Do your professors care about grammar? Forum

[TheFutureLawyer]

Vote or die.

edit: just wanted to add that I am actually interested in this as a serious matter.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Believe it. When reading through the best answers and the worst answers for a class, there was no noticeable difference between which was better written (with proper grammar). If anything, the worst answers may have focused too much on style, while the best answers spit out as many sentence on point with the issues and an analysis of them.

The only time I think grammar and style can matter is when a professor has a very subjective method for grading and is affected by the writing without realizing it. The more formalized the grading is, the less likely the professor will give a shit about "then" or "than." That stuff is limited to your LRW class.

[zanda]

Even aside from my distaste for casual use of the word "Nazi" the answer is still none. Was this really worthy of a thread? You got the correct answer in the other thread in which the question first arose.

[pleasetryagain]

I had a professor tell us that our grammar and writing style should be impeccable because it is worth a large portion of our grade (I think it was ~50%). She then proceeded to make countless typos/incoherent sentences throughout the exam and was forced t delete 3+ questions on the multiple choice. fail.

[TheFutureLawyer]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

[pleasetryagain]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

when you get to law school youll figure out that law schools don't care if their graduates know anything. They care about your employment prospects and firms aren't checking your grammar at the door.

[TheFutureLawyer]

Even aside from my distaste for casual use of the word "Nazi" the answer is still none. Was this really worthy of a thread? You got the correct answer in the other thread in which the question first arose.

took out the nazi part

[TheFutureLawyer]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

when you get to law school youll figure out that law schools don't care if their graduates know anything. They care about your employment prospects and firms aren't checking your grammar at the door.

But my thinking is that firms would want to be sure that you know proper grammar. Who wants a lawyer that doesn't know how to construct grammatically correct sentences?

[RPK34]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

Being able to write with impeccable spelling/grammar on a first draft says nothing about your knowledge of grammar.

[pleasetryagain]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

Being able to write with impeccable spelling/grammar on a first draft says nothing about your knowledge of grammar.

Also true. Any writing sample you send to a firm is going to be heavily edited before and after you get your LRW grade. Anything you draft for the firm will also be heavily edited. Also, word processors correct grammar for you.

[goodolgil]

I think exams being well-written is important to some extent. But professors understand the time crunch and aren't expecting your exam to be a scholarly article.

[thesealocust]

If my profs cared even a little about spelling or grammar, my 1L transcript would have been a death certificate after they had me taken out back and shot. I had completely incoherent sentences on some exams, it was awesome.

[TheFutureLawyer]

I definitely appreciate the comments, good to know that when I take exams I can skip the editing phase.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

It just seems so weird that law schools wouldn't want to make sure their graduates know proper grammar.

when you get to law school youll figure out that law schools don't care if their graduates know anything. They care about your employment prospects and firms aren't checking your grammar at the door.

But my thinking is that firms would want to be sure that you know proper grammar. Who wants a lawyer that doesn't know how to construct grammatically correct sentences?

Your substantive 1L courses teach you how to analyze the law. LRW is what teaches you how to learn legal writing. Should there be more focus on legal writing? That's a completely different question than the one going on in this thread.

Typing out 5k-10k words in 3-4 hours doesn't leave time for perfectly constructed sentences and proper grammar. If you are ever going back and trying to reword a sentence to sound a little better in the middle of a final, you are probably wasting your time.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

I definitely appreciate the comments, good to know that when I take exams I can skip the editing phase.

The editing phase is if you managed to leave yourself 5 minutes at the end so you can run spell check and make sure you at least didn't write a sentence that can't even be comprehended.

I think I had time to run spell check on 1 of my finals.

[thesealocust]

IF they instead view [party1 ] (sic) as being party ot (sic) the agreement between bot (sic) [party 2] and [party 3], her requiring it not be perfomed (sic) for a year could implicate the SoF.the(sic) written and signed note at the end referred generally to [activity] and may have applied not to this initia’(sic) test [activity]’ contract but to later [activity] contracts, making it insufficnet (sic) evidnee (sic) of writing asn (sic) ads (sic) a result not allowing it to validly have been evidenced under the infra anum clause.

Admittedly that was puked out with like 20 seconds before time was called, but the rest of the exam has similar ugliness, just not as concentrated.

Good times. Me write good one day.

[viking138]

Examsoft freaked out on me during one exam and my exam had tooooons of typos because of it (the program lagged so that it entered text incredibly slowly and I couldn't see what I had written without losing tons of time waiting for it to enter). I got an A in the class. Conversely, another professor told me he may have bumped my grade a bit because he really enjoyed reading my writing. However, that was an 8 hour take home so writing style mattered more than in a 3-4 hour info dump exam.

Professors care depending on circumstance. Think of grammar/style as a soft in the law school admissions process. Issue spotting and analysis are grades/LSAT, grammar/style are soft factors.

[random5483]

None of them care about grammar (other than the legal writing class).

[09042014]

I promise you they don't care. Exams are a race, nobody is writing well.

[Army2Law]

I said none because I'm sure you didn't mean Legal Writing.

[TheFutureLawyer]

I said none because I'm sure you didn't mean Legal Writing.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

[Cavalier]

IF they instead view [party1 ] (sic) as being party ot (sic) the agreement between bot (sic) [party 2] and [party 3], her requiring it not be perfomed (sic) for a year could implicate the SoF.the(sic) written and signed note at the end referred generally to [activity] and may have applied not to this initia’(sic) test [activity]’ contract but to later [activity] contracts, making it insufficnet (sic) evidnee (sic) of writing asn (sic) ads (sic) a result not allowing it to validly have been evidenced under the infra anum clause.

Admittedly that was puked out with like 20 seconds before time was called, but the rest of the exam has similar ugliness, just not as concentrated.

Good times. Me write good one day.

lol

[Bronte]

Do you seriously believe that the correctness of one's grammar on a test is significantly indicative of his true grammatical competency? It sounds like you haven't taken a law school exam yet. My law school exams probably read like they were written by a drunk five year old. The memos and briefs I submit to my superior are near impeccable. Think about it dude.

[heyyitskatie]

I didn't have any professors that would straight dock points for grammar errors, but a few were nice enough to point out the obvious, which is that it's easier for them to award points to you if your spelling and grammar are good enough for your communication to be clear.

I did have one 48 hour take-home exam where grammar and style mattered more, but even then, the occasional typo wasn't a big deal.

[redwings15]

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