Editor:

This is in response to Christopher Alexander's comment ("Make students competent writers," April 9) regarding grammatical correctness in the English department. I only want to suggest a possible reason for the practice of "grading on a broader, more general level." It seems that with the application of confidence, the general level of performance of a particular human is increased. Even though a particular human might have superb theoretical capability, should their confidence be raped because of grammatical flaws, thus deteriorizing the importance of the concept being presented? Since when is the symbolic representation of an abstract concept more important than the concept itself? It must be realized that not every student making their way through general education is going to be enthralled by the details of correctly structured grammatical works of art. Dependent upon the quality of what is being presented by a student, and how effective it is accomplished, they shouldn't be penalized for inferior grammatical skills.

JC Dale
philosophy/Germanic studies junior