Apparently it's Thursday which means it's about time for me to rant about something. I've been studying for the MTEL. For those who don't know, which I suspect is most of you, the MTEL is a licensing exam in Massachusetts to be a teacher. Why teach? Because my application for astronaut was rejected. Something about no more trips to space.
Anyway, a while back I picked up a book to help prepare for the exam. As I'm reading through it however, I'm noticing more and more grammar and syntax mistakes. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't a study guide for the Foundations of Reading test.
I'm not saying that it is a useless tool. On the contrary, I'm sure it will do me a world of good. But I can't help question the efficacy of this book when I'm correcting mistakes on every other page. Did anyone proofread this thing? It's like finding that a math textbook has non-sequential numbered pages. Or an engineering textbook that doesn't open the right way. Or a cookbook that recommends that you just eat out.
Am I being too critical? I don't think so. Does a sentence that ends in an exclamation point also require a period? Definitely not. Is asking questions and then answering them immediately a hackneyed writing technique? Debatable.
Makes you want to rethink the word PROFESSIONAL.!
ReplyDelete