Good Writing Skills Are Essential - Page 3

I thought my grammar/spelling was excellent until I took a job with paper charting. Every night I chart and have to figure out the spelling of at least one word. I have been humbled by these damn paper charts!

I posted this in a different thread the other day:


A few years ago, a local philanthropist set up a fund to pay the college tuition (to any public school in this state) for every student who graduated from a certain school district. Sadly, it wasn't until AFTER this huge financial contribution was made that the school district itself revamped the entire curriculum, from kindergarten through 12th grade, so that graduates would be college-ready when they received their diploma. They also set up rules that kids who didn't read at grade level at certain ages would have to either attend summer school or repeat the previous grade until they did read at the minimum grade level. They also set up programs to have mentors, tutors, etc., work with at-risk kids of all ages.

How PATHETIC is that??? Why on earth did they have a curriculum that didn't prepare kids for college in the first place? Why didn't they demand that kids read at grade level in the first place? If they knew that at-risk kids needed mentoring and tutoring, why didn't they set up those programs beforehand? And take note -- the philanthropist's donation did NOT go to the school district directly -- it went into a totally separate foundation and is administered separately from the school district's funds. It's an entirely different entity offering a scholarship for everyone who happens to graduate from that particular district. The school didn't have any financial windfall as a result of this scholarship program which allowed them to afford to put all these changes into effect; they're doing all this with their same per-student budget allowance from the state.

So why didn't they even TRY to educate kids prior to the scholarship program???? Because nobody expected them to, obviously....

As someone with a BSN, BA in English and years of experience in the corporate sector, I agree that solid writing skills are essential. However, colleges today do not seem to think so and, as a result, assign As to papers that are not actually A quality. During my BSN program, we were required to write a number of papers, and as long as we met the required elements for content, we received an A. I made every effort to produce well-researched, well-written papers and earned As. My classmates who put forth a great deal of effort in researching and little to no effort in writing well also received As. The only difference was that I received a comment from the instructor saying what a greater writer I was. I would have preferred the distinction of a higher grade, since I clearly put forth more effort than many of my classmates.

If the institutions granting us degrees have set their standards so low, how can we expect more from our nurses? Then again, the real issue seems to be that higher education has placed a greater emphasis on the almighty dollar instead of the quality of education it delivers to those forking over their dollars. As a result, we have adults who lack professionalism - and writing well is a standard of professionalism.

i don't think it's just the educational institutions, although their charge is to produce what they call at harvard commencement "the company of educated men and women." what about.... allnurses?

i serve in an editorial capacity for a journal, which is fancy-speak for, "i read submissions and repair them for public consumption." while i see many articles from mns, phds, and mds with awful grammar, the only thing that keeps me from writing nasty letters to their deans is the even-worse writing i get from asns and bsns. this is doubtless why my hair is so thin.

i say it's time for those of us who survived the nuns or other vicious middle-school english teachers to stand up and be proud. somebody needs to speak up for standards, dammitol. i know that an is supposed to be nice-nice, supportive, noncritical, and they'll probably never make the mistake of letting me be a guide again :d, but i don't think we serve our profession by letting this sloppy practice go.

what's the matter with having grammar police, spelling mavens, usage practitioners roaming the aisles here? i'm not looking to smack palms with rulers, but if we could somehow have anonymous editors empowered to make grammatical corrections to posts without comment, the way the letters to the editor folks do at, oh, time magazine, the local newspaper, and sports illustrated, readability would improve and it would give readers exemplars to follow.

And they'll be the ones to draw the 'happy smiley face or the boo-boo frown face'! GRRRRRRR

In all my correspondences, I try to be careful, but I'll miss a typo, a singulair/plural rule, semicolon, etc here and there. For some reason, I have caught myself omitting capitalizing the very first word in a post (but OK after punctuation). But this isn't formal documentation.

While I do understand that we post when we are fatigued and on cell phones and those mistakes can be distinguished from mere laziness or lack or skill. What I don't understand is when people post with poor grammar because they think it doesn't matter that we should still view them as smart and professional. Or those whose use things like no capitals or a proliferation of periods as a "style".

When I'm tired I end up putting lots of extra letters in words. Like punctiatiaon.

I highly recommend Revising Prose by Richard A. Lanham. Perfect book for taking writing to the next level no matter what field or stage of life you are in. Slightly pricey but well worth it!

Amazon.com: Revising Prose (5th Edition) (9780321441690): Richard A. Lanham: Books

The no capitals are those darn IPhones/Pads and auto correct.

As for the proliferation of peroids? Guilty . Style? I guess, maybe? I'm not sure.
It makes sense in my mind as a pause.....Sorry.

I'm a writer so I take English skills seriously, though I occasionally have problems with grammar myself (I'm from the south y'all). I always thought other college students would be as conscientious, especially those applying for nursing school. Ha! What a joke!

Many of the nursing instructors have crappy spelling and grammar, too. How can I take them seriously if they can't even respond sensibly to a simple email? Argh!!

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com