Grammar matters.

Proper punctuation matters. Sentence-level mistakes and errors affect the way that our audience sees us and our written product.

And yet, the solutions to sentence-level issues are rarely cut and dried. In an academic setting such as APU, some of the most pressing issues are these:

The answer to questions such as "Should I use 'I' in my writing?" and "Should I use the Oxford comma?" and "Should I use slang in my writing?" is quite simple: It depends.

It is important to highlight for our students that the answers we give to questions such as these are referring to a specific rhetorical situation and/or genre.

For instance:

By highlighting the situation, as opposed to each professor's personal preferences, we can help students start to analyze rhetorical situations for themselves and make decisions based on the expectations and needs of their audience.

This is an important question. About half of our students take Writing 1 (as of Fall 2016), and those students will receive writing instruction that include grammar, usage, and punctuation. But no single course, especially a course that only half of the students take, can solve sentence-level issues for all of APU. So, by default, all faculty need to support student writers in their classes.

Not all faculty feel comfortable marking up student papers with missing commas and errant semicolons, but that's not a problem. Actually, supporting student writers does not mean that we should all be red-pen-ing their papers. Research shows that marking errors and mistakes for students does little to help them learn the skills they need; the process merely helps faculty become better at proofreading.

Alternatively, consider pointing out one or two examples or patterns of errors:

Remember that your overarching goal is to respond to the writer, not the writing. Try to teach the writer how to improve his or her own writing rather than doing the job yourself.

The Ten Writing Priorities suggest that we should address thesis (or message), audience, genre, support, and organization before we dig into syntax, diction, usage, spelling, punctuation, and presentation.

First, consider how important mechanical issues are to this particular assignment.

If it is a draft, for instance, grammar and punctuation should not be a factor. If it's a blog post or a journal entry, instructors may or may not consider sentence-level issues important; they may want students to focus primarily on ideas. For a formal academic research paper, however, the audience will expect strong grammar, usage, and punctuation.

Next, assign the level of importance a percentage of the assignment grade.

Typically, grammar and punctuation do not make up more than 5–10% of a grade, but exceptions exist. In medical fields, for example, errors in punctuation could lead to lawsuits! In business, misspellings may tell an audience that a company is not a good investment.

Limiting grammatical errors to deductions of 5–10% has the advantage of being able to hold students to high academic standards while maintaining focus primarily on ideas and arguments instead of grammatical errors. Students can earn a zero on mechanics but still get a relatively strong grade overall if the content of the paper is competent.

This also ensures equity between multilingual and native speakers without destroying the grades of multilingual speakers. Rules like "You will lose two points for every error" can be devastating to English language learning students even though their ideas are on the same level as native speakers.

Referring students to the Writing Center handouts listed below is a great time saver for the grading process. Instructors don't need to explain every rule. By instead mentioning patterns, marking rubrics, and/or sharing handouts, they can help students improve their sentence-level issues while saving time to focus on ideas.