<p>Seriously, NSM, it surprises you that other kids and families have different dynamics than yours? My family is close knit. My kids enjoy spending time with their parents. Sorry if thats weird. We enjoy shopping, hiking, talking politics etc. And yes, we help each other when asked. Those are the family values we worked to instill. College services are hit or miss. My kid has a lot on his plate and very little time. If he needs extra tutoring or a little proofreading, and is comfortable asking me, then I am comfortable providing it. My kids are growing and learning, thats all that matters.</p>
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<p>What I get from this discussion is how poorly our high schools are serving our students.
Writing skills should be learned in high school, while logical thinking and making sound arguments are usually learned and improved upon in college, primarily because of the maturity factor.
If students still feel a need to have their parents correct grammar and punctuation in college, that’s just sad. If students are using their parents to help them improve their arguments and content for a grade, I think that’s crossing a line.
The time for parents to make sure their kid has the tools to survive in college without them is before college. This is the time to take a serious look at our kid’s skills and provide a tutor or extra courses, extensive parental instruction for those who have the ability, or whatever else it takes to improve their writing. Why wait until our kids go off to college?<br>
I see this apparent need as a failure in our schools primarily, and perhaps a failure on the part of parents to recognize a problem.
I’m not talking about the occasional proofreading or getting feedback on an important application–occasionally. But regular assistance for graded work? I think it’s a shame if it’s seen as normal and necessary.</p>
<p>You raise an important point moonchild. In my area, proofreading and good writing skills simply aren’t taught. Poor spelling and grammar is considered acceptable (or at least “proficient” as is the term du jour). I have a going-into-seventh-grader and I can see the handwriting on the wall for problems, so my D2 (the professional writer) has been tutoring him all summer to bring his skills to the level we consider appropriate. But it really isn’t a priority of the school system.</p>
<p>I’m glad to see a wide spectrum of different viewpoints. </p>
<p>I’m not following that it’s alright to have your roommate edit your paper or the student center but not relatives. A student should use those opinions he values and is comfortable asking. If Jack Nicklaus’ son is on the golf team at college, should he not ask his father for ideas to improve his swing? I’m in consulting where no white paper would ever be published without significant internal review. Naturally, an accomplished writer will have his book edited along with passing it to others for their opinion. A filmmaker might have his kids take a look at a draft of a film for their viewpoint. Few of us live lives isolated in a bubble so I just don’t get that college days should be any different. </p>
<p>Naturally, if the paper becomes the work of someone else rather than the ‘voice’ of the writer, that’s something different. That should only occur to screenwriters in Hollywood. ;)</p>
<p>Moonchild–I’m imagining that this is not what is meant by most parents here (I could be wrong). I know my kids went off to school with excellent grammar, punctuation, etc skills (but they had the advantage of mom the writing instructor…) Judging by the level of posts of their parents here, I would guess most kids ofCC-parents start out fairly proficient.</p>
<p>OTOH, as I mentioned above, they were rather surprised by the grammar deficiencies of some of their school mates, especially as they attended an Ivy and a top LAC with students who mostly had gone to prep schools or highly rated public schools.</p>
<p>OTO,OH the students I encounter where I work have, on the whole, severely deficient writing skills at a whole different level. They mostly come from really poor school systems, with less educated and/or non-English speaking parents.</p>
<p>They need all they can get. I’m actually happy to hear when there’s a cousin or big sister in the family who’s helping out. It’s good modeling for them, too.</p>
<p>“If Jack Nicklaus’ son is on the golf team at college, should he not ask his father for ideas to improve his swing?”</p>
<p>I think there’s lots of difference between a student’s asking their parent’s help with an EC and a student’s getting parent’s help with a college paper.</p>
<p>“Seriously, NSM, it surprises you that other kids and families have different dynamics than yours? My family is close knit. My kids enjoy spending time with their parents. Sorry if thats weird. We enjoy shopping, hiking, talking politics etc. And yes, we help each other when asked. Those are the family values we worked to instill. College services are hit or miss.”</p>
<p>What surprises me is that college students – who are at an age and time in their lives in which people learn to be more independent of their parents – want to turn to parents for help with their college papers. It also surprises me that parents welcome students wanting that kind of help from them.</p>
<p>I don’t view this dynamic as reflecting family closeness. I view it as reflecting codependency and reflecting a lack of confidence and assertiveness on the part of the student.</p>
<p>A family can be very close, but students still can take a lot of pride in doing their college work without their parents’ help. It’s not as if students have been thrown into the wilds and expected to survive on their own (although that’s a normal rite of passage for young adults in some cultures). They are in a safe, learning environment with many resources that can help them.</p>
<p>I can fully understand students and older adults turning to parents for help/advice with things the student or young adult hasn’t much experience with: buying a car, appliance, house; selecting and applying for a job; making investments.</p>
<p>However, by the time that students go to college, they’ve had a lot of experience with education, and I think that it’s time for the student to use resources other than their parents when it comes to things like writing papers for class. And colleges have plenty of resources that students can use to get this kind of help.</p>
<p>What I don’t get is the aversion to extending to our children the same courtesy we would extend to others with whom we are not so close.</p>
<p>I don’t really have a firm opinion, I guess people can tell when things cross the line. What is really sort of surprising to me is that so many of the kids on here - and I’m talking about the abundant kids with perfect grades, test scores, and ECs off to elite colleges, could actually have parents capable of proofreading and improving their writing (unless you are just talking minor typos or tiny grammatical errors).</p>
<p>I would never have asked my parents to do any of this after about 10th grade, because at that point I thought I was smarter than my parents. Which was incorrect of course. And if it weren’t for Edline I don’t think I’d even see my own kid’s grades, let alone his assignments. :)</p>
<p>“What is really sort of surprising to me is that so many of the kids on here - and I’m talking about the abundant kids with perfect grades, test scores, and ECs off to elite colleges, could actually have parents capable of proofreading and improving their writing (unless you are just talking minor typos or tiny grammatical errors).”</p>
<p>Doesn’t surprise me. Most of the parents here – including those without college educations – are very bright people with excellent grammar.</p>
<p>“What I don’t get is the aversion to extending to our children the same courtesy we would extend to others with whom we are not so close.”</p>
<p>Not sure to whom you’re referring. However, if someone is in college, I think they should use the resources on their campus to get help with their papers. When I was teaching college, that meant that I would review students’ papers and offer other help with their academics. When I stopped teaching college, I would expect people needing such help to get it on their college campuses. If they didn’t know how to do that, I’d tell them how to do that.</p>
<p>I’ve had some former students who’ve approached me for help with their professional work as journalists. This included someone who wanted me to copy edit his blog. I’ve suggested that they use mentors and editors on their job or pay for writing coaching, such as taking a writing workshop or seminar.</p>
<p>I like them and care about them, but I’m no longer their teacher and don’t want to remain in that category. It’s time for them to move on to use other resources for their professional development.</p>
<p>NSM, not every student has a campus in the true sense of the word or has the same resources as the kids at top schools. There may not be a lot of commuters on CC, but there are in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>And many schools don’t offer proofreading as part of the services. I sincerely believe that reading your own work, particularly something that has been worked on over a period of time, and seeing what is actually on the paper as opposed to in your head, is very difficult and being unable to do so is more on the order of not being able to write with both hands than with being unable to compose a paper of college level material.</p>
<p>I don’t support writing a paper or even commenting substantively, but I’m a firm believer in the doctrine of fresh eyes with regard to important written material.</p>
<p>But we can all agree to disagree and draw our own lines.</p>
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It’s not surprising they have excellent grammar. It’s sort of surprising that it’s so much better than the grammar of the kids they are sending off to the Ivy Leagues.</p>
<p>While it’s fine to embrace differences among families and how they view this kind of assistance, I hope people will keep in mind that the degree of outside help is up to the professor and the honor code - not the student or parents. There are some things you simply don’t get to decide for yourself! I encourage collaboration on most writing projects, but would be very disappointed in my students if they flout my rules on a graded assignment.</p>
<p>I know my son had his BS roommate look over his Chinese papers occasionally, roommate is a native speaker. He never changed ideas but he was able to point at character mistakes. Was that wrong or was it a form of tutoring?</p>
<p>“It’s not surprising they have excellent grammar. It’s sort of surprising that it’s so much better than the grammar of the kids they are sending off to the Ivy Leagues.”</p>
<p>I doubt their grammar is that much better than their kids. Anyone – even someone who knows grammar perfectly – can make copy editing mistakes. That’s why professional editors exist.</p>
<p>However, students’ papers (with rare exception like dissertations or some journalism assignments) don’t need to be 100% grammatically or copy edited perfect. Sure, parents probably can catch errors on their students’ papers, but the students papers may still be stellar without the parents’ editing them.</p>
<p>Imagine if our kids were copy editing our posts here. They’d find a lot to clean up, but that doesn’t mean that what we post isn’t fine for this site. It also doesn’t mean that we don’t know grammar.</p>
<p>“I know my son had his BS roommate look over his Chinese papers occasionally, roommate is a native speaker. He never changed ideas but he was able to point at character mistakes. Was that wrong or was it a form of tutoring?”</p>
<p>The professor and school’s rules would be the determinant of whether that was cheating.</p>
<p>My mom insisted on reading my school papers until I graduated from high school–not to look for spelling errors or typos (I was able to proofread for that myself) but to make sure I’d put in enough effort on the content of the paper. She believed that, left to my own devices, I would do the least amount of schoolwork possible. She might not have been wrong, either; I loved reading and writing fiction so much that I would probably have gone without eating and sleeping to make more time for them if I could, never mind homework. </p>
<p>Once I left for college, she stopped demanding to read my papers before I turned them in. She did ask, at least once a semester, whether I’d written anything I was particularly proud of and, if so, whether I’d allow her to read it. I always gave her the copies that had the instructors’ comments on them, good or bad. At the time, it felt very important to me that she understand that I was doing okay in college with the help of someone other than my parents. Ah, the arrogance of youth. :)</p>
<p>(The story has a happy ending: I’m now 36 and occasionally let her read the fiction I still write, and she’s now 62, back in college for another Master’s degree, and will be letting me proofread her thesis this fall. :))</p>
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That’s basically what I was getting at. Granted, I was a science student but I did write a few papers for gen ed requirements. I don’t recall minor grammatical or typographical errors counting for much as far as the grade was concerend. So if that is what the parent is checking for, then why bother?</p>
<p>OTOH, if we are talking about major content, formatting, flow, or structural editing - that is where I think you have to be careful not to cross the line. That is for the student to decide based on the instructor’s rules.</p>
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Some professors do hold those mistakes accountable.</p>
<p>I don’t have a child in college yet, but I really don’t see a huge problem with a parent helping with editing/proofing a paper. At my D’s high school, the students are required to get peer edits, and several of her teachers have specifically said that parents count as peers for purposes of those edits. I can assure you that I am more competent to provide an edit than any of the kids in my D’s class, most of whom make a paper worse rather than better. There’s a big difference between providing some proofing/editing and writing/rewriting a paper, and unfortunately, I suspect some parents cross the line. However, I think having someone else edit your paper is a learning experience. If it makes a student’s writing better, I think that’s all for the good. If my D blindly incorporated everything I changed without questioning anything, I might have a different view. However, I know she’s considering most of the changes and thinking about why they make her paper better. </p>
<p>The fact that colleges provide writing centers leads me to believe that professors know the students are getting writing/editing help and WANT them to get it. A friend’s D is at a small LAC and she got extra points on a paper if she showed she went to the resource center for help on it. When my kids go to college, they’ll likely have the benefit of a college writing center, which I hope will have more talented editors than the kids in their high school class. I can’t imagine they’ll want me to edit their papers if they have someone at school who can help. </p>
<p>FWIW, at my job colleagues frequently reviewed written work for each other. I often proofread and edit things for friends when they’re writing something they want to be polished. This is a lifelong thing, and not necessarily a bad one.</p>
<p>I say all of this with the caveat that the kids have to follow the rules. If a professor says (or implies) that an assignment has to be 100% your own work, with no outside editing help, then so be it. If not, I just don’t see the issue.</p>