[pierrem15]

My wife sees the affect/effect problem all the time in her college students' writing.

She didn't learn to speak English fluently until she was thirty, but her English is better than than many of her students who were born here.

The state just mandated a minimum 5 page paper for each intro class, and the professors are in a justified tizzy about how they will get the students to write a paper that long.

I recall having to write multiple 15 page papers with proper citations and bibliographies for a single English class in high school.

Most of her students are public school graduates-- the university ought to be able to charge back the costs of remedial math and English classes to the "high schools" from which they graduated.

[Smokin' Joe]

The state just mandated a minimum 5 page paper for each intro class, and the professors are in a justified tizzy about how they will get the students to write a paper that long.

Sadly, that emphasizes quantity rather than quality of content. Thankfully, many of college professors wanted concise and definitive writing rather than placing emphasis on volume. The best grades went to those who could fully and completely express a concept in as few words as necessary.