In the lead-in to Williams' article, Downs and Wardle define "construct" for us, a term I've been throwing around for several days, but haven't yet defined. And since you'll be writing your first project about constructs, it's important that you have a clear idea of what they are:). So, D&W write that a construct is "a set of ideas woven together over time until they seem inevitable, the only way of thinking about a problem, when in fact they are not at all inevitable but simply choices in thinking that are constructed to look unavoidable. The concept of error in writing that most people hold," they add, "is one that people have become accustomed to, but it is not one that is necessarily universally true" (37-8). Here are the two sets of questions I'd like to use to begin our discussion of Williams' article. [Due: end of the day Monday]
1. What is this common conception of error that Williams is responding to? What have been some of your own experiences with this idea of error? Why do they stand out for you? How would you react to those experiences now after reading Williams' piece? What, if anything, did you disagree with in this article? What arguments did he make that conflict with your own experience or with your sense of how things should be done?
2. Two of Williams' claims are that (a) if we read expecting to find errors, we tend to find them, whereas if we aren't looking for them we are less likely to notice them, and (b) if we were to read student papers as we read "ordinary" texts, we would find far fewer errors in them. If you take these two ideas together, what does Williams seem to be saying? What do you think about that?
1) WIlliams is responding to the conception that linguistic errors are much more atrocious than social errors. Personally, I have my own grammatical pet peeves, most of which I've picked up from my boyfriend. For example, it bugs the snot out of me when someone misuses "good" and "well." Also, when reading things on the internet, the misuse of "your" and "you're" is just as irksome.
ReplyDeleteI've been corrected enough on my misuse that anyone else's misuse instantly jumps out at me. Before reading this, I really didn't over-react to the misuse of either, I just note it and move on, so this article didn't really affect my behavior and perception. Nothing that he said in the article, I disagreed with or found fault with.
2)Williams seems to be saying with these claims that error is subjective and that you will find errors where you want to. I feel that he has a very valid point. I have a very similar situation when it comes to watching movies. Especially when I'm watching a movie with my boyfriend, who can be a nitpicker when it comes to details, I look for things like things that the crew accidentally left in frame, continuity errors and if concepts and technology are feasible in the world that the movie presents. The same kind of ideas apply to reading and looking for grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.
1. The common conception of error Williams responds to is the way people have become familiar with the writing they have learned in school. The way they have been taught is the way they will be writing. Not everything is true with the writing we grew up with; there are different ways of writing that people haven’t come familiar with. The usages of grammar people have are errors throughout their writing that are just simple mistakes. Whether they use the wrong tense of their, they’re and there or using who instead of whom. One of my friends would always correct me because I would use the wrong tenses of words and since then I have always used the right one. I now have a habit of correcting others when they misuse mistakes like I used to. I didn’t disagree with Williams article because I can relate to what he was informing.
ReplyDelete2. The claims Williams is saying is depending on a person they will find a mistake where they want to fine one. If you aren’t looking for errors when reading you aren’t going to find anything because you don’t notice any errors. With what Williams claims are similar to when I read and don’t want to I don’t get the understanding of what I just read. You’re not going to understand a reading if you don’t want to or don’t like reading. Whereas if I would find the reading interesting and want to read then I will get the message of the book and understand what I read. Williams is correct with these claims because if you don’t want to do something or aren’t paying attention then you aren’t gong to understand or notice any mistakes.
1. William is responding to how students use many typical errors when writing like on pg. 38 when William mentions, between you and I or a which for a that. Another problem also that William mentions is faulty parallelism. Many of those sentences can be imporved by making coordinate elements parallel to the topic. I do agree with Williams article. He taught me how to re read and look for simple errors that can be fixed when I proof read my own paper or someone else.
ReplyDelete2. Willima is saying that we can find common errors but we have to actually be looking for them, otherwise we tend to just read it as it is. I think William is correct in someways because I tend to make the mistake myself. I need to be intrested in my reading and it needs be a topic i like in order for me to be able to find any mistakes otherwise i find myself reading the paragraph and still not knowing what it was about nor less finding the errors. I can relate to how William describes this on pg. 45 when he mentions, if we read any text the way we read freshman essays, we will find many of the same kind of errors we routinely expect to find and therefore do find. But if we could read those student essays unreflexively, if we could make the ordinary kind of contract with those texts that we make with other kinds of texts, then we could find many fewer errors.
The common conception or error that William responds to is the way people are taught to write since they learned how to write. Like quoted on pg 37 it says “they think if they learn grammar…..learned to write” I think it means that not only if they are taught how to write doesn’t mean that they know how to write correctly. I think some experiences that I have is that I grew up learning how to write in a simple way but as I got to high school I was all confused about writing. As, I wrote as I was taught my high school teacher would get mad and tell me that I was still missing things. What I have learned is that there are different ways on writing and that everybody is taught differently.
ReplyDeleteI think the claims that William is making is that if an error is looked for it will be found unless it is not looking for. For example, when someone is reading a story there are just reading to get the information and not really stop and think of what is really happening. In other words people just read without looking for the real details that the author is giving you. Like for instance when I read a book that I don’t like I just read and sometimes I don’t even understand what is going on because I don’t find interest in it.
1) Common conceptions of error that William discusses are those of grammar and usage errors. He states that some people notice some errors more than others, and some consider some errors worse than others. Some of these errors are based on social error. These are the type of errors that are seen as inappropriate. I can relate to what Williams is saying, because there are many errors that don’t fly by me, but they slide right through my husband’s eyes. I like when Williams states “If simply feels more authentic when we condemn error and enforce a rule” (pg. 51). What I took from this, is when we find an error we just fix it and teach the person a rule to correct it.
ReplyDelete2) I understand question number two very well. If we go into something looking for errors we’re going to find them, because that’s what we’re focused on. Or if we’re reading a paper as any other text, then we wouldn’t be so critical of it because we’re not busy looking for errors. I agree with Williams thoughts, because I do notice when I am critical of other’s errors at appropriate times. When I receive incoming text messages I’m not so critical of all the errors that arise from the message. As oppose to when I’m in class and a classmate asks me to read her paper for errors, then I’m going to be aware of them. I believe what he is saying is true, because it goes with anything in general, if we’re looking for something wrong we’re going to find it no matter what it is. If we’re not looking for it then we’re not aware of it. This might not stand true to everyone though, because I know of some people that are critical of everything no matter what, and will point your errors out.
1) Williams is responding to the common conception of error that appears most of us have become contented with (grammar and usage). Some of us have become satisfied with what we hear and read, that as long we understand what’s being said we have no complains, but for others these types of errors are unacceptable. Because of my Mexican heritage, I’m very familiar with what Williams is talking about; I’m fortunately enough to have a husband that helps me with the correct pronunciation of present/past tense (unfortunately he is not with me all the time), which I have lots of trouble with (tend to think in Spanish and translate to English, but at the end it does not sounds correct-at all).
ReplyDeleteOn page 45 paragraph 26 he wrote that errors can be discussed in two ways: “we can discuss it at a level of consciousness that places that error at the very center of our consciousness. Or we can talk about how we experience (or not) what we popularly call errors of usage as they occur in the ordinary course of our reading a text.” Let’s stop and think a little, in reality who out there goes around correcting the way others speak? Unless you know that person and have the trust required then you might bring it up to their attention, but otherwise is not an easy thing to do. It is true that sometimes we can catch some of the mistakes of others as they speak, but unless you are 100% concentrated on what being said, it is kind of impossible to pin point exactly what they said wrong (unless that’s your job). Williams is correct on everything he said, and for me it’s a matter of consciousness-think before speak and read and reread before sending. I don’t disagree with him, I actually agree with everything he said. Practice makes perfect, so let’s practice what he said.
2) Williams is trying to say that once we set our mind to look for errors we will find them. As an example we have teachers revising their students’ essays. That’s part of their job, to review and find the errors and bring them up to the students’ attention (how the saying goes “if you look for them-you will find them”). On the other hand, when reading an essay for pleasure we might notice errors here and there, but since we are not reading to critique we are most likely to find fewer errors. When reading for pleasure some of us read through the books without paying specific attention to grammar, punctuation, etc. as long the main point is being captured we continue reading. It would probably take me twice as long (or maybe longer) to finish reading a book if I were to pay attention to specific details.
1. Williams is responding to the common conception of the many errors that happen while writing. People think that the way they were primarily thought to write in is still the same, but it isn’t. One of the biggest and simplest forms of errors are grammatical ones. Like Laura states, “whether using the wrong tense” or sometimes people have the tendency of using the wrong word, like “of” or “off.” I don’t disagree with this article at all, everything stated was true.
ReplyDelete2. William states that we will find common errors if we are actually looking for them, I don’t necessarily believe that’s true, I’d have to agree and disagree. When I’m on Facebook (not looking for errors in posts) and friend updates their status with mistakes it really upsets me, because without looking for them I will notice them. Most of the time I will comment on their status and correct whatever it is they’ve posted. Another scenario is when a friend asks me to “proofread” their essay, that’s when I not only read it, but look for mistakes. I think that if it’s in you to be pointing out what is “wrong” then you’ll always see it, if not, you won’t.
1.The common misconception that Williams is responding to is the fact that many people think that spelling and grammar are all that writing is. It took me a while to realize that writing is much more than grammar and punctuation. I would often get confused when writing and not really understand what I was supposed to be doing. Now I think that I would understand what it is I am supposed to be doing and that writing is about much more than grammar and spelling. I agrees with Williams view about writing being more than what people normally see it as.
ReplyDelete2. It seems to me that Williams is stating that you don't really see the error unless you are looking for it.In a sense he is stating that most people don't spend enough time reading through an article to pick up things like that because they are simply skimming over it. I think that it is true. Most people just skim through information trying to get just the main points of it instead of really reading through and looking for details
The common conception of error Williams is responding to is when writers make mistake in their writing. I just remember being bad at my sentence structure and when reading another's essay, grammatical errors were the first thing that would pop out to me rather than the context. I guess now I am going to be focusing on the context rather than the grammatical errors. I did have to disagree with the fact that his article contained errors intentionally; it proved a point, definitely, but I had to read the sentences about 3 or 4 times before I could understand.
ReplyDeleteI feel that he is saying that instead of instructors focusing on grammar and sentence structure, they should be focusing on the content because that is what really counts. I am glad someone finally said this. It is so hard for me to get my ideas out on paper because I was so focused on spelling, I have to agree with him when he states that "a form of the error has to be in the teacher who resonated--or not--to the error on the page on the basis of the error listed in the handbook" (Williams 42). I 100% agree with that because I feel that we all write the way we write because we were taught to write like that because each teacher had their own set of rule that we had to follow.
1. Williams, in this article was writing about how students tend to make typical mistakes i.e. Grammatical or punctual that weren't corrected in high school so they became unnoticed errors. I never checked myself really on errors mentioned in the reading because my teachers never caught them either. I would take my time to see simple mistakes that are easy to find and come by in my work or someone else's.
ReplyDelete2. I can tell by the stated facts that Williams is trying to tell us that common errors are easily found by if we want to find them and not by accident.I agree in what she is saying because when reading something or writing something that doesn't intrest you there are going to be multiple mistakes.
1.) Williams is responding to common mistakes students make when writing, or common 'errors', like using 'I' in the place of 'me', or vice versa. This kind of thing is common when it comes to grammar usage, as the English language is in itself a tricky one to master, compared to other languages around the world. I encounter a lot of these type of errors a lot online, the most common being the misuse of you're and your. It's something I automatically pick up on, but I don't really hold it against the person who made the error. It's really not that big of a deal at all. I think as long as people can tell what that person meant, that's really all that matters. Some people can be so critical about such little things, it's kind of annoying. Like.. I won't remember that Sam said "Me and Sara went to the store", but I will remember that Tony just had to call Sam out on his mistake in front of everyone. We could have just moved on and Sam could have continued his story, but Tony had to be a jerk and now we have this 'conflict' around us. That example should speak for itself as far as explaining how I feel about those kind of errors. Unless the person is pursuing a writing career, small errors like that are ok with me.
ReplyDelete2.) I completely agree with Williams. I think this is very true even outside of writing. I also think that not only will you find errors, but your mind will set out to make something out of nothing just because you're expecting something to be there. It's just in our nature. As far as student papers, if an instructor were to not read a student's paper with such a critical eye, they would be more able to take in what the student is trying to convey, as opposed to if the teacher were using up some of their energy on the sole pursuit of finding error.
Williams attempt make the writer see the bigger picture about writing. The bigger picture tells you that there are certain rules that do not change, but can be manipulated withing certain type of situations. He also says that writing with different words can mean the same thing with another set of words. This sets up the writer to easily fall prey to plagiarism. Writing has an authorative set of rules that makes the writer a fixed writer with certain parameters for being impersonal.
ReplyDelete1.Williams is talking all about grammar mistakes commonly found in writing. I, personally, have been trained very well in grammar. I am usually the friend who corrects everyone's usages in speech and in writing. I suppose I have just always been corrected since I was young, now I know what is right and wrong. I think Williams is being a little nit-picky and confusing, but I suppose he's right.
ReplyDelete2. Dirt is always more noticeable on a white carpet. Williams makes a lot of sense when he says that we notice errors even more when we are looking for them. A lot depends on our outlook. If we have a positive outlook that the article is perfect, we will, most likely, love the article. If we have a pessimistic outlook on the article, we will find numerous errors and not enjoy the article.