ABSTRACT
Clearly there is much concern among educators, and among the public at large, over the apparent inability of many students to produce what is referred to as “acceptable written standard English.” It is difficult to define just what “acceptable written standard English” is; however, we know by the use of “acceptable” and “standard” in this phrase that it must be written English which reflects current textbook conventions of capitalization, punctuation and spelling (i.e., the “mechanics” of writing), and that it must reflect standard English grammatical patterns (usually indicated in such areas as subject-verb agreement, negation, etc.). When a student produces writing which does not reflect control of mechanics and/or of standard grammar (even if in fact it does communicate its content effectively), it is not acceptable as “good writing” to most educators, nor to the general public.
