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Weekly UpdatesAccuracy
Among all 77 LREs that were primarily or secondarily focused on form, 41 (53%) were accurate. Among the 35 form-focused LREs, 22 (63%) were accurate. The breakdown of accuracy across incidents is presented in Table 3.
Among the 41 accurately identified and addressed corrections, 13 dealt with word choice. Most of these changes were justified by students as attempts to achieve enhanced academic register. The following example illustrates an acceptable sentence altered for this purpose:
(Note for all the following examples the [-] indicates text omitted in the LRE and the [+] indicates the replacement text. Errors are identified by bold text)
-Culture means that we can do many things that are different from other societies.
+Culture means that we can do many things that distinguish us from other societies.
The second most frequently addressed form was spelling. 10 (25%) of the 41 accurate corrections were devoted to spelling. The final wiki still included more spelling mistakes than any other error type (7 of 18). This example illustrates an adherence to North American English spelling conventions while striving for concision.
-In other words we can summarize that culture is a system of shared beliefs, values customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another and that are transmitted form generation to generation through learning.
+In other words we can summarize that culture is a the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
Attention to coordination errors was initiated a total of 8 times. Four (50%) of these were performed accurately. One such attempt combined attention to coordination with what is often deemed to be a stylistic preference in academic writing.
-So far we have mentioned what "culture" is, but I consider it is important to mention what it is NOT. "Culture" is NOT something we can touch or something we can see. It is a belief, it is in our minds, it is part of us.
+So far we have mentioned what "culture" is, but I consider it is important to mention what it is NOT. "Culture" is NOT something we can touch or something we can see. It is a belief, it is in our minds, and it is part of us.
A total of 4 (10%) of the accurately addressed revisions dealt with subject and verb agreement issues.
-One important thing that really enrich every culture is the use of body language and gestures because they express the traditions of a country.
+One important thing that really enriches every culture is the use of body language and gestures because they express the traditions of a country. In the same way, idioms show the popular way in which speaker represent their country because each idiom expresses an idea which is understood by certain people.
In addition to addressing the issue of subject/verb agreement, the student adds a new contribution, albeit one offering opportunities for others to further identify and correct errors. By the end of the course this portion was completely rewritten and elaborated upon to result in the following:
In addition, nonverbal communication or the use of gestures and body language are also part of a culture and they can be interpreted as having communication without words. There is not only an oral way of communicating and gestures and body language are also amazing human creations in each culture. We can communicate with gestures, clothing, eye contact, and some intentional phrases which are not literal. The use of gestures as a mean of communication is different in some countries because of history and cultural characteristics. In other words, using gestures and body language vary among different cultures. In the same way that languages vary in all the cultures, the different codes we have to communicate vary in signs and meanings.
A total of 8 attempts were made to correct what seemed to be previously accurate discourse, including one discussed in word choice. While it is obvious that students demonstrated an interest in addressing issues of word choice, 48% of word choice attempts resulted in error. This example illustrates a student's preference for the word begins over starts. Yet, the student misspells begins:
-We have to take into consideration that we belong to a society and there is where "culture" starts.
+We have to remember that we are part and belong to a society and there is where "culture" beguines.
In a follow-up interview this student explained this word choice as more academic. However, the misspelling of the word and introduction of new words defeats this intention.
In some cases errors were simply deleted from a passage with no other content change or attempt to otherwise alter the sentence. Further, there was often no attempt to address other errors present in the portion of text selected.
-I read something related to the use of space and gestures in different countries. For example, there are high. In other words, using gestures and body language vary among different cultures. In the same way that languages vary in all the cultures, the different codes we have to communicate vary in signs and meanings
+I read something related to the use of space and gestures in different countries. In other words, using gestures and body language vary among different cultures. In the same way that languages vary in all the cultures, the different codes we have to communicate vary in signs and meanings
In follow up interviews with students, they demonstrated the ability to quickly correct all of the errors in question. In most cases they considered them to be (as one of the students said) "minor annoyances that did not distract from meaning." An example of such an error includes the wrong verb form in the initial sentence:
This easily overlooked type of error was typical throughout the LREs. However, many others are quite obvious to the trained observer. None of the errors produced during the process of the wiki collaboration were identified by raters as potentially confusing. The low severity of the errors may have contributed to the fact that they were overlooked. Some specific errors were overlooked repeatedly and a total of 18 remained in the final document. Many of these were not overlooked as they were in portions of the text that were never revised. The nature and extent of overlooked errors may be the most interesting aspect of this study.
Overlooked Errors
Throughout the sixteen weeks there were 46 overlooked errors. These are extant errors that students failed to address while contributing to the same sentence. This total includes errors that were repeatedly overlooked. The total of distinct overlooked errors was 18. To reiterate the methodology, these errors were only counted if they existed within the units of the contribution in question. Table 4 provides an overview of the nature of overlooked errors.
Among 46 LREs, students elaborated upon content without attending to the pre-existing error. Perhaps due to the advanced level of the students in this class, sentence-level errors were rather limited compared to word-level errors. Due to the higher frequency of word-level errors there appears to be a higher rate of these being overlooked, but proportionally there is negligible difference.
The vast majority of postings dealt primarily with content. In many cases content was addressed while overlooking form. Many of the content-only contributions overlooked multiple errors in a passage while adding content. This example illustrates spelling errors, missing verbs, and awkward word choices:
(Note, some overlooked potential corrections are indicated between brackets)
-Culture, a very common word used by most of the people. But do we really know what it means? Most of the people have a wrong idea about what culture is. We tend to associate this concept to the kwoldge that a person has. However, knowledge is just part of a big group of elements that conform Culture.
+Culture, [is] a very common word used by most [of the] people. But do we really know what it means? Most of the people have a wrong idea about what culture is. We tend to associate this concept to the kwoldge that a person has. However, knowledge is just part of a big group of elements that conform Culture. However it is an essential element that defines a person.
In some cases, errors were overlooked while students were attending to rather minor design conventions, such as color of font, placement of quotation marks for emphasis, or elimination of redundant spacing. This is illustrated below:
-Culture "is the full range of learned human behavior patterns". This means that culture is the way a person acts according to where he/she lives and the environment that sorrounds him/her.
+Culture "is the full range of learned human behavior patterns". This means that culture is the way a person acts according to where he/she lives and the environment that sorrounds him/her.
The redundant space after the first word in this paragraph is removed while the spelling of "surrounds" is unaddressed.
In a number of examples there is an addition of information without any attention to numerous errors in the extant text.
-From all of the above, I can say that culture is the set of characteristics acquired and that tell who we are, where we are from, and whom we are with and that culture goes hand to hand with society [Runon].
+From all of the above, I can say that culture is the set of characteristics acquired and that tell who we are, where we are from, and whom we are with and that culture goes hand to hand with society [Runon intact]. It also involves how people behave in a society. Besides that, it allows us to know its customs, values, beliefs and so on.
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