Monday, October 19, 2015

Journalism: Sentenced to Sentence Purgatory?

Click here to read an article written by an author who teaches his first college writing course. Then, answer the questions that follow.

1. First, offer a concise explanation as to what the flaw is in each of the egregious sentences cited by Mr. Laser. Then, rewrite each one.
  • Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.
  • The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.
  • The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.
  • The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.
2. Do you find the author's generalizations about your generation accurate? Why/why not? If teachers are indeed witnessing the degradation of students' grasp of linguistics and grammar, what do you think has caused it? What's the solution?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

allow should be allows
contrast should be contrasts
their should be the and this sentence is bad
are should be is

No, its not really the generation's problem. Going back, there is definitely plenty of people who went to college that were dumb in the past. Texting and short lingo as a means to a fast and quick life is the main cause of simple language degradation in today's generation. The solution is to stress correct sentence structure early on in education.

Anonymous said...

1. verb "allow" should be "allows" to agree with subject "Neglecting"
verb "contrast" should be "contrasts" to agree with subject "money"
"their speakers" should be "the speakers" as nothing is said to possess the speakers
verb "are" should be "is" to agree with subject "conflict"

2. I don't know if I agree that there's been a decline in the writing of our generation - after all, I've only existed in this one generation. I can agree that this generation's writing isn't the best from what I've seen in the work of my peers. The cause could be the increasing popularity of texting and other casual communication that don't stress proper grammar or conventions. The majority of what students read is in this style. The solution could be the encouragement of the extracurricular reading of more formal materials like novels and essays. Good luck with that, though.

Anonymous said...

“Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.” The verbs are not in the correct tense. Revision: Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endured allows people to go to war more easily.
“The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.” Verb doesn’t agree with the subject. Revision: The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.
“The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.” The speaker should not be possessive. Revision: The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones.
“The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.” Verb doesn’t agree with the subject. Revision: The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.

Incorrect grammar can come from various reasons, such as stress that causes a lack of attention on meticulous details like grammar. With a more fast paced society, little details like grammar are easily overlooked. A solution would be enforcing correct grammar as a necessity and make it more important to a student.

Anonymous said...

allow should be allows
contrast should be contrasts
their should be the and the second "speaker's" should have the apostrophe after the "s" because it is plural.
are should be is

I mainly think that the author's generalization of our generation is accurate. I think most students struggle with that, but some understand grammar and how to form correct sentences.I think the author's generalization is accurate because I see many students struggle with awkward wording and grammar, including myself.I think the cause of students struggling is is mostly forgetting all of the grammar rules and how to fix awkward wording. The solution to this problem is for English teachers to spend more time on grammar and how to fix awkward sentences.

Anonymous said...

1) Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily.
2)The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.
3)The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones.
4)The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.

I think other generations have struggled with this too, but ours more than any other one, because now that we have extreme advances in technology we rely on that to correct our sentences or spelling etc. The solution is simply to teach it more in depth, and focus on it more.

Anonymous said...

The sentences should be...
Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily.
The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.
The similarities among the speakers and the author is illustrated differently through the speaker's separate tones.

I do not entirely agree with the author's generalizations. I do think that people should work a little harder at proofreading their sentences, but not everyone is always going to catch their every mistake. It is normal to not have perfect sentences. I believe that students just are not proofreading their sentences as much as they should be. A good solution is for students to take a little longer reading over their work.

Anonymous said...

1)Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.
-In this sentence allow should be changed to allows, change endure to endured and take out “those” from the sentence.
Neglecting to recognize the horrors people endured allows people to go to war more easily.

2)The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.
-Contrast should be changed to contrasts, and get rid of “in the household”
The money shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.

3)The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.
-Their should be changed to the
The similarities among the speakers and the author illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones.

4)The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion
- Are should be changed to is
The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.


I think that other generations have dealt with this problem too, but ours has had the most problem due to all the technology, when texting we use shorten words and rely on spell check. The solution to this problem is for teachers to do more practice with grammar and spelling.

Anonymous said...

1. Sentence Errors/Corrections:

-The subject (“neglecting”) and verb (“allow”) in this sentence do not agree. Correction: Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily.
-This sentence is awkwardly structured in general, but the biggest mistake I noticed was the misuse of “contrast”. Correction: The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts with the idea of a happy marriage.
-This sentence is inconsistent with the pluralization of “speaker” and “author” throughout the sentence. Correction: The similarities among the speakers and their authors are illustrated differently through the speakers’ separate tones.

2. For the most part, I find the author’s generalizations to be accurate. However, there are also many individuals in this generation who are conscious of proper grammar and use it in their own writing. I believe that part of this is due to the fact that many students are not given enough lessons on grammar and basic sentence structure. On the other hand, some students simply don’t care enough to change their old habits and improve their writing, and unfortunately there is not much that can be done for these students.

Anonymous said...

1.) Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.
-The error here is the subject is not identified (who are ‘those people?’)
2.) The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.
-The ‘contrast’ should be changed to ‘contrasts’ in order to have subject verb agreement.
3.) The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.
-Change ‘their author’ to ‘the author,’ otherwise it sounds like the author owns the speakers, and their tones.
4.) The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.
-The ‘conflict’ should be plural, ‘conflicts’ so the subject and the verb are both plural.


I somewhat agree with the author’s generalizations about my generation; while some students do not fully grasp the linguistics of grammar since they feel the linguistics are not important. However, for every student who ignores the proper way to grammatically write, there are plenty of students who make sure what they write is correct and coherent. The students who aren’t grasping the linguistics of grammar are struggling since we live in a digital world, with spell check and grammar check; when the time comes to write a paper, some students aren’t sure what looks right and what looks wrong. Students need to spend more time proof reading their work, and learning to recognize what proper sentence structure is.

Anonymous said...

Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.

Rewritten) Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endured allows people to go to war easily.

Flaw) allow is changed to allows because people is plural
Endure is changed to endured because those is past tense.

The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.

Rewritten) The money shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.

Flaw) I felt as though household was not needed to express the topic of the sentence.
Contrast should be contrast because it is referring back to money.

The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.

Rewritten) The similarities among the speakers and their authors are illustrated differently throughout the speakers separate tones

Flaw) Parallelism between speakers and authors
Change their to the because their is nothing referencing possession.

The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.

Rewritten) The conflicts between Sammy and Lengel are about mainly about teenage rebellion.

Flaw) conflict is changed to conflicts because it has to agree with are

Anonymous said...

1.)Flaws in sentences
”Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allow people to go to war more easily.” : The flaws within this sentence the student wrote “those people” but the creates the question “What people?”. The word endured should also be put in the past tense. The sentence should be written as “Neglecting to recognize the horrors people endured allows people to go to war more easily.
“The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.”: The flaw within the sentence is “in the household” does not need to be there. Therefore, the sentence should be written as “The money shared between Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of happy marriage.”
“The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker’s separate tones.”: The flaws within the sentence is word choice. The word “the” should be used instead of “their”. The sentence should read “The similarities among the speaker and the author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones.”
“The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.”:The flaw within this statement is subject-verb agreement. The subject is singular but the verb is plural. Therefore the sentence should read, “The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.”
2.) I do find the author’s generalization to be accurate because I believe that there is less of an emphasis on teaching correct grammar. Some grammar mistakes have different causes such as lack of focus or proofreading. In classes though, the focus has shifted from learning the necessary grammar skills and to focusing of the curriculum toward tests, which rarely focus on the basics. I think to fix this solution, we should not lose focus on the basics and continue to develop grammar skills.

Anonymous said...

1. neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endured allows people to go to war easily.

This sentence seems aesthetically wrong although a simple fix would just be to change allow to allows and endure to endured and take out more completely mostly subject verb disagreement

The money shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage

Mainly subject verb agreement and getting rid of household.

The similarities between the speakers and their authors are illustrated differently through their speakers separate tones

parallelism author to authors

the conflicts between Sammy and lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion

conflict to conflicts, its subject verb agreement

2.I believe some of it is true, we are losing some of our writing ability. But children in my generation still know how to write properly. It is somewhat happening because of the texting revolution. sentences are getting shorter, words are getting shorter. the only solution is to grow out of it in my opinion

Christopher casello

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

1) "Allow" should be "allows". Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily.

2) "contrast" should be "contrasts". The money in the household shared between Nora Torvald contrasts the idea of happy marriage.

3)"their" should be "the". The similarities among the speakers and the author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones.

4)"are" should be "is". The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.

I believe that all generations struggle with this, but our generation struggles a little more. With new technology students are relying on their phones and computers to fix their writing mistakes instead of learning from their errors. A solution for this problem is for teachers to spend more time teaching students correct grammar and how to fix awkward sentences.

Anonymous said...

The sentence should say that 1) Neglecting to recognize the horrors the people endure allow people to go to war easily.( Who)
2) The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contast the idea of a happy marriage. ( Contast to Contrasts)
3)The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speakers, and their tones. (Their to The)
4) The conflict between Sammy and Lengel are mainly about teenage rebellion.( Conflic should be plural to Conflicts so the verb is now plural)

I somewhat agree with the authors view and how he generalizes the generation im in. Some students agree and disagree with linguistics of grammer. Some students write correct, while others dont think its important to write correctly. We live in a digital world with all social media, and high technology. People wouldnt know how to write a correct gramical paper without spell check and grammer. Students need to learn on their own and recognize proper and poor gramer and spelling when writing.

Anonymous said...

The sentences should be:
1. Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily.
2. The money in the household shred between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.
3. The similarities among the speakers and the author illustrated differently through the speaker's separate tones.
4. The conflict between Sammy and Lenngel is mainly about teenage rebellion.

Yes I do believe that the generalizations made by the author are accurate. This is because students are becoming lazy in their linguistics. This could be a direct correspondent of technology. Since we have the ability to communicate with someone across the world in a fraction of a sentence we have the tendency to cut corners.

Anonymous said...

1) The first sentence should say: "Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endured allowed people to go to war more easily."

The second sentence should say: "The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage."

The third sentence should say: "The similarities among the speakers and the author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones."

The fourth sentence should say: "The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion."

2) Yes, I do find the author's generalization about my generation accurate. I do because we are a generation that depends on technology for all of the answers. We don't take much time to actually learn because of all the resources available to us. The cause of the degradation
of students' grasp of linguistics is technology and the lack of actual work/learning we have to do nowadays. The solution is to get kids to focus more on school work than their phones in school.

Anonymous said...

1st: Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endured allowed people to go to war more easily.
2nd: The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage.
3rd: The similarities among the speakers and the author are illustrated differently through the speakers separate tones.
4th: The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion.
2) I agree with the authors generalization about my generation we do depend on technology for our answers.

Anonymous said...

1) The sentences should be as follows:
-Neglecting to recognize the horrors those people endure allows people to go to war more easily. (allow is changed to allows)
-The money in the household shared between Nora and Torvald contrasts the idea of a happy marriage. (contrast is changed to contrasts)
-The similarities among the speakers and the author are illustrated differently through the speaker’s separate tones. (their is changed to the)
-The conflict between Sammy and Lengel is mainly about teenage rebellion. (are is changed to is)

2) I do believe the author's generalization is accurate. We as a generation depend on technology constantly for all of our answers. Why learn something when you can look it up on google? Technology is the reason we lack actual learning capabilities. The solution is to make school work a priority, not a cell phone.