Online courses regularly require instructors discussion questions and answers from students. Generally, also required are responses from other students. My classes (so far) require 2 responses to discussion questions per week and 2 responses to others responses per question (clear as mud yet?).

I am always amazed at the brief responses and grammatically incorrect responses given by students. We're in college! We should write correctly. So, here's my suggestion for collegiate posts:

1. Write your response first in a word processing document (such as Word Perfect or Word.

2. Check for grammatical errors or spelling errors. and correct them.

3. Proofread your quresponse backwards, line-by-line. Read each sentence one at a time from the bottom up. Does it make sense? Are there complete sentences? Will someone who isn't in your head understand your post?

THEN, copy and paste the response into your onlie discussion thread or forum.

That's my gripe for the day

I entirely agree. When I did an online course, the quality of the postings was generally high. The response to poor ones varied, but tended to be polite but firm on the subject. Obvious exceptions were those for whom English was a second language.

And I won't tease you (much!) about "THEN, copy and paste the response into your onlie discussion thread or forum." Surely your forum wouldn't lie. [Laugh of recognition. Happens to us all. Onlie is one of mine too. And I was cross-eyed and cross-fingered trying to get the word "introducing" to come out right the other day.]

**hanging head** LOL That's what I get huh

My only excuse is the page kept jumping and I was too bothered to wait to post LOLOL

I do agree that I'm a little dismayed at some students who are in a college course and who have English as a first language but who struggle with some very basic components of using English.

I cut slack for students who are from foreign countries, who are doing this in a "second language" and who are here to learn a non-English skill (for example a Chemistry major). For them I think they're doing fairly well to keep up with everything in a secondary language.

I also in general cut some slack for the idea that it is a forum discussion, so things come out more fluidly than in a term paper for example. While I do think people should at least re-read what they type, I don't know that I'd go as far as making people review every forum post backwards

For me, forum posts are like in-class discussion. If everyone is excitedly talking about an issue in local politics, they don't need to ponder their wording for 20 minutes before they join in. They can just join in, and if the underlying thought is sound, I give them leeway on how they phrase it.

I'm frustrated with some of my classmates right now. I have two that consistently use "where" for "were" and use "there" for "there" and for "their" ....

**pulling my hair out**

Oh ... this is an intermediate comp class too. I'm hoping the instructor points this out. It's quite distracting when reading.

And... I swear, no one uses spell check or grammar check. *sigh*

One suggestion - use FireFox for all your postings and encourage others to do that too. FireFox will highlight in red all misspelled words which can easily help catch issues.

I would email the instructor and ask if they can help with this issue. It's probably better if the instructor addresses it privately vs you as a fellow student constantly pointing out their errors

Hi I didn't know that it was Firefox that would highlight misspelled words in forums. I always thought it was the way forums were set up. That is interesting information.

I agree that it is better to get the instructor to handle the problem. And considering it is an English composition class I am surprised that he/she isn't expecting a higher level of spelling and grammar from students. It is true that in a forum some slack can be given but a large number of mistakes should not be ignored. It really isn't beneficial to those students in the long term.

I'm just catching the tail end of this discussion and I've heard of Firefox but now I'll look more into how to implement it.

I'm always reversing things or leaving gaps of words out, it's more a learning disability than anything and difficult to catch, so I actually, when I'm up to it, have read things backwards to catch errors or I'll use a piece of paper up against the screen or a book I'm reviewing.

But in regards to laziness, though. I've noticed, not just on on-line courses, but a lot of online articles and news pieces, it litterally seems and "feels" like, anything goes. Not the articulateness (sp) I grew up with.

In some ways it's good, but my husband calls it the "sticker for going to the bathroom" generation. You get a reward for doing just about anything, good quality or poor. I don't know how I feel about that, but that's a different topic.

I think it would be nice - wierd but nice if there was a program that watched out for dyslexic grammor errors. Spellcheck is good, but there are somethings that if the word is looking right, it's not going to tell you there's an error.

Hi Elleise,
It would be great if there was a program for dyslexic errors. It must be frustrating for a writer - an extra problem to deal with in everything you write. I admire you and other writers for giving us the wisdom of your thoughts while dealing with those extra problems that dyslexia brings. My husband is a great fan of John Irving and I believe he also has dyslexia and yet he writes long books which are both insightful and entertaining. I think it takes him longer to write a book than some authors but they are worth waiting for. It is a good thing he has persevered with his writing.
Thanks for visiting the forum and posting your thoughts.

I think if you look at history that people are getting far more literate over time. It wasn't too long ago that women weren't expected to know how to read or write at all! So I don't think things are getting worse - I think things are getting far better. However with the internet we can read far more peoples' words. So we are much more aware of how things are. Which in a way is good because it means we can encourage people even more strongly to improve their skills!

How true Lisa. I think I have a tendency to assume that everyone has been reading and writing well for hundreds of years when in fact it is only very recently that the majority of people even in Europe and North America have become literate.
I do find too that I get frustrated with really bad spelling and grammar online to the point where I will just leave a webpage where that is the case. However, overall I do not find very many websites that are that bad and yet I read many blogs and articles on websites every day. I think I just remember the ones that are really bad because spelling and grammar were never a problem for me in school so I really notice it.

I think that's exactly it - that it stands out when someone writes poorly, which is a testament to how used we all have become to well done writing.

If we went back 200 years and made everyone in a town write out all their thoughts, I imagine half of them would have been unable to do that.

Funny, I was on another forum this evening, and we were discussing the very same topic--poor grammar and spelling on the internet. It doesn't bother me in forums, because, as pointed out, forums are more like a classroom discussion, with everyone piping up with their thoughts quickly. But in a school paper, or a blog post or website, where you theoretically had plenty of time to think through and check your work, it should be perfect or nearly perfect. It just shows a lack of care and disrespect for the recipient of your words otherwise. Why should I take the time to read and think about someone's website message, if they didn't take the time to carefully present it? --Maria

I have to tell you this one. We were posting about plagiarism. The student was talking about how proofreading is a great way to help prevent plagiarism. Though it was on plagiarism, the entire paragraph on proofreading had not been proofread at all. The spelling was atrocious and the grammar was unreadable. I so wanted to ask him to re-read his proofreading paragraph but held myself back. I will let the instructor do that. Yikes!

Rebecca, what a hoot! Guess your fellow student doesn't do irony either.

Mona, I guess not. I really had a good laugh at that one. Then I sobered up and re-read my posts to make sure that I was not guilty, too. Then my husband was laughing at me.

I taught online for years, and I find that usually folks were just trying to quickly "meet the requirements" and were not paying close attention, because they didn't feel they needed to do so. When I started subtracting points for grammar curiously most post improved dramatically.

Though I must admit, shamefully, grammar is not a strong point for me at all!!!!

I do wish our instructors at Ashford were more in tune with grammar. I'm getting quite frustrated. We got a couple of examples for a paper we're doing (for annotated biblio info). I read one of them. I sincerely hope the student did not get an "A" for her paper. There were huge grammatical errors and citation errors in it. I'm thinking at best a "B" or more likely a "C" for her paper. "I" is kind of inappropriate in a paper that should be presented as a scholarly work.

were for where
there for their
thier for there or their

Discussion boards, while "we" want to quickly post an answer, are not like chat rooms where typing needs to be quick and zippy and hit/run style. They are thoughtful responses to questions or statements brought forth. My frustration climbs constantly. Especially in this class -- it is a literature/history class that is supposed to also be an intermediate comp class. I think grammar and spelling are even more important in a class like this. Either I'm too old-school, or the instructors aren't getting on the ball with the issues at hand. grrrr

I hear you Sara. If I come across a website like that I leave it almost immediately. I won't waste my time. Unfortunately you don't have that option in a course.

Sara, I don't think we are old-school. I think we are ones who take pride in our work and do not rush as you stated just to get the job done. We want it done right.

Sara, the spelling you mention looks like what the kids in my classes do. I live in hope that they'll improve, but maybe not.

I remember when I was in elementary and jr. high we had lots of spelling tests on homonyms, synonyms and antonyms ....I do not remember my kids having that. I think we've gotten too close to "passing mandated state tests" and forgotten education

My word, even with the word "treaty" in front of some of the students they type "tready" ... sorry, but that's laziness. Proofing is too much trouble or something. It just makes me madder and madder LOL ... I gotta quit thinking about that stuff and go study now

To be fair, I think most standardized tests *do* test on synonyms and antonyms and so on. That seems to be a chunk of what they do their tests on.

I think again it's that in the past we only saw the writing of the top say 90% of the population, the best writers. Now we're seeing everyone and can see how the others do