena, it is to your advantage to pay attention to those practices which will cause the instructor to look beyond the exceptional content of your prose and either slide your grade a little higher or hammer it down for some irritating collection of transgressions.
Use a spell checker program, but don’t rely on it completely! I correct plenty of spelling — often, the wrong work (see!) spelled correctly. Most word processing programs have spell checkers and grammar checking tools that take, at most, a few minutes to run for most assignments. Beyond that, however, read what you have wrought! Believe me, the one complaint I hear from my colleagues and that I share is our impatience with students who excessively violate the rules of grammar.
Some examples in ascending order of grammatical sinfulness are:
“For that reason I believe the North American Free Trade Agreement has been a net benefit to the United States.” (no comma after “reason”).
“The Federal Reserves decision negatively effected the stock market yesterday.” (no apostrophe in “Reserves” to show possession; “affected”, not “effected”).
“It is apparent that there actions will led to lower interest rates, and that they has made that decision because of pressure from the white house. (“their”, not “there”; “lead”, not “led”; “have”, not “has”; capitalize “white house”; sentence obviously not reviewed and edited, but everything was spelled correctly!).
As I advise my students, “Due knot iritate the instruktor; by ussing lousy Englisch!”
Better yet, I often recommend that students strongly consider taking a writing course which, of course, can be delivered online. There are excellent writing guides also on the Internet. Two sites worth checking out are the Guide to Grammar and Writing and The Nuts and Bolts Guide to College Writing. Also, a good grammar guide should be an easily reachable resource in your library. The two I have on my bookshelf are the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Joseph Gibaldi, The Modern Language Association of America) and The Bedford Handbook for Writers (Diana Hacker, Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press). Don’t forget that dictionaries and thesauruses are still widely available in print!
Use a good quality virus detection program on your computer! A virus checker that is operating in the background should prevent you from catching or passing on a virus. There was a time when I had a sub-standard virus program and some infected files came in. That’s bad enough, but then inadvertently passing the virus onto other students compounds the sin.
Never, ever, ever, ever plagiarize! There is plenty of web content out there for quality research. It must be acknowledged appropriately in your assignments through footnotes or bibliographies. I once had an online MBA student who had to write a paper on outsourcing of a corporate function. She sent emails to other students asking for their suggestions on how to get started. Three days later, she submitted to me a paper of journal-grade quality. After I politely challenged her on it, I never heard from her again. She failed the course. Enough said.
Be timely! Deadlines are for a reason. You may have to write your assignments, but we have to read them all. However, it’s more than reading. The instructor is obligated to provide professional feedback and suggestions, as well as a grade. Downloading and uploading take time. When working from home, competing for computer and Internet time with the rest of the family injects some stress into the instructor’s schedule (yes, we’re human too!). Late submissions, particularly those that arrive weeks late, or are piled into the inbox during the last week of the course, will only earn you animosity even though your work could be exceptional.
Don’t be reluctant to use humor! I teach economics online. The reason I became an economist is that I was very good with numbers, but didn’t have the personality to be an accountant! Occasional humor, without being frivolous, can endear you to a professor, particularly one who is grinding through e-papers in the dead of night after a long day in the classroom or at the office. Best to put your humorous comments in your e-mail message and not in the body of your paper. Even a 🙂 is welcome!
I wanted to pass on to those of you who might choose, or be required, to take a course in my subject area, some good online resources available in the virtual universe. One of my favorites is the economics site on About.com. John Irons has done an admirable job of assembling a quality site and providing numerous hyperlinks to just about any resource on economics that you could think of. My other favorite, which is a bit more narrow in scope, is the website for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed has excellent information about the nation’s banking system and the Fed’s role, and research on current macroeconomic issues.
Finally, paste the following checklist next to the monitor.
- Did I spellcheck my work and run it through a grammar program?
- Is it virus-free?
- Did I pay attention to the instructor’s comments on my last assignment and not make the same mistake(s) again?
- Does my virtual paper directly address the question or topic that is assigned? Have I eliminated any ambiguity and included enough detail to demonstrate my points?
- Did I read my work over carefully, and does it read like I would speak the words?
- Will I remember to ask for an automated receipt through my e-mail program, or ask the instructor to acknowledge receipt of my assignment?
- Is this my best work?
Okay, go ahead and punch “send!” Kenneth Maxey lives in Evergreen, Colorado and is an instructor at Regis University.
