Correcting grammatical errors versus content in post-graduate coursework submissions in the sciences

I am somewhere in between physics and mathematics. My personal policy is this:

• I mark any spelling, punctuation, or grammar mistake I find, but I do not explicitly search for them. However, I usually do not go at lengths to explain why something is wrong.

• This does not affect the grade unless the number of mistakes severely affects the readability of the text or is particularly egregious. (Being in Germany, I may be more lenient on submissions in German by non-native speakers, depending on the programme’s main language and other factors.)

My rationale for this is:

• As I have to thoroughly read the text anyway, the additional effort for marking mistakes are negligible in comparison to the reading time. In most of the cases, it’s adding a comma, crossing out a letter, or replacing a single word. This applies to analogue submissions as well as to digital ones.

• Just telling students that they made language mistakes somewhere in their writings does not really help them. The effort of seeking help from a third party is unfeasible in most situations (and disproportionate in comparison to my effort). However, I expect that they are able to find out the source of a specific mistake that I marked.

• The admission requirements should not and cannot be so strict that only people who completely mastered the language can be admitted. In many languages, even native speakers tend to commit some systematic spelling mistakes (in particular regarding punctuation) that can only be weeded out this way.

So in short, I think that the other HoD’s rationale is blatantly misjudging factors.

We do not have any departmental policies regarding this here, but I know many that follow a similar policy.

If you are well organized, you can have your students submit a first draft early enough that you can still send them back to a campus writing assistance center if need be.

Have them submit the draft to you triple spaced and/or with wide margins. Mark some feedback clearly on a section of the draft, so the writing center folks can see what approach should be taken. You don't need to do this throughout the whole submission.

In addition, you could have some TAs in your department designated to be able to help with these aspects during their office hours.

I was assigned this TA duty for several semesters in an applied math department. As we worked through the draft together, I used the opportunity to help the student understand certain things about English.

Some students were foreigners and some were not. I remember one student, second generation Italian American, first generation college goer. He was a hard worker and an intelligent young man, who was hazy on grammar and sentence structure.

The department had a commitment to supporting student growth, including their ability to express themselves clearly.

I tend to agree with your stance. The other HoD's points make sense, too, but only when considering each of them separately, in particular:

• The university already has a minimum language level required for entry.
• This additional task would impose a heavy burden on her already limited staffing resources.

I see no way how both of these can be right at the same time. Either, the minimum language level required for entry ensures that students sufficiently master grammar (in which case pointing out the remaining mistakes should not be much work), or there is indeed a considerable amount of mistakes left (in which case the entry requirements do not seem to solve the problem).

As an additional issue, I fear I have seen often enough how

• Students need only be made aware that there are errors and can seek guidance on correcting the grammatical issues elsewhere.

plays out: "I asked my friend to check my text. He's really good at grammar. He told me that I should write 'Researchers of not made no new findings about it's standart deviation.' in passive voice, so I changed it to 'Their of been no new findings about it's standart deviation.'" While it is not a guarantee that the text will turn out right afterwards, at least indicating which words need to be revised cancels out at least some misguided attempts of students correcting the text without knowing what they are doing.

Therefore, I would indeed opt for just marking the mistakes, not indicating how to fix them (unless that is inherently a part of the marking, such as for indicating missing commas or whitespace between words). That should not take much additional time because jotting one or two lines at the respective positions while reading is sufficient.