Grammer and punctuation help

alwaysonthego_2

I am a mature student on an Access Course. I have just handed in a psychology essay in, which the tutor said had a good intro and conclusion. Now he is saying my punctuation and spelling is poor and I need extra support.

This is something that has never been brought to my attention and I even recieved an A in GCSE English last year.

I have a feeling he may have confused me with another student, he is not in college till next week. Is there anyone that is good at proof reading will have a look at my essay and be honest.

Please pm me and I will forward you a copy, I would be grateful.

gooismeid

Receiving an A in GCSE English is no guarantee that you can spell or punctuate properly - trust me, I work in education! For a start, it's "grammar" not "grammer". If you feel you need help with punctuation, a great start is the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". Going into more depth, Bill Bryson's book "Troublesome Words" is excellent. Both are witty and interesting, rather than dry textbooks. Have a read through these two and see if you can spot your own mistakes. Once you know what to look for, it becomes much easier. The problem with schools today (and has been for the past 20 years) is that grammar and punctuation is not taught properly. I'd dearly love to volunteer to proofread your essay but time prevents me at the moment.

Sausage_Roll

I'll be happy to take a look at your essay, I've dropped you a PM.

Acc72

You are obviously upset, but you have 2 options.

You can use up your time with negative energy disputing this issue with your tutor.

Or, you can take this critique (I am sure it was meant to be taken this way) and work on any areas that need to be developed. This is a more positive approach and will produce greater benefits (you can't be too good at spelling or grammar !!).

alwaysonthego_2

I don't think I am perfect by any means but the tutor had told me I had passed it and it was a good essay and today it was poor 'grammar' and spelling. I was upset at the time to say anything. He even suggested dyslexia, so I wondered if he had confused me with someone else because he didn't have my essay to hand whilst he said this. I just wanted a fresh prepective.

Noctu

I'll be happy to look at your essay too, I'm doing Psychology at uni also

lisa_75

Your tutor is there to help. Try not to take anything too personally. None of us are perfect. I am a 3rd year student and still make mistake with grammar and punctuation form time to time.

Studying at GCSE level is VERY different to higher education and the standards are a lot higher.

lisa_75

alwaysonthego wrote:

I don't think I am perfect by any means but the tutor had told me I had passed it and it was a good essay and today it was poor 'grammar' and spelling. I was upset at the time to say anything. He even suggested dyslexia, so I wondered if he had confused me with someone else because he didn't have my essay to hand whilst he said this. I just wanted a fresh prepective.

Ok just to give you an example I am going to rewrite your sentence above.

I don't think I am perfect by any means, but the tutor had told me I had passed and that it was a good essay. However, today he suggested the essay contained poor 'grammar' and spelling. I was too upset at the time to say anything. He even suggested dyslexia, so I wondered if he had confused me with someone else as he didn't have my essay to hand whilst he said this. I just wanted a fresh perspective.

Can you see what I mean? The changes above are very slight, but make a huge difference.

From what I can see above it is just a matter of your sentances being too long, spelling and the odd missing comma.

bbruce

I'm happy to proofread it too. I used to do it for a living. Mistakes jump out at me on a vey cursory scan so it was very easy money,
"Grammer" and "sentance" appear in red to my eyes and make me wince!

everythingblogcast

alwaysonthego you my friend could be dyslexic, if you are until 18 and are doing a further level education course then the school/college can pay for you to be tested for dyslexia.

Savvy_Sue

alwaysonthego wrote:

I am a mature student on an Access Course. I have just handed in a psychology essay in, which the tutor said had a good intro and conclusion. Now he is saying my punctuation and spelling is poor and I need extra support.

This is something that has never been brought to my attention and I even recieved an A in GCSE English last year.

I have a feeling he may have confused me with another student, he is not in college till next week. Is there anyone that is good at proof reading will have a look at my essay and be honest.

Please pm me and I will forward you a copy, I would be grateful.

alwaysonthego wrote:

I don't think I am perfect by any means but the tutor had told me I had passed it and it was a good essay and today it was poor 'grammar' and spelling. I was upset at the time to say anything. He even suggested dyslexia, so I wondered if he had confused me with someone else because he didn't have my essay to hand whilst he said this. I just wanted a fresh prepective.

I wouldn't go as far as to say dyslexic, but if this is an example of your normal writing style - and I accept it might not be! - then we have at least 7 things that have leapt out at some of us - including grammer in the title of your first post, but the sentance bbruce refers to is not you but Lisa, which just proves that we all make mistakes! :rotfl:

It's true, your tutor might have confused you with someone else. But then again, he might feel that the content of your essay indicates that you are a strong student, being let down by weak grammar and spelling.

If you've got a chance to do something about it, grab it with both hands! I can understand that this has knocked your confidence, but it will make life SO much easier if you work on these skills now, regain your confidence, and know it is well placed! There are plenty of people who know their spelling is not 100% reliable, and they use dictionaries and spell-checkers to improve it.

Then there are people like me, who THINK our spelling is 100% reliable, until we find we have one or two blind spots - I was convinced for years that acoustic had a cc at the start. That's one a few words I now know that I don't know how to spell, so I check them. I think my grammar is pretty good too, but I know I tend to use longer sentences than is helpful ... Going on a Plain English course at work helped enormously, and so did a friend who tore into a carefully crafted leaflet I'd drafted and said "I wouldn't read this, it's got too may words in it, and they're too long!"

On the subject of confidence, when I was in my early 20s, I offered to read a prayer at a large church parade at a national camp. The lady organising it kept me behind at the end and said she couldn't possibly let me read unless I did something about my lisp! Lisp? What lisp? I knew I'd had one when I was younger, but no-one had mentioned it for YEARS! My friends there didn't think I was lisping, I even phoned my boyfriend (and I knew he'd be honest with me!) and he didn't know what she was talking about! But she was a speech therapist, and insisted I was lisping. And that a couple of the other girls had been laughing at me while I was reading.

I worked with her for half an hour or so, she pronounced me much improved, but I have NEVER felt so self-conscious reading in public as I did that day! And I nearly gave up reading / speaking - heck, opening my mouth! - in public completely. Fortunately I decided that I wasn't going to let her comments dictate what I did: I know I've got a good clear voice which I can project to the back of almost anything, comes from my mum not being able to hear well.

Talk to your tutor about the kind of support that might be available, and good luck!