Donna Kelley
Mr. Wiles
English 102
2/4/13
IMRaD
Introduction
In everyday life we see errors and more specifically errors in writing. Since writing
errors are common to us as a society, we begged the question which ones are the most
bothersome? How different is the irritation level between younger and older people? Is there a
difference in the irritation level depending on whether the writing is formal or informal?
Everyone is affected by writing errors, so it is important to find what is annoying or
unprofessional to people so that you can correct those mistakes. Furthermore, the youth of today
will one day be the head of companies and will be in charge of the hiring and firing of people, so
they need to know correct grammar.
Over all, there are quite a few professionals and/or researchers who have covered varying
points in the broad topic of writing errors. These authors would include people such as, David
Bartholomae, Maxine Hairston, and Larry Beason.
First, in Bartholomae’s article he seemed to deal with writing as a whole. What
constitutes great or average writing? In addition to looking at writing as a whole, Bartholomae
used error analysis to gage what the writer has written. This method, says Scholar and English
professor David Bartholomae “… shows the necessary stages of individual development and
provides insight into the idiosyncratic strategies of a particular language user at a particular point
in his acquisition of a target language.” This type of analysis is a way to show what stage the
writer is at in their learning and how they should progress.
Next, there is both Maxine Hairston and Larry Beason. They both tested how bothersome
certain errors in writing were to different people. They both tested on business professionals
however Hairston knew most of the people she polled. English professor Maxine Hairston also
found that “on all but, a few sentences, women checked a much higher percentage of “Bothers
me a lot” than men did.” This shows that women see grammar in a more serious light than men.
Throughout all of these sources the authors looked at writing in a more professional light,
but did not mention anything about informal writing. Our society has changed quite a bit since
the writing of these three publications. Society as a whole is now more technology based. We
text instead of talking on the phone and we are completely dependent upon all social media
websites. The researchers intend to look at the relation between the two types of writing, formal
and informal, to see how it affects people’s opinion on the errors made within the texts. The
researchers are also looking at how the older generation versus the younger generation sees these
errors.
Our overall question is are certain errors in writing more or less bothersome to people of
all ages, and if so why do they affect them that way? We expect to see a little bit of a difference
between the two generations purely because schools have changed the way they teach and what
they teach since the older generation was in school. We also expect to see a difference for the
younger generation because of all the social media that exists now.
We are going to test these levels of irritation through surveys and interviews. The main
method will be the surveys and then we will interview a few people to get a deeper sense of why
they find the error bothersome.
Methods
The first method that was used was a survey. The survey was used because it was the
most efficient way to get a larger pool of data to try and prove our point. On the survey we first
asked several background questions such as, their age, occupation, gender, highest degree of
education, and race. These questions were asked to be able to get a better idea of the background
of the participants and possible ways to group them.
A total of eight sentences were put on the survey. An example of a sentence in the
survey is ‘Jim and Nancy said that there going to Alaska’. The error in each of the sentences was
highlighted so as not to make the participant think that they were being tested on their
knowledge. The sentences were to be ranked on a scale of 1-5 one being the least bothersome
and five being most bothersome. The errors in the survey were comprised largely of tense errors,
preposition errors, and errors where the wrong word was used such as there, their, and they’re.
The second method used was an interview. On the interview we asked a few more
background questions and delved deeper into why they answered the way they did on the survey.
The background questions asked were what was the participants major and current GPA? Other
questions asked were which error bothered you the most and why, how often these errors are
seen in the participants’ day to day life, and the participants’ impression of people that make
these errors. We also inquired what experience if any shaped the way that they see errors and
what errors they make when writing.
Results
After, all of the data had been collected the researchers decided the best way to analyze it
would be to first take the surveys and split the younger and older generations into two groups
and then compare and contrast the two groups. The younger group made up of mainly students
that range in age from 18-25 and the older group ranged in age from 30 and up. We then
Average irritation
Students
6
4
2
Students
0
1
2
3
4 5 6
Questions
7
8
averaged the irritation level for each question in both of the groups.
Figure 1 ‘the average irritation level for the younger generation regarding writing errors’
Average irritation
Older people
5
4
3
2
1
0
Older people
1
2
3
4 5 6
Questions
7
8
Figure 2 ‘average irritation level for the older generation regarding writing errors’
Figure 1 and Figure 2 show how we separated the two generations and averaged out the
results. The results that were gathered were not numerous enough to show any sort of wide
difference between the two groups however there were some subtle differences. Over all, the
most bothersome error was in sentence number three. The sentences was ‘He seen the movie
already’ this error is a tense error. When averaged it scored a high four in irritation level in both
of the groups.
The researchers also found that younger people were less bothered by both sentence
number two and sentence four number than the older generation. Sentence number two was
‘where are you at?’ this one was a preposition error where the ‘at’ at the end of the question
should just be dropped. The younger people scored a low 1.4 in irritation level compared to the
older generations 2.7 which is still low on the scale, but when compared to the younger
generation is just a little bit higher. Sentence number 4 was ‘Ask someone who has already took
the test’ this sentence was another tense error. The younger group scored it at an irritation level
of a low 2.6 to the older generations’ medium 3.4 irritation level.
The researchers did not interview everyone that was surveyed however, from the
interviews that we did get the answers for questions five and seven were very similar for
everyone interviewed. Question number five was ‘what was your impression of people who
make these errors?’ Participants thought that these people were lazy and wondered how they
made it to college. Question number seven was ‘Does the type of writing, formal or informal,
affect how much the errors bother you?’ Every participant answered that yes, in informal writing
such as Facebook or twitter errors are expected, but that more effort is expected of formally
written document. The overall GPA of the participants that were interviewed ranged from a 2.3 –
3.8, so we can assume that these are people who give a sufficient amount of effort to their
studies.
Discussion
It is important that we know what errors are made and how people relate to these errors
so that steps can be taken to fix such errors. A good start to knowing this information is the
research that we have done. As well as, the research that both Beason and Hairston have
completed. All three studies show that misspellings and improper word usage are among the
most bothersome errors that people make when writing. The reasons for this can vary. It depends
on the person’s education, natural inclination towards grammar, and in most cases it was women
who were more worried about these errors than men. Now that we have this information it is
important to make the results known to the rest of society so that they can make the proper
changes to be able to stop from making these errors. A way to cut down on the errors being made
would be to step up education especially in high school. We need teachers to be stricter than they
are when they see these errors, because one day the kids that they are teaching are going to be the
ones in charge. On a larger scale, with all of the social media and texting, if we change the way
we type out words from the original spelling we will eventually create a generation that cannot
spell. Over all, we need to make sure that what is taught will build the younger generation for
success.
Works Cited
Hairston, Maxine. “Not all errors are created equal: Non-academic readers in the professions
respond to errors in the usage” 794-796.
Bartholomae, David. “College Composition and Communication” 253-256.