What do you tell a student who frequently uses the wrong words? Lots of people use wrong words, especially when they are trying to sound smart or vary their vocabulary. I've done it. But some people do it all the time (like my brother! if you're reading this, sorry, man, but you do it a lot). How do you help them? I'm pointing out the individual words that he has used incorrectly, but what do I say about the general habit of using words when he doesn't know what they mean. Because he probably thinks he does know what they mean.
I don't worry about him too much. He could be our president one day.
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I've written comments along the lines of "You don't need to rely on the thesaurus so much. Just say what you want to say." That's not worded very well, but it's the gist. I think a lot of students (mine anyway) will try to sound smart by replacing words using the thesaurus in Word but the options given by word aren't always exactly equivalent. That kind of thing would be my first suspicion with a student who is using a lot of words incorrectly, especially if they are close but incorrect. I might also make a comment like "the paper would be clearer if you relied on simpler vocabulary" or something like that, so they know it's okay to use words they know.
that said, I have certain pet peeves that I always correct specifically like the expression "comprised of" and making "data" singular.
One of my biggest pedagogical tasks is to get students thinking in terms of reader, reader, reader (or audience, audience, audience).There are several reasons for this, but I won't digress here. First, I always try to frame my comments in terms of "Will your reader understand this ___?" It could be a word, a phrase, a sentence, an idea...you get the picture. I try to remind them to think about their audience/reader, and this usually includes other classmates. Then, I ask the student to consider if these readers would a)know the meaning of the word used, and b)see the word as part of the writer's "natural" voice. That is, I try to get students to understand that it's fairly obvious when a writer (of any kind) is trying to "sound" like something/someone they're not (smarter, more professional, more theoretical, etc). Finally, I remind students that if they don't like it when writers use jargon, dense language, etc., then why should they make the same mistake. It also helps to let them know that you're interested in *their voice* and language, not their ability to use a thesaurus. Using their own voice is a first step to getting their ideas on paper (or screen) clearly. They can work on polishing and tweaking diction in the editing stage if they like. Hope this helps!
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