Williams Discussion--Error as Construct (Monday's work)

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?