Want to get depressed? Try reading and/or editing the writing of principals and teachers. You should see the emails I get. If I had a nickel for every misplaced apostrophe, every use of “quotation marks” for emphasis, and every they’re/their/there error, I’d…have many nickels.

Comments

22 January | 20:56 | Kelly

Oh. I get it. Your trying to say their not too "bright".

27 January | 16:45 | Matt

Very true (will you allow a purposeful fragment?).

I'm a high school English teacher, and cringe when a school-wide email is sent by some teachers. While the spelling and grammar skills of most professionals leave something to be desired (I've worked in other fields), we should expect educators to have those things down pat.

In my old school district, there was a young English teacher who often sent school-wide emails, and made glaring errors every time. Our department chair had to speak to her to remind her to proofread her messages.

It's a real problem.

Matt

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Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)