...Summary: “Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers?” June 5, 2013 Summary: “Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers?” Employers and educators realize the importance of good writing skills but many business employees have writing deficiencies, costing American businesses billions of dollars every year. According to a study conducted by the National Commission on Writing (NCW) in 2004, American businesses may spend close to $3.1 billion yearly on the remediation of employees’ writing deficiencies. Consequently, employers are dissatisfied with employees writing skills and even more disappointed in the skills of new college graduates. Traditionally, grammar was taught using a rules-based approach which was also referred to as traditional school grammar (Hillocks & Smith, 2003). Rules-based approach focused on teaching grammar rules with emphasis on form (present, past …). Many educators condemned this type of approach, and research showed that it was an ineffective way to teach grammar. Students were simply taught a set of rules and presented with a set of usage exercises. There was very little teaching of how to use grammar in a communicative manner. Rules-based approach has since been abandoned due to opposition from educators and the decision of the National Council of Teachers of English to discourage its use. Researchers have since proposed the use of new approaches such as, context based...
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...Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers? ZANE K. QUIBLE FRANCES GRIFFIN OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA ABSTRACT. Business professionals and instructors often view writing skills as one of the most important qualifications that employees should possess. However, many business employees, including recent college graduates, have serious writing deficiencies, especially in their ability to use standard English. As a result, American businesses spend billions of dollars annually to remediate these writing deficiencies (College Board, the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004). In this article, the authors examine possible reasons for these deficiencies and offer evidence that a modified context-based approach, the glossing approach, and consistent error marking can reduce the number of sentence-level errors students make. Keywords: context-based approach, grammar, punctuation, rules-based approach, writing deficiencies Copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications T hat many employers in the United States are dissatisfied with their employees’ writing skills is not a surprise to individuals who frequently peruse the professional literature in nearly any academic field or discipline (Gray, Emerson, & MacKay, 2005; Wise, 2005). Although the expressions of dismay are frequent and often strong, educators have done little to rectify the situation. Costs of Employees’ Poor Writing Skills material to...
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...Emily Duthu English 210 WW4 A Moveable Feast Paper 2/18/13 Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast The Lost Generations boomed in Paris after World War I, which is where all of the artists and writers relocated. The term the Lost Generations was coined by Gertrude Stein, she had an argument with Ford Maddox Ford when she stated, “You are all a generation perdue,” which translates to a lost generation (Hemingway 61). The writers and artists of the Lost Generation, portrayed in Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, were people who lived a troubled life, but managed to find a way to use their struggles to successfully complete a work of art. Throughout A Moveable Feast, the writers struggle to get by in day to day life. Hemingway expressed through detail the atmosphere in the streets of Paris post war. Alcohol seemed to be a coping mechanism to pass the time during the struggle of the 1920s. “The men and women who frequented the Amateurs stayed drunk all of the time or all of the time they could afford it…” (Hemingway 15) explains the lifestyle in which the people were living during this time. Gertrude Stein was one of the many people who had a strong influence on Ernest Hemingway’s life. Miss Stein played the role of Hemingway’s mentor throughout his writing career. Although Gertrude Stein was not a writer, she was the only opinion that mattered when it came to success in writing novels. Stein was not one to express positive feelings about another’s writing, as Hemingway...
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...go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast,”- with these words Hemingway starts his memoir. The writer himself was “lucky enough” to spend seven years of his youth in the European center of culture and entertainment of the Jazz Age. Throughout the literary works of Hemingway it can be observed that Paris had a special place in his heart. He adopts Paris as a setting not only in “A Moveable Feast” but also in “The Sun Also Rises” and “Midnight in Paris.” But what makes “A Moveable Feast” stand out from many other works written by Hemingway is that it is a memoir, thus, the characters are real people and the events are actual as well. However, “various critics have pointed out that “A Moveable Feast” contains serious factual errors." Though, the most of the factual errors are about the workplaces of the characters, for instance the one of Walsh, and do not significantly influence the understanding of life flows of the memoir’s main characters. Hemingway along with other expatriates viewed Paris as a place where he could find a market for his literary works. “Many Americans who settled in Paris [believed] their native land was a cultural sink.” Those who caught the drama of the World War I and the time of the after-war letdown are referred to as “lost generation.” This generation characterized by lost hopes, lost values and a general mood of futility and despair. Young people of the after-wartime could have spent their entire days drinking in...
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...in an increase in population who were happy and worry-free. This inspired artists and writers to be creative. Some stories helped people dream and conquer all but others showed the hardships people faced. The Algonquin Round Table Journalists, editors, actors, and press agents met on a regular basis at the Algonquin Hotel in New York began meeting in June 1919 and continued fro eight years. They contributed to hit plays, bestselling books, and popular newspaper columns. They shared admiration for each other’s work. These people had very high standards and they were very outspoken, outrageous, and they often quoted one each other. This group began to fade away as The Great Depression neared. They were a great example of American artists F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote several stories with The Great Gatsby being his most famous work. This story helped inspire people to believe that they could dream anything and achieve it. Fitzgerald’s stories were mainly about people becoming very successful in the social and financial worlds, but they did not share the same prosperity and the morals. He also wrote This Side of Paradise. Unfortunately, not all books were happy and motivating. Several writers wrote about the hardships people faced in the 1920’s. In Alain Locke’s The New Negro, Locke wrote about the hopeless look on the blacks in the United States. This also provided black writers with greater possibilities for artistic freedom, explored new themes, and expressed rich...
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...In: Social Issues Lost Generation of Writers Summary: “Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers?” June 5, 2013 Summary: “Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers?” Employers and educators realize the importance of good writing skills but many business employees have writing deficiencies, costing American businesses billions of dollars every year. According to a study conducted by the National Commission on Writing (NCW) in 2004, American businesses may spend close to $3.1 billion yearly on the remediation of employees’ writing deficiencies. Consequently, employers are dissatisfied with employees writing skills and even more disappointed in the skills of new college graduates. Traditionally, grammar was taught using a rules-based approach which was also referred to as traditional school grammar (Hillocks & Smith, 2003). Rules-based approach focused on teaching grammar rules with emphasis on form (present, past …). Many educators condemned this type of approach, and research showed that it was an ineffective way to teach grammar. Students were simply taught a set of rules and presented with a set of usage exercises. There was very little teaching of how to use grammar in a communicative manner. Rules-based approach has since been abandoned due to opposition from educators and the decision of the National Council of Teachers of English to discourage its use. Researchers have since...
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...difference of culture and wealth is important or not. Writer has a few most important points in this essay. First of all she wants to answer wealth is important or is not? After her father bankruptcy, her life is very difficult and they flow to America without any penny. One day you will be rich but another day you will lose all of your things. Lost thing is not big a problem. Once she flew from Korea, she lost everything such as home, friends, relation and wealth but she might satisfy now, because she has new friends, a new home, and a new job. Our forefather told me that “If you lost the things, it is not a problem, if you lost the ethic, it’s a problem, If you lost your health, it’s big a problem”. I agree with that. Secondly, Illustrated in essay that different culture, social, life style and character between Korean and American students. For example, when the teacher entered in classroom, no one batted an eye but in Korea students and environment of school are different. Another important point of writer, however she became citizenship of America, she celebrates Korean national celebration day, to love national food, national song in her soul and cannot forget her memorize that when she was in Korea. Furthermore, she said that how new immigrants can settle in America, how they can inherit something from first generation and how to teach to their next generation. In my opinion, first generation of all immigrants sacrifices their life and education...
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...decade. This was the age of business with Calvin Coolidge’s business mind leading to a short-lived prosperity. The new woman, the rise of Jazz, African American attempts for better rights, and the lost generation writers were also part of this enormous change. Young people of this generation finally felt less pressure to imitate their elders. This new culture will forever live on. Business experienced an industrial growth in consumer production and consumption. More electricity was being mass produced than the rest of the world but when cars, refrigerators, and radios were being produced farmers fared the worst, as high tariffs to protect American business increased farmer bankruptcy. The government faired a laissez-faire attitude, and forty-percent of farmers who became landless, and moved to cities. The Model T. car was the most important economic arrival as it was first only for the rich priced at 850 dollars and went down to only 290 dollars. Ford suggested this drop in price as it helped the common workers buy the car and increase profits by an even greater margin. Revenue generating gasoline taxes, and growing dependency on the automobile gave rise to suburb expansion. Woman in this age were unlike any other. Woman became educated and defied the morality or earlier generations. Women who got drunk, enjoyed sex, wore skimpy dresses, had short bobbed hair, bare arms and danced all night to wild jazz were called “flappers”. Woman in this time also drove the birth control movement...
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...of young people's priorities were to marry, move to suburbs, and be financially successful. However, there was a young group of men who were strongly against the "American dream" that the rest of society was working for. These men were Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassidy. They were a group of "struggling writers, students, hustlers, and drug addicts" (Wikipedia.com) better known as the "beats", and the founding fathers of the beat generation. Jack Kerouac is often seen as the leading pioneer of the beats. Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell was a small town, and "out of the raw outline of the legend he made out of his life in Lowell is simple and uncomplicated" (Charters 23). Kerouac had wild and vivid fantasies of making his life a legend. "He was always adapting roles, always an outsider, a spectator peering into the window like a shadow" (Charters 29). Life in Lowell would be no material for a legend, but life in New York would be. It was in New York that Kerouac was introduced to William S. Burroughs. He would become the biggest influence on Jack's life at the time. Burroughs was a writer as well, but never considered himself one. He had interest in experimenting with criminal behavior, and often had contacts in the criminal "underground". However, His confidence and style awed Kerouac. Kerouac would leave New York and later return in October of 1944. Through a mutual friend, he would encounter a "spindly Jewish kid with...
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...Germany had recently lost World War One and like many Germans who fought during this war, Adolf Hitler blamed the Jews for the defeat. So, after taking power over Germany, Hitler and his political group, the Nazis, found many ways to persecute the inferior Jews. But eventually, they decided on a more “permanent” solution; gassing the Jews. During this time, Germany had also declared another war, World War Two. After six long...
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...Quible and Griffin (2007), in their article, “Are Writing Deficiencies Creating a Lost Generation of Business Writers,” claim that the traditional methods of teaching grammar have been examined and shown to be ineffective. The authors go on to say that due to these ineffective teachings, the costs to employers and businesses are very high. Having employees who are unable to write at an academic level not only makes the company look bad, but it also wastes invaluable time and money, and causes confusion in the decision making process. The authors suggest that by combining the traditional teachings of grammar with other methods of learning will help to decrease the errors in writing that are being found in today’s business world. Some of these methods include, in-context writing, glossing and error labeling. Context writing is when students are given guidelines for grammar and punctuation, but how it is applied is based on the students own writings or readings. Glossing is when a student’s writings are evaluated by an instructor and their mistakes are marked. The work is returned to the student with a request to fix the mistakes and summarize the rules of grammar regarding those mistakes. Then they are required to correct and turn in the noted mistakes along with the summarization. Error labeling is when a student is given a sample of a piece of written material and asked to find and label any writing mistakes (Quible & Griffin, 2007). The authors did a literature review...
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...WAR LITERATURE ASSIGNMENT ON PAUL BAUMER’S CHARACTER AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ‘LOST GENERATION’ IN REMARQUE’S NOVEL, ALL QUIET ON THE WEATERN FRONT All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel is about the experiences of ordinary German soldiers during the war. It is based on Remarque’s own experiences at war which enabled him to capture the realism and authenticity needed to exemplify the feelings of a soldier. Through the novel he was able to capture the feeling of seclusion and loneliness among the soldiers. In 1916, he was drafted into the German army to fight in World War I, in which he was badly wounded. In 1926, after the war ended, he published Im Westen Nichts Neues which he later translated into English as All Quiet on the Western Front. The novel has been heralded by critics throughout the world as the greatest war novel of all time. It helped capture every thought that went through a soldier’s mind who belonged to the "lost generation". War changes life. Conditioned by the aggression and lifestyle of being a soldier, young adult Paul Baumer in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, over the course of four years, changed from a naive high school graduate to a mature but disillusioned adult. The violence and trauma in the trenches of World War I exposed Paul to the horrors of injuries and infections, the fragile state of life, the terrors of death...
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...people to find a way to accept each other’s social patterns. “Beat Generation” The Beat Generation rebelled against traditional values. ‘BG’ felt strongly towards being free-spirited and spontaneous. ‘BG’ mainly went out of there way to object the patterns of integrity. Other Musicians...
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...spent the whole evening sitting at the restaurant using their phones.They barely talked.But little did Samin know that this was a very common scenario of this generation.The young people of this generation are too obsessed sith their gadgets.An article I read the other day called “Of Technologies and Lost Conversations” confirms this idea.In this article Haque (2015) states the effects of technology on young minds.Technology has become a part of their daily lives.Technology has become a huge distraction for the young generation.They have become so involved with the use of technology that they often tend to forget about the real world and take action without using their minds.Nowadays the young generation also do not have any privacy as they share too much personal information on social media.Due to such extreme use of technology these young people are showing less personal interactions.They do not have enough time for their friends or families.The writer also said that this generation is so obsessed with gadgets and the internet that they are doing bad in their academic oerformances and that the students have very short attention spans.The writer thinks that they should not be so obsessed with technology but enjoy their benefits.I am writing this response paper to show the young generation is misusing technology and I would like to express my agreement on how the people are the ones who use technology in the wrong way, also I would like to express my disagreements on the point on...
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...remotest corners could reach a national audience. At the same time, American writers—particularly writers of fiction—began to influence world literature. The 20th century saw the emergence of modernism. Modernism responded to the world’s complexity by asserting that the individual had the potential to achieve a broader perspective than that offered by any one society or its history. Although realism, naturalism, and regionalism were still viable modes of expression, they reflected the increasingly complex reality of 20th-century society. Immigration and industrialization led to increasing urbanization, and, in turn, to class stratification. Theme: Some writers examined the sometimes complex psychology of America’s elite, other writers turned to the psychological and physical reality of the laboring classes, whose ranks continued to swell with high rates of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Several American authors who are sometimes known as social realists looked at working conditions, often for the purpose of social reform. A period of disillusion and cynicism that followed World War I (1914-1918) found expression in the writings of a group of Americans living in Paris who became known as the Lost Generation. They shared a bitterness about the war, a sense of rootlessness, and dissatisfaction with American society. They portrayed the emotional exhaustion of this generation and their...
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