Re: grammar & workplace writing, reply

[Linda Bergmann <bergmann@umr.edu>]

At 04:00 PM 5/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, one of the documents prepared for my promotion case has a big old
>subject-verb agreement error in the middle, one of those slips that can
>happen when you make last-minute, fussy changes. Maybe the people who read
>it figured "Gee,they really do need a linguist." When I'm the one writing
>and editing the promotion documents, I'll make sure the final versions are 
>proofread and
>then sit there slapping hands if need be to keep mutliple committee
>members (sometimes from two departments) from introducing changes and,
>possibly, errors

We all hate folks who "correct" our memos and other documents for comma
errors and usage mistakes, etc.--and rightfully scorn them. (One of my
detractors likes to hunt for mistakes on my memos and reports and submit
them to me; so does one of my supporters, for that matter.  grrr!) On the
other hand, it is very important to me to have a secretary who can write in
"high standard written English."  Without her, I'd have to compose for
myself every document that we produce, and I simply do not have the time
for that.  It is important that I have writing tutors who can speak and
write in high standard English, so that when they do class presentations
about the writing center, they sound "good" to the students and faculty who
listen to them.  "Good grammar/usage" is indeed a status marker, and my
students are aspiring to high-status jobs, both in the university and in
their lives afterward.  So to pretend that they are up to the mark when
they are not is hardly doing them a favor.  The question for me is, how can
we most efficiently bring students "up to the mark" --in our classes and in
our writing centers.

Do I like the fact that universities are complicit in maintaining the
status marks--and thereby the status quo?  About that I'm not so sure.  But
that's why most of my students are here.  And I certainly have drilled my
son in "high status" English, just as I demand high status table manners
and other behaviors.  And I've always had the suspicion that if I do not
demand the same from my students, what I'm doing is making sure that they
cannot compete with my son.

Linda S. Bergmann
Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
University of Missouri-Rolla
Rolla, MO  65409

(573) 341-4685

bergmann@umr.edu