for better or worse

Larry Beason delves into what really gets under people’s skin when they are reading those annoying work e-mails or student papers in “Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors.” He surveyed people of various ethnicities, sexes, and occupations in order to find if any of these factors impacted their tolerance of grammar mistakes. This study was done in an effort to better prepare students for the work-place and enable teachers to give them the knowledge that they will need to be successful. Beason states that, ‘The interviews suggest…that the extent to which errors harm the writer’s image is more serious and far-reaching than many students and teachers might realize”(48). With this knowledge the student may be more motivated to improve their grammar skills, knowing that they will be judged by them. Yet, Beason reassures the reader that, “A person’s ethos is established by a network of extra-textual and textual features, error being but one” (60). While Beason does display interesting findings, he doesn’t give many alternatives for how the classroom could be altered for the better.