Do poor grammar and punctuation matter if students are NOT supposed to turn in example essays?

Hi there,

was sort of browsing by so I ran into this ESL writers vs Native writers issue. Kind of funny.

WB, please answer my question directly: Why should it matter whether or not any particular ESL writer has poor grammar and punctuation if the students who order an essay are NOT supposed to turn it in "as is".

Instead, the prospective client should be interested in rather focusing on the ideas present by the writer, not his grammar, style, etc.

You and Lavinia claim that the vast of majority of students DO NOT turn in the papers they receive from essay writing services "as is". So why should they care if the paper that is written by an ESL writer has lousy grammar and punctuation, as long as it presents original and relevant ideas which can help a student to come up with a paper of his own?!

Do you not see that your argument is either a) hypocritical; or b)essentially flawed ?!

Since you mention me, I'll answer.

When a consumer purchases a product, they are purchasing a professionally written, original paper. That is the claim offered by the company, right? One component of that transaction is the promised quality of the paper. If the paper is riddled with grammar and stylistic errors, then it is not meeting that quality promise.

That quality promise is offered regardless of what the consumer does with the paper once it is received. They could automatically delete it, for all I care. As a writer, it's my job to deliver something that is error-free and adheres to the requirements as outlined by the consumer. If I don't do that, then I'm not doing my job, period.

There are probably some clients who don't care about grammar and spelling. In fact, I have had jobs where the client explicitly said they didn't care about such things but they were more concerned about different aspects of the job (for example, they were struggling to find resources to support their idea).

But even then, I am quite sure they didn't expect their product to be filled with mistakes. I think you are underestimating the importance of good grammar and punctuation. Poor grammar and punctuation can obscure the meaning of the "original and relevant ideas" (to borrow your words) presented within the paper, rendering even that part of the product meaningless.

Furthermore the existence of those cases does not mean that all students don't care about grammar and punctuation. That assumption, Just_Curious, seems to me to be the flaw in your logic. From my experience, a large proportion of the clients are not native English speakers. They purchase the papers in order to see excellent grammar and language constructions b/c they struggle with that area themselves. If I turned out something that has poor grammar and punctuation, then I'd be, in particular, hurting them. My products are created to be educational tools. When my clients pay good money (my writing services are not cheap), they should receive a quality product.

And I could not, in good faith, call myself a professional writer if I produced copy that could be produced by someone with a limited grasp of the English language. I think that applies to both native and ESL writers. There are some native speakers with horrible writing skills and there are some ESL writers with horrible skills. Neither group should self-identify as qualified to be professional writers.

I hope that answers your question.

WB and lavinia are the SAME person it seems. both are guys pretending to be girls.

lol.

joneszr, you may just be the first person in human history to have a negative IQ.

cmon, lava, cant ya take a joke. oh yeah, i am dumb. real dumb indeed. lol.

This is funny. I laughed when I read this. You are funny, joneszr!

Applause!


Now thats an excellent way of answering a question without hurting anyone's sentiments by making personal and rude comments:)

I think joneszr has some sort of illness. I'm serious. Look at the post by "robby" here:

searchenginejournal.com/google-is-banning-writing-services-advertisement/4961/#comments

lol. yeah w/e, WB - whor.e beware. so fukin what with the post?

fo fuk sake get a life WB

What are you, 13?

Nobody cares about your incredibly annoying and altogether STUPID mission to post the same question about every site in the industry. The only thing that you have accomplished is to flood the forum with garbage posts and profanities.

I fail to understand why anyone should use abusive and derogatory language in a forum like this one.

The site Manager Must not allow this and must delete all such posts where abusive and insulting language is used.

so what now, are you going to cry WB? get the moderator to delete those posts.

Moron alert!

That is disgusting.

Yeah sure you will get much more than entertainment.... Hey WB show him your stuff LOL

Disgusting AMY1978,

The world is as feverish as you yourself are.

LOts of people here are disgusting and full of haughty air. I treat is as something to deal with insecurity issues, which they should resolve themselves. Such is a total manifestation of desperation - spending the rest of the day and night sitting in front of the computer bullying ESL writers and not having a normal flow of social life. They are unaware that their complete indulgence in bullying and fights here has robbed off more than 50 percent of their precious lives. How pitiful.

Venus, you are a worthless sack of trash who can't write a coherent sentence to save his/her miserable life, so shut your pie hole. Nobody cares about your pathetic, personal problems in finding legitimate work (because you suck). People come here to find out how to protect themselves from FRAUDS like you.

WritersBeware, you are a self-righteous loser who accuses ESL writers of non-coherence in the English language. I wasn't even talking to you, inutile.

You are disgusting and full of haughty air. I treat it as something that deals with insecurity issues, which you should resolve yourself. Such is a total manifestation of desperation - spending the rest of your day and night sitting in front of the computer bullying ESL writers and not having a normal flow of social life. You are unaware that your complete indulgence in bullying and fights has robbed off more than 50 percent of your precious life. How pitiful.

I advise you to make an evaluation of your behaviour and take a 180-degree turn towards good behavior. Life is more than taking fights and bullying people. You should have known better than that. Your parents should have taught you of good values in life like good manners and politeness, which you apparenly have a dire need of. THey should have armed you better than what has become of you now, someone who thinks a high regard of herself and finds excitement in creating virtual fights. Give yourself a favor and live life more meaningfully than you currenty do. You are like a clanging bell full of noise and is so irritating to the ears and nerves, yet, transmits no meaning and sense. A noisy person like you is foolish, saying much yet leaves nothing at all. In Heaven's eyes, you are worthless and insignificant. The Bible calls you a FOOL.

Meanwhile, I got more important things to do than exchange fits with a pitiful person like you.

Actually, I'm just experienced, qualified, and well-paid for the small number of professional writing projects that I undertake every year. You could learn a thing or 7,000,000 from me.


First of all, I don't "accuse." I point-out facts. Secondly, I have absolutely problem with honest, legitimate, ESL writers. I only point-out facts about the UNQUALIFIED, ESL writers who lie to customers about being "American" or don't have the basic skills necessary to even REALIZE that their grammar/punctuation/syntax is horrible. At this point, I would categorize you into the latter group. I'm sorry that you can't accept reality, which is why you will NEVER obtain a mainstream job in the American writing industry.

By the way, moron, "inutile" is an adjective. Thank you once again for proving my point.

And don't you accuse me of being a fraud. You do not know what you are saying.

A fool cannot watch the words that come out of their own mouth. -Proverbs


I know. So what's your problem?

Moron is a noun, inutile is an adjective. Moron is a person with the lowest mental capacity.

=)

Yes, you are a fraud.


You're right--I don't know what I'm "saying." I know what I'm typing.


Is that why you wear glasses?


Good grief, Charlie Brown.


You used "inutile" as a noun.

STAY IN SCHOOL

May you see better meanings in life than judging others pointlessly and hailing yourself as the master of this universe.

Time to say adieu, I have no time to fight with you.

P.S. Consider taking psychiatric help. You badly need it.

Consider obtaining an education.

Wrong again. A moron is more intelligent than an imbecile. An imbecile is more intelligent than an idiot. An idiot is the term used for individuals with the lowest mental capacity (IQ below 20). You can read about IQ basics here: iqcomparisonsite.com/IQBasics.aspx.

It's hilarious that you spewed in another language about the low IQ's of Americans on the other thread and then can't even get it correct here. Too bad your posts got deleted!

Moron is a noun, my dearest frauds! Take a class in figure of speech and go back to Grade I!

You are now OFFICIALLY the most ignorant, unqualified, overmatched, unrealistic, out-of-touch, delusional, deceptive, fraudulent writer to EVER sully this board.


No ****. You're so woefully unqualified that you don't even understand my sentence!

I'm still waiting for you to explain why you used an adjective ("inutile") as a noun.

Here is an explanation, hoping that you'll learn something worthwhile today: First, inutile is an adjective and when used in a sentence like "I hate you, inutile!" is not used as a noun but still remains an adjective as it always is. For you to see clearly, such usage is similar to the statement "How are you, beautiful?" in which the word beautiful is an adjective and never a noun. "Got it, stupid?" "I hope so, inutile." Notice that the highlighted words are adjectives and never a noun, as you claim the usage to be.

This elementary topic shouldn't even merit a discussion here, and how you appear foolish in raising the question time and again. You even became more foolish when the answer was given, emphasizing your incompetence on the aspect of grammatical forms and parts of speech.

Have I mentioned previously that you are a babbling moron?

In your example, "beautiful" is a noun, not an adjective. That is an irrefutable fact. The ONLY way in which "beautiful" could serve as an adjective would be if your dumb a## were to add the word, "girl":

"How are you, beautiful girl?"

inutile (adjective; never a noun)
dictionary.reference.com/search?q=inutile

beautiful (adjective, noun, or interjection)
dictionary.reference.com/browse/beautiful?o=0

Do you not realize that the more you post, the more irrecoverably damaged you become?

how come writersbeware is CONSTANTLY mocking members and STILL NOT BANNED!! isn't it strange moderator?

anyways, this topic is meaningless.

Is anyone really allowed to do that or only WB ????


I dont know what is going on here...
Seriously when I see the situation of WB... I think the video suits her because she is the one who is always abusing and shiiiing with others... She always uses harsh words and abusing language when someone who has different opinion then hers... Mod! I think this forum was formed to provide the opinions and suggestions from everyone... But anyone who does that... We see WB screaming towards the writer like that German kid with English translation...

I think some steps should be taken.

The students are paying for a professionally written "model" paper. Therefore, the paper that is submitted to them must be in a usable form, regardless of whether or not they will be turning in the paper directly. The grammar and punctuation in the essay matters because the student still needs to read the paper and make sense of what was developed for them by the original writer. As such, a poorly developed paper will result in a confusing read and most likely, an unusable model paper for the student. Specifically, because the student will be taking quotes and citations directly from that paper. Or, the student may even go to the extent of using certain parts of the "model" paper for their own version. Hence the necessity regarding proper grammar and punctuation in the model papers. A student is paying good money to receive a paper that could be turned in for a grade if they choose to do that. So the quality of the paper must always be of the best possible academic kind. It should not be a paper put together haphazardly just so the writer can collect on a payment.

Of course proper grammar an punctuation matters regardless of whether the client submits the essay for a grade or not. He paid for a well-written paper that follows academic guidelines, he should receive nothing less. If the writer cannot provide properly punctuated essays and grammatically correct papers to the client, then he has no business being in the academic writing business. There is no exception to this rule. Either write the essay properly or do not work as a writer. The discussion as to the student not submitting the essay for a grade is out of this conversation. It should not even be considered an issue. The paper must be submission ready if the client does decide to submit it for a grade, which happens 99.99 % of the time. Therefore, grammar and punctuation perfection is not optional, it is a must for any decent writer who wants to last long in this business.

Even clients who don't intend to submit the work for a grade still want a high-quality product from which they can learn how to write, as well as how to do research and organize an academic project. If someone can't provide a project in grammatically-correct English, he has no business taking money for his work, unless the client knows the writing will be flawed and agrees (in advance) to accept that kind of work. In my experience, even ESL clients who don't want conspicuously-complex writing or advanced vocabulary still want something that's well written and without grammatical errors.

Exactly! When ordering a model essay, you want the best quality possible. To me, this is especially true if you are an ESL student and need help improving your language skills. This is not to say that a writer might not err on occasion, but there is a difference between an error or two (which should be rare) and poor quality writing.

Furthermore, even when ESL clients ask for simpler language, as they sometimes do, they still don't want any grammatical errors or misused words or idioms. "Simple" in this context just means less-complex sentences and less-advanced vocabulary, not outright errors in punctuation and grammar. Most of them would like to improve their own writing from reading ours, which they can't do if the projects they receive from us have the same kinds of mistakes that they could make on their own without paying anybody a premium for bad writing.

If the student is an ESL student who is hoping to use the model paper to develop his own presentation, then the grammar and punctuation does matter. Actually, it matters, whether the student is submitting it for a grade or not. Turning in a high quality paper is just a normal expectation on the part of a student. He paid for the work, so the writer should turn in a fantastic paper, regardless of how he wants to use it. In the case of an ESL student, the grammar and punctuation will matter because he will basically pull out a synonym dictionary and try to translate it word for word. So grammar accuracy is important. Punctuation matters because most ESL college students would rather use a comma, or no punctuation at all in their writing. So the writer needs to show him where to put the brakes in a sentence or paragraph. Otherwise, the student will never figure out how to revise the paper to make it sound more like he "naturally" wrote the paper.

This was a ridiculously stupid question when it was first asked in 2008 and it's no less stupid 12 years later. He might as well have asked whether or not it "matters" that the writer actually provides an essay on the topic ordered because, since it's only intended as a model, why wouldn't it be perfectly "OK" to just provide an essay on a totally different topic.