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Computers To Mark English Essays
digitig writes "According to The Guardian, computers are to be used in the UK to mark English examination essays. 'Pearson, the American-based parent company of Edexcel, is to use computers to "read" and assess essays for international English tests in a move that has fueled speculation that GCSEs and A-levels will be next. ... Pearson claims this will be more accurate than human marking.' Can computers now understand all the subtle nuances of language, or are people going to have to learn an especially bland form of English to pass exams?"
Or, Like the rest of the mindless babble who went to college to learn how to teach English, you simply learned the modern day equivalent of what was appropriate in the context of what you are expecting. That is to say, you a merely a pawn in the game of the universe, a slight soldier who will at a whim of the powerful say x-y=x and a-b=n. I had professor once upon a time who was more than aware of the intention and overall intellectual position on a subject despite grammatical errors. When he would correct me it would be because of lack of empirical evidence or supporting arguments or counter-arguments. What you speak of is basic common English, which whether you like it or not changes over years, decades, and centuries. Grammar is not nearly as important as matter in any context or situation worth noting. how many authors have had no editors? Just because I write a book of philosophy that is grammatically incorrect but possibly deeply insightful doesn't not make it any less important. Despite all my ramblings, grammar is still a core building block of good writing, but not necessarily a strict requirement. I say all this after about 7 Guiness at happy hour with the boss, and 3 pints of Three Philosophers' Ale afterwards. I challenge you to find the same spirit in all your writing AND speaking, for the good of the human race! Good day! ROFLMAOBBQ11!!!!
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Thank you for giving us our daily dose of prejudice.
Here's the bottom line. Spelling and grammar, while lauded by many, are simply not very important. Knowing where and how to use semi-colons is not, and never has been a useful or laudable skill in all but a handful of professions. Knowing or caring what a participle actually is, is a topic of interest only to a trained linguist. Most people do not, and should not need to know these things. The style rules are essentially followed most rigorously by cowards. People too terrified of breaking rank or decorum and who will willingly and eventually gratefully follow a body of strict order laid down by people who lived over a hundred years ago. These people wrap themselves in knots in their efforts to stay on track and their writing suffers accordingly.
Now, I'm not saying that we should all jst gv up & on ower snnantX and speeln altagather, but there is no point in being anal retentive and insisting that everyone conform their writing and speech to the south eastern standard, as it has been interpreted by people with no real skill other than a love of proving their linguistic superiority over others. This rigid and unbending insistence on "proper" standards is robbing the written english word of the diversity encountered in its spoken form. Every day I hear people where I live uses phrases like, "They'd be (They do be) going to....", yet I have only seen these things actually written down a handful of times in my entire life. I'm sure there are countless other such colloquialisms which are similarly snubbed in "proper english" circles.
Basically, what I am saying is that the collective "style guide" is and always has been a crock. It is an arbitrary and exclusionary set of principles for written english, with no objective or fundamental underpinning in any for of english that is or ever was spoken. The single best modern day wordsmiths can be found "rapping" in popular records in a dialect and with a style of grammar that breaks almost every rule in the style book, yet is unquestionably a more potent and superior form of communication for the purposes it is intended to serve.
In a way, the logical conclusion for the enforcement of the style guides can their eventually implementation on a computer. The style guides belong more to the realm of capricious, cold and uncaring logic than they ever did to the realm of human communication or expression.
May the Maths Be with you!
Now you're just being an idiot. Do you learn a subject as it is, or as you would like it to be ? I'd make a pretty good surgeon if it wasn't for all the blood and organs and stuff. Get rid of that and I'll give it a go.
Have you any idea how arrogant your assumptions and attitude is?
They don't teach grammar in primary school around here, except in an extremely shallow way that only covers a very, very small portion of what it should. Given that people around here are much better educated than they are in most other areas, I'm not sure that what you're suggesting is reality.
Additionally, who cares if some asshole prick won't listen to an argument because they haven't gotten the grammar right. English majors tend to forget that most people think they can go fuck themselves when they issue an unsolicited and unimportant grammar correction. It's a sign of a poor education when one refuses to listen to an argument on the basis of it not being formed in the formal way.
Perhaps you ought to go back to college, get yourself a decent education, then consider whether you really want to make this sort of asinine comment. A paper can be read or it can't or it can be somewhere in the middle, if one can comprehend what's being said, then one has to interpret the points as intended by the writer. It's a sign of a poor education when one can't or won't do that.