Letter to the editor
Dear Editor and Spartan Staff:I very much enjoyed the most recent edition of the Spartan. The stories on improvements to the campus and on the former CSC student now working in the Peace Corps are both interesting and well-developed. I look forward to reading many such stories in the coming academic year.
I am, however, somewhat concerned about the numerous errors throughout the paper. I noted many types of errors, but of specific concern to me were the punctuation, usage, and sentence-structure errors cropping up in a number of stories. Certainly, as an English instructor, I am more inclined to notice errors than many other readers might be; still, I believe that errors in grammar, punctuation, and usage are just as significant as factual errors. In this world, people often judge us based on what we write, in terms of content, but they also judge us based on how we write this content. Numerous errors send the message that the writer is ignorant of the conventions of Standard English or, worse yet, that the writer simply doesn’t care.
In the future, I hope that individual staff writers will be more mindful of how they are presenting themselves to the world though their writing and will be more careful about observing the conventions of Standard English.
Sincerely,
Drennan Spitzer, PhD.
Assistant Professor, English
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