Grading redux: Spelling and grammar
posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger
Another question from my friend “Jim”:
How much weight should I place on spelling and grammar? I myself place a very high value on perfect spelling and grammar, and I personally used to spend hours and hours combing through my documents to guarantee that my documents were free of absolutely any spelling or grammatical errors before I submitted them to a professor or a client. So, it’s frustrating me to no end to read a paper that was apparently thrown together without, as I admonished the students plenty of times in class, the student paying meticulous attention to eradicate any spelling errors or incorrect grammar in their final papers. How have you handled this?
It’s my sense that every professor handles it differently, but that everyone gives some weight to spelling, grammar, and so on. Personally, I allocate about a quarter of the points in my exams and papers to a category I call “writing and organization.” Students lose points from this pool if they have misspellings, bad grammar, bad organization, and so on. I think that this more or less mimics life on the outside. A brief or memo full of bad grammar and misspellings will not be viewed particularly kindly by a judge or a law firm partner. Because of this reality, I think it’s important to keep students focused on the importance of good grammar, spelling, and organization. On the other hand, perfect spelling of bad law won’t help either.
For me, the number of points at stake depends on the context. A few misspellings in a final exam will typically cost a student one or two points out of the total pool. Students are hastily putting together answers in a two or three hour period, and I’m not expecting polished perfection. The same few misspellings on a final paper, however, will cost a student significantly more points. A student who has months to put together a paper has more than enough time to ferret out any spelling, grammar, or organization problems in her paper.
March 13, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Posted in: Law School, Law School (Teaching)
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Responses (7)
tim zinnecker - March 13, 2006 at 8:45 pm
I graded approx. 140 exams last semester. I’m guessing that close to 25% misspelled my last name in the bluebooks, notwithstanding the fact that my name appeared on the exam itself.
Kaimi - March 13, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Wow – that really takes the cake, Mr. Zinecker.
asdf - March 14, 2006 at 2:30 am
I myself place a very high value on perfect spelling and grammar, and I personally used to spend hours and hours combing through my documents to guarantee that my documents were free of absolutely any spelling or grammatical errors before I submitted them to a professor or a client. So,
Superfluous comma.
it’s frustrating me to no end to read a paper that was apparently thrown together without, as I admonished the students plenty of times in class,
Could this interjected clause be more, as Ms. Hildebrand often admonished her students, awkward?
the student paying meticulous attention to eradicate any spelling errors or incorrect grammar
“… thrown together without meticulous attention to spelling and grammar”
Or are there bonus points for convoluted sentence constructions, so long as the spelling and grammar are perfect?
in their final papers. How have you handled this?
“… to read a paper … in their final papers” is akward.
“eradicate from” not “eradicate in”.
Sorry, I had too many professors like Jim.
Jason - March 14, 2006 at 6:29 am
asdf makes a good point. Were I grading in-class exams, I don’t think I’d count spelling and grammar at all unless it was just unreadable. I’d expect coherence, so organization of the answer might count for something, but the other things are often just typographical mistakes, and we all make plenty of those, especially under time pressure.
Also, what about foreign-born students whose command of English may not be quite as good? At my school, I know that LLM students who are non-native English speakers are supposed to make a notation saying as much on their exam, but I don’t know what the rules are for the professors grading those exams.
Daniel J. Solove - March 14, 2006 at 10:48 am
I don’t factor spelling into my grade for in-class exams. Students don’t have time to run spell check, and I don’t think that spelling matters at all in a timed exam. Likewise for most grammatical errors.
As for organization, this goes to the clarity of thought, and I do factor that into my grade. If a student’s answer is unclear or awkward or poorly expressed, I also factor that into the grade, as I believe it goes to quality of thought.
On papers, however, spelling and grammar matter, as the student has time to ensure that the final product is proofread. But in a timed exam, students are too busy rushing to complete the answers to have be thinking about fixing spelling and grammar.
I don’t think that spelling and grammar are relevant to a timed in-class exam. The timed in-class exam is a very imperfect metric, as speed becomes a major factor, and in real life, judges or partners don’t ask attorneys to write out their answers in three hours in a bluebook. At best, an in-class exam can reflect the quality of a student’s thought process and provide a window into the student’s analytical abilities. That’s what I look for when I grade in-class exams.
Hirbod Rashidi - March 14, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I gather much of it is not a deduction in the sense that there are points reserved for it on a cut-sheet. There is a subjective element to grading exams and I am sure most professors are influenced by bad writing.
I tend to agree with the school of thought that on a timed exam there should not be any points deducted for spelling errors unless it deals with a legal concept that no law student should be misspelling, e.g., “moot” spelled “mute,” or “cite” spelled “site” or “sight” (A3G exempt).
Jim - March 15, 2006 at 8:14 am
Touche’, asdf. The email in the original post was dashed off to a friend. On the other hand, my students have had months to write and polish their final papers. I agree that spelling and grammatical errors are generally immaterial to in-class exams.
For the record, my email was written from noting obvious typos (“suite” instead of suit, or “akward” instead of awkward) and citation errors, rather than sentence structure.
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