A question..

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Anonymous

#504412 Wed, 23 Apr 08 04:44 PM

I am currently a college student at RIT, and i noticed my Engish skills seems to degrade as year goes by. I don't know what the reason behind it but I do know for fact that RIT doesn't provide any decent grammar course; RIT/NTID only offers writing course that assist student in essay composition - introduction, body, and conclusion - of couse, more in depth.

I am Hard of Hearing but not completely profounded deaf. I just don't understand why RIT/NTID doesn't provide any grammar course to assist deaf people. From my understanding, almost 95% of the deaf people, including Hard of Hearing people are suffering from grammar errors. It's mainly because lack of education provided from their high school and college as well.

It's annoying to see my English skill constantly degrades overtime. Also, I am sick and tired of seeing deaf people criticizing other people's grammar by skimming their paper without actually sitting back and correcting their grammar.

Besides grammar, I also have a difficulties inputting ideas and describing information with decent amount of information. Maybe it's because I am simply lazy, or mentally exhausted from intensive English studies at RIT (Writing Communication I, II; Writing Literature I and II). To be frank, I think I am suffering from mental collapse due to numerous of stress I have endured at RIT, and because of that, it degrades my ability to reason and write correctly.

I always want to become a Satire writer, but in order to do so; I will need to hone my grammar skill, and to think more constructively.

Any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated. I would also appreciate if any professors from different colleges/universities provide me some advice and feedback.

People are monkeys; they’re the ones who invented English, and strive to construct the tower of Babel to emphasize their perfection. But heck, it collapsed.

Anonymous

Essays, Grammar, Literature, Universities

Grammar Geek

#504440 Wed, 23 Apr 08 06:39 PM

Well, I have two thoughts, neither of which relate to being deaf.

You're at an engineering school. I don't know of very many engineers who value their writing skills - a few, to be sure, but not many. As an alum of that other engineering school in upstate New York with and R and and I in its name, I have seen this first hand. My fellow students were thrilled to be able to graduate without having to write papers. This helps ensure my job security, so I don't object.

Second, you're at a univeristy now. They expect you to know grammar. Working with you on writing skills is an appropriate university-level class. If you feel you need remedial work in grammar, then I would approach the writing lab (if they have one) and ask for recommendations. If they don't have resources for you there, then the Online Writing Lab from Purdue (google OWL and Purdue together and you'll get there) had a lot of really good resoures.

And okay, here's a third thought. You probably are burned out. I expect RIT is a lot like RPI. For the first time, your classes are actually hard. For the first time in your academic career, you have to actually work to keep up, let alone be excellent. It's exhausting. Perhaps you can take a lighter course load next fall and get to regroup a bit.

Being an excellent writer has much more to do with clairty of thinking than knowing whether a sentence requries the subjunctive, so don't get too hung up on this stuff.

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

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Barbara, who answers in American English.

Grammar, Subjunctives, Universities