I often have to inform students of the existence of the little known ‘erroneous apostrophe’, explaining it’s the type I occasionally slip into the text just
to check they’re paying close attention… ;-)
Steve
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of David Hardman
Sent: 17 December 2013 16:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Criteria writing and meaning
My own heart sinks to see that my previous email contained an erroneous apostrophe! (it's measurement)
On 17 December 2013 16:01, David Hardman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
George,
It seems to me that you've misinterpreted my own email!
Firstly, Elizabeth had raised the suggestion that certain concepts relevant to understanding an essay question could be explained in class - so that was indeed already part of the discussion, not something I introduced.
Second, who are these people in the thread that you believe are arguing against "clarity"? Certainly not me - but my point was really about where clarity begins and ends. I completely agree that a question using the term "critically critique...."
does represent a failure of clarity on the part of the question-setter. I also think that at some point in an undergraduate's education, ideally nearer the beginning than the end. it is helpful to explain what is expected when we ask a student to "compare
and contrast", "critique", "evaluate", etc. But should we be spending time explaining what we mean by "evidence", "information", etc? I don't think so. Incidentally, "information" may be an abstract concept, but as most of us understand it is already an everyday
term. By contrast, its technical meaning, let alone it's measurement, is something that most of us could not explain without looking it up in a reference source.
However, perhaps I am wrong and we do indeed need to explain words like "evidence" and "information". But my point remains - where is the cutoff between what we should expect students to know and what we have to explain? One of the problems
raised about such terms is that they are "abstract", but what does "abstract" mean? Isn't abstract itself an abstract word? We are exhorting our students to write in "plain" (another abstraction!) "everyday" language, but how are we gonna feel if, like, they
start writin' essays in textspeak an' stuff? Lol!
David
On 17 December 2013 15:20, Wilson, George <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
David: “if seminars simply become sessions on "how to write an essay" then it seems to me
we lose a bit more of what HE is supposed to be about”.
Let your heart sink no farther: this discussion is less about how to write an essay, and more about how to write a question.
By far the majority of students – including those who come for help – are able to write an essay: what the students, and student support workers find difficult to understand is
what the person who set the essay actually wants from them.
What place does aligned teaching have in this? None, some seem to believe.
“we lose a bit more of what HE is supposed to be about.” Does this mean that if I can set an essay question in clear, unambiguous wording that everyone comprehends, I should take
it back and re-write it in a more obscure format because (some say) deconstructing ambiguity is a key factor in academic study?
This (below) comes from The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
https://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf. Students are not necessarily investors but …..
“We’ll start by dispelling a common misconception about plain English writing. It does not mean deleting complex information to make the document easier to understand. For investors to make informed decisions, disclosure documents must impart complex
information. Using plain English assures the orderly and clear presentation of complex information so that investors have the best possible chance of understanding it.
Plain English means analyzing and deciding what information investors need to make informed decisions, before words, sentences, or paragraphs are considered. A plain English document uses words economically and at a level the audience can understand.”
For teachers not comfortable with the concept,
http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/files/howto.pdf might be a help.
And to those of you who argue against clarity in your criteria, how do you respond to ambiguity in the students’ answers?
George Wilson
From:
learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of David Hardman
Sent: 17 December 2013 14:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Criteria writing and meaning
On 12 December 2013 09:59, Elizabeth Thomson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
[...]
Many assessment criteria seems to include a proliferation of abstract nouns, such as information, contextualization, techniques, evidence etc. but very little to help students understand what they mean - what Len describes as symptoms, but I would basically describe as examples - e.g. - in order to contextualize a piece of artwork you need to consider the time and place that it was made, and the ideas, theories, politics, technical considerations in that time and place that influenced the artist etc. Detailed examples can be given in lectures, seminars etc. but just breaking the terminology down can help.
[...]
To be honest, my heart sinks at the suggestion that words such as "evidence" need to be explained to students. If you try to provide a definition of such a word, you most likely
end up using other abstract terms, which then themselves need to be defined, and so on
ad infinitum. If you try to explain using concrete examples, then you add considerably to the wordage of a module handbook (which someone else in this thread already identified as a problem), and there is also the risk that a student will not spot the
relevance of the example to the concept you are talking about (Oops!! I used the word
relevance there, which someone else identified as a problematical word. How am I going to explain that...?!)
I do take the point that some of this elaboration can happen in class, although how much time do you give over to this kind of activity? Most of us want to use seminar time to discuss
ideas; if seminars simply become sessions on "how to write an essay" then it seems to me we lose a bit more of what HE is supposed to be about.
It seems to me that there has to be a point at which we need to expect that people will be able to understand fairly ordinary words.
-- David Hardman
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Dr David Hardman
School of Psychology
Faculty of Life Sciences
London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Road
London, N7 8DB
Phone: 020 7133 2554
--
Dr David Hardman
School of Psychology
Faculty of Life Sciences
London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Road
London, N7 8DB
Phone: 020 7133 2554
Companies Act 2006 : http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/companyinfo