Dear Diana and Tony,

Thank you very much indeed for raising this matter in such a comprehensive and interesting way.

What you have written about is so fascinating, and so important. The issues are extremely far-reaching, and in one sense you barely scratch the surface.

I have taught and advised in UK higher education and elsewhere for over 20 years. I have mulled over many of your questions and observations, as I expect thousands of others have, for all of that time. I have no solutions, but your posting has prompted many different thoughts and reactions. The best I can do is make a list of numbered comments or points, in no particular order, and see what happens next.

1) When I was at school I was taught by teachers who were interested in clear writing, and tried to encourage us to practise it. I remember one teacher of English who repeatedly gave half a crown to the first person to parse a sentence he wrote on the board. (I was one of two in the class who usually won the money. I loved the analytical approach to language. Others didn’t.) I believe that pupils at school are not taught these skills now. Grammatical writing is learned, not genetic.

2) Some of the students we encounter have dyslexia. The classic sign of dyslexia, for a university teacher, is the student whose verbal contributions in class are sparkling, who shows every sign of being a brilliant student, and who then submits written work which is appallingly bad. Of course this applies to only a small percentage of students (the British Dyslexia Association have suggested between 4% and 10%), but it is very real, and should not be forgotten.

3) The ability to work with written communication is not an ability for which evolution has prepared us. As a species we have been communicating verbally for tens of thousands of years, and, with very few exceptions, every single individual over that time has been successful at speaking and understanding speech. (I believe my facts to be substantially correct. If they are wrong in detail, please correct me, but I think my argument still holds.) In contrast, the ability to read and write has been possessed by only a tiny minority of individuals for almost the whole of those tens of thousands of years. A select few have used written communication, but I hazard a guess that it is only in the last 100, or even 50, years that that few has become anything like a majority. The extraordinary fact is not that so many people cannot write clearly, but that so many people can write at all.

4) The UK education system (and, I presume, the USA system) has an inherent mechanism which perpetuates its own prejudices, faults, and benefits. School teachers are recruited from those who are successful, in terms of passing assessments, in A-levels at school and in degrees at universities; and who then progress to be taught by similar people during PGCE courses. University teachers tend to be selected from university graduates and, especially, postgraduates who perpetuate the beliefs and prejudices which they have learnt from their similarly-inclined predecessors. I am not suggesting that this is wrong; I am merely pointing out that it may not be perfect, because it may promulgate some wrong practices. It is undoubtedly a mechanism which makes it difficult for students with different ways of thinking to succeed or be appreciated. Those with Asberger's, or autism, may fit in very well, those with hyperactivity may not.

5) Higher education was available to about 5% (I believe) of school leavers when I left school in 1965. Now it is available to, say, 50%. I expect that the 5% tended to correspond, to a large extent, to those who could write well; now UK HE has opened the doors to those who cannot. This observation leads, combined with points 3) and 4), to the conclusion that a system which may have worked quite well in the past cannot be expected to do so now. Once again the remarkable fact is that the country continues to function quite well in many ways, not that many people can’t write very clearly.

6) Returning to point 3) (evolution not preparing us for writing): the ability to work with logical, linear, thinking has great value in some situations; but there are other forms of intelligence which have equally great value in other situations. Let’s take one example. Our ability to read non-verbal signals from other people enables us to read other people’s moods and intentions, and has a huge effect on our ability to function together in groups. But these abilities are emotional and instinctive; they are not logical. (Of course sociologists and psychologists study them academically, and write about them eruditely, but we nearly all carry on using them without having read those writings at all.) I am suggesting that the ability to write well is an ability which some of us have, and which is undoubtedly very valuable, but which depends on a strength in logical, linear, thinking which not all of us have. It is not necessarily a disgrace that some of us don’t have it.

7) There is an established method of writing that is regarded as good. It involves correct spelling, correct use of sentences, good grammar, logical flow of thought, and, indeed, all the things that you, Diana and Tony, very comprehensively list in your posting, and lament the lack of in your students’ writings. Here I am once again straying into areas of my own ignorance, but I believe that much of this style was developed and perfected by Victorian grammarians who laid down rules, saying that certain things were correct, and certain others incorrect. The study and practice of this style has a wonderful beauty to it, but it is a minority activity (and an obsession for some!). Language, both written and spoken, is alive and changing. (One minor example: some people know that “Andrew and me went to the cinema.” is somehow wrong; and therefore carefully say “Fred saw Andrew and I in town.” believing they are somehow correct. Today’s widely committed errors are always likely to become tomorrow’s accepted practice.) It is not at all hard, Diana and Tony, to find grammatical errors in your posting, and there will be errors in mine, too, but I do know that that is straying from your point.

8) I completely agree with you that writing ideas down is a wonderful way of examining one’s thoughts and ideas. (Who was it who said, “How can I know what I think until I hear what I say?”? But she needed to say things, not write them!) But just because you and I agree on this doesn’t mean that it is true for everyone. Do you have any evidence upon which to base your belief?

9) I really don’t believe that extensive use of texting is anything to do with what we are discussing. Communicating via text messages is a highly refined and economic skill. Sending “c u tomoz?” is an example of extremely clear communication, once you know the language. I do think that reading good writing can be an educational process, so if today’s students do that less, then their poor writing may be one result.

10) I do believe that all of us, and students in particular, follow examples that we respect. Many of the examples which are now so widely available to us are themselves appallingly bad. Some national newspapers present material in ways that suggest that it is based on rational logical thought, but which is in fact anything but. I listen extensively to Radio 4, and I am frequently appalled by the lack of clear thought often demonstrated by some of the most respected presenters. (It must be difficult to keep logical thought at the forefront of your mind for hours on end, though, when you have to keep speaking to hold things together. I couldn’t do it! We are all emotional and irrational creatures at heart.) Students have many appalling (I know I keep using this word, but I liked it in your early paragraph!) examples of writing thrust at them from every side. Is it any wonder that they follow suit?

11) A final point continuing from point 10): much of the writing which circulates around universities, including that from some heads of academic departments, in policy papers, and in regulations, is also appallingly bad; and yet this is stuff which is often presented to students.

So there we are. You asked for evidence based solutions. I have given none. (Should that not be “evidenced-based”. (What is that “not” doing there?)) So I will close with a proposal for a solution, albeit one without evidence.

It is easy to solve this problem:
A.      Entry to any university degree programme must be conditional upon passing a rigorous test in clear writing. No exceptions.
B.      If A. results in student numbers tending to fall, then create separate establishments offering courses to train people to write more clearly, so that they can progress to HE. (I wonder what name we should give to those establishments?)

Aldous Huxley wrote (I am working from memory, so the quote may be innacurate), “We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality; all that we can hope is that we are unreasonable in a reasonable way.”

Best wishes,

Robert

Robert Edwards MA PhD PGCEd PGDip(Literacy and Dyslexia) AMBDA(FE/HE) ILTM PGCert(Counsellling) -- but did any of that teach me to write?
Combined Studies Unit & Disability and Dyslexia Service/
   Uned Astudiaethau Cyfun a Sylfan a Gwasanaethau Anabledd a Dyslecsia
University of Glamorgan/Prifysgol Morgannwg
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