Do Writing Errors Bother Professionals? An Analysis of the Most Bothersome Errors and How the Writer’s Ethos is Affected

Abstract

This study asks whether grammatical and mechanical errors bother business professionals, which of these types of errors are most bothersome, and whether such errors affect perceptions of the writer and their ethos. We administered a 17-question survey to roughly 100 business professionals whose roles are not primarily writing and communication within organizations. The findings show that business professionals are bothered by these errors and that the level of bothersomeness has increased from previous studies. Additionally, the findings show that participants have clear views of writers who make errors and that the context of the error matters. The authors conclude by offering implications for technical and professional communication.

Keywords

writing errors professional writing workplace ethos

Writer went to college and should be able to write a complete sentence and spell correctly.

—Comment from study participant

In an editorial for the Harvard Business Review, Wiens (2012), the owner of iFixit, stated that “good grammar makes good business sense—and not just when it comes to hiring writers” (n.p.) and that he would not hire a writer who did not understand correct grammar. Granted, iFixit’s business is writing, but reading the opening epigram, provided by a participant in our study, in light of Wiens’s position on grammar correctness raises some interesting questions about writing in the workplace. For this project, we examined professionals’ perception of errors, defining error as grammatical or mechanical mistakes in workplace writing.

Understanding that error and a reader’s understanding of error are intimately tied to what is being read and the context of the material (Williams, 1981), technical and professional communication (TPC) scholars have begun to look specifically at errors in

employers’ editing tests (Boettger, 2011, 2014)

employer perceptions of nonnative speakers (Wolfe et al., 2016)

contexts of workplace documents (Brandenburg, 2015)

comparisons between academics and working technical communicators (Boettger & Moore, 2018)

TPC teaching (Knievel et al., 2010; Quible, 2006; Quible & Griffin, 2007)

Building on this small body of work, our study examines which errors bother professionals. This study provides important data for understanding errors and how writers who make such errors are perceived in workplace writing contexts. Throughout this article, we use professionals as a category of employees whose roles are not primarily writing and communication within organizations. First, we briefly discuss the importance of quasi-replication in research and then explain how our study intersects with existing literature. Next, after describing our methodology for the study, we present the results of our survey research. We end by discussing its implications for TPC.

Importance of Building on Previous Research

In 2005, Haswell took writing studies to task about the lack of replicable, aggregable, and data-driven research. Even though TPC has always welcomed empirical and data-driven research (Boettger & Lam, 2013; Melonçon & St.Amant, 2019), which is the most replicable, the field has not performed many replication studies. Even though replicable or aggregable research is not the sole purpose for TPC—many could argue against such types of research—designing research studies that intentionally build on past research, particularly so that results can be tested with different populations, moves TPC toward generalizable knowledge. More generalizable results would benefit the field’s status and appeal to practitioners because such results represent the kind of research that they have called on academics to perform (St.Amant & Melonçon, 2016). Moreover, as communication and writing are in almost constant motion and change, research studies that directly build on previous studies could provide TPC with ongoing information to suggest future research that could affect practice (both in the workplace and in how we teach writing).

While writing errors is the subject of the research we present here, we also want to forefront the necessity for TPC research that directly and deliberately builds on previous research. The use of replication or quasi-replication (as we will define) affords TPC the opportunity to build a more robust research literacy that advances the knowledge and standing of the field and that points to a maturing field. In other words, the rush to do novel work needs to be balanced by an awareness of existing scholarship.

Understanding the relationship between this research study and previous research allows readers to see the similarities and differences. Thus, our literature review is confined to studies that examine error as it relates to workplace writing. Because the number of previous studies is limited (N = 8), we present the review in two tables that illustrate the differences: in research questions and methods and in research study participants. Later, we will compare our study’s findings to the existing research.

Research Questions and Methods

In each of the studies listed in Table 1, the research questions focused on the impact and perception of error, a focus that is similar to that of our study.

Table 1.

Compilation of the Research Questions of Published Studies (Including Our Study) on Professionals’ Views of Writing Errors in the Workplace.

Year	Author	Research Question
1981	Hairston	“Do all mistakes matter? If not, which ones do? Do they have the same priorities for writing that we do?” (p. 794).
1990	Leonard and Gilsdorf	“This study is an effort to describe and compare the extent to which certain questionable usage elements bother each of these two groups of readers: business communication teachers and business executives” (pp. 140–141).
2001	Gilsdorf and Leonard	Due to the pressures on language created by the influence of global English and e-mail on standard English, do “readers continue to perceive the various questionable usage elements as errors?” (p. 441). “Which written grammar and usage error constitute deficiencies” to teachers and business professionals? (p. 441).
2001	Beason	“If one goal is to prepare students to write effectively once they leave college, we should consider nonacademics responses to error…the ways in which errors manage to bother nonacademic readers” (p. 34) and “how errors in turn shape the writer’s ethos” (p. 47).
2003	Gray and Heuser	Update to Hairston’s (1981) survey “to see whether responses to the usage topics cited in Hairston’s study, which relate to matters of grammar, spelling, diction, and punctuation, have changed in the past twenty years” (p. 50).
2014	Boettger	“What are the general characteristics of editing tests? Specifically, how are the tests administered, what are the typical formats, and how is performance assessed? What are the general contents of editing tests? Specifically, which error types appear most frequently and how dispersed are these errors? How do practicing technical communicators’ perceptions of error reflect the errors identified in the sample?” (p. 216).
2015	Brandenburg	“Do readers notice errors when they are not intentionally reading for them? What errors are readers most likely to notice? Likewise, what errors are the most bothersome to readers? Does the presence of errors affect the writer’s ethos (or the reader’s perception of the writer’s ethos)? What other factors might affect the writer’s ethos?” (p. 75).
2018	Boettger and Moore	“Which errors bother professional communication practitioners and academics?” (p. 465). “How do participants’ botheration levels correlate with their ability to identify errors?” (p. 465). “Do social variables influence participants’ botheration levels? Specifically, are participants’ botheration levels influenced by their gender, job type, or years working in the field?” (p. 466).
2020	Our study	Does error bother business professionals, and if so, which errors are most bothersome? How do errors affect a writer’s ethos? Are there differences in the perception of error? How do readers perceive writers whose work includes errors?

Table 1 shows that there are some nuanced, important differences between the studies, but what is common across them is the researchers’ desire to better understand how professionals react to and perceive error. In addition, these studies consistently desire to examine the relationship between error and the ethos of the writer (Beason, 2001; Brandenburg, 2015).

The later studies (including our study) have attempted to incorporate better methods for reliability and validity by placing the errors in context (Brandenburg, 2015), incorporating an emphasis on perception to understand the context of writing (our study), and setting up the errors in a more experimental design (Boettger & Moore, 2018). The enhancement and attention to research study design suggests a growth and development of TPC as a research field and an attempt, through modified replications, to generate generalizable results.

Research Study Participants

Recruitment in any research study is an important marker of its validity and reliability and participants are key to being able to draw conclusions and then determine if those conclusions can be related to other participants and situations in previous research. Table 2 presents information about the participants in each of the studies.

Table 2.

Compilation of Research Study Participants in the Existing Literature (Including Our Study) on Writing Errors in the Workplace.

Year	Author	Type of Participants and Sampling Technique	Number of Participants
1981	Hairston	Convenience sample of professionals from a range of industries (due to the mix of professions, some respondents focused on writing as a large portion of daily work, while others did not)	84
1990	Leonard and Gilsdorf	Executive vice presidents from the 1,000 largest industrial and the 500 largest service firms in the United States Academics from the Association of Business Communication	133 nonacademic, 200 academic
2001	Gilsdorf and Leonard	High-level executives from large, publicly held U.S. companies, targeting titles of vice president, senior vice president, and executive vice president Academics from Association of Business Communication	64 nonacademic, 130 academic
2001	Beason	Business professionals engaged in daily reading of business documents for their organizations (sampled from the communities where Beason lived during various stages of the study: Spokane, WA, and Mobile, AL)	14
2003	Gray and Heuser	Nonacademic professionals; convenience sample of relatives, friends, acquaintances, and so on	84
2014	Boettger	Technical and professional communicators sampled from the Society of Technical Communication	176
2015	Brandenburg	Business professionals who regularly read and write business documents, such as memos and e-mails (participants were likely members of both large and small businesses in the Texas or Southwest U.S. region)	75
2018	Boettger and Moore	Technical and professional communicators sampled from the Society of Technical Communication Faculty in TPC programs compiled through forums and listservs	189 nonacademic, 114 academic
2020	Our study	Business professionals from a range of industries that do not include writing as a large portion of their daily work	94

Note. TPC = technical and professional communication.

Table 2 provides an at-a-glance view of participants and their differences. Previous research has not always identified the backgrounds of the participants. For example, Gray and Heuser’s (2003) study was a convenience sample of people that they knew. This type of imprecision adds a layer of difficulty in trying to draw conclusions across data. The more precise research studies can be in recruiting a sample that aligns with the research question, the better-off TPC will be in the future. For example, Boetteger (2014) and Boettger and Moore (2018) surveyed members of the Society of Technical Communication, which by their membership aligns them as professionals who would identify as writers and communicators and would see writing and communicating as the primary focus of their job. One could posit that writers and professional communicators would be more sensitive to error issues. Expanding the definition of practitioner beyond members of the Society of Technical Communication allows TPC to produce replicable, or similarly aligned, studies with different populations of practitioners.

Method

While outside the scope of our study itself, technology’s impact on writing practices was one of the driving exigencies for our study. We wondered whether errors in today’s workplace would be viewed similarly to previous studies’ results because of the speed in which technology is influencing the way that professionals write and deliver information (e.g., Longo, 2014; Reinsch & Turner, 2006) and the impact of narratives about texting and social media writing (e.g., Bowdon, 2014; Takayoshi, 2015). These changes in writing practices, when read alongside the persistent emphasis on the importance of correct grammar and mechanics in the workplace (Adams, 2012; Rushkoff et al., 2012; Scaros, 2016), prompted us to return to the existing studies on errors in workplace writing.

Following a genealogy of replication that began with Hairston (1981), we chose to do what we refer to as a quasi-replication study of Beason’s (2001) work. This project is a quasi-replication because, while it is partly a direct replication, it makes significant changes in the research study design. So we define quasi-replication here as a research study that examines the same set of questions as the original study but includes significant changes in the methods or practice of research. Framing our study as a quasi-replication connects it directly with previous work but acknowledges that there are important differences in the study design.

Beason (2001) himself was performing a quasi-replication by following Hairston (1981), but he opted to use the work of Connors and Lunsford (1988) to focus on the four most common errors found in student writing: misspellings, word-ending errors, fragments, and fused sentences. Beason distributed a questionnaire that asked working professionals to rank errors on a Likert-type scale of 1–4 using bothersome as the preference indicator. He also interviewed a small number of working professionals (N = 14) to determine how bothered they were by errors in grammar and mechanics. Thus, our questions were similar to Beason’s (2001) and others:

Does error bother professionals, and if so, which errors are most bothersome?

How do errors affect a writer’s ethos?

But we added these follow-up general questions:

How do readers perceive writers whose work includes errors?

Are there differences in the perception of error in our study as compared to the time frame of Beason’s study?

Our follow-up questions indicate how we are specifically building on the previous research on workplace writing errors.

We use Beason’s (2001) rating system with a 1–4 scale in order to establish comparable results (and align in some ways with other research such as Boettger, 2014). In addition, using the 4-point scale with no neutral option forced participants to choose a level of how bothered they were by the error, which was an essential part of the research question. For each error type, participants read three sentences that each contained an example of the error and then ranked each sentence individually using a 4-point scale to determine their level of bothersomeness (1 = not bothersome at all, 2 = somewhat bothersome, 3 = definitely bothersome, and 4 = extremely bothersome).

To achieve comparable results to previous research, we selected similar error categories to Beason (2001) and others with only minor differences. Instead of one category for all misspellings, our study further scrutinized misspellings and settled on two categories: misspellings and wrong words. Misspellings represent a standard spelling error (e.g., “expertice” for “expertise”) whereas the wrong word category represents homophone errors (e.g., “their” instead of “there”). Additionally, we renamed Beason’s category fused sentences to run-on sentences because it is a more commonly used term. We also added the error category unnecessary quotation marks. We asked participants to indicate their level of bothersomeness for each of these six error types:

fragments

unnecessary quotation marks

word-ending errors

run-on sentences

misspellings

wrong words

We then averaged the bothersome levels for each error type for each participant. Some participants did not answer the questions for all six of the error types. In these instances, we chose not to include those responses as part of our analysis for that particular error because we did not want to skew the means in each error set.

Our most significant movement away from Beason’s (2001) study is in the method we used for collecting data. While Beason used a questionnaire and interviews, we used a survey in order to obtain a larger data set. The survey, as primarily a quantitative research method, has as one of its strengths the ability to reach a large number of people. We administered a 16-item survey (see Online Appendix) including a series of open-ended questions in the final section of the survey in order to obtain qualitative responses. These questions were designed to stand in for qualitative interviews in collecting data about how the reader perceived the writer, thereby continuing a concern in the literature about conceptions of ethos. We viewed these qualitative responses as similar to what Beason gathered from his interviews though we readily admit that our data are not as rich. We also added perception of the writer questions in the final section in order to gather additional information about how writers who make errors are perceived by their colleagues.

After finalizing our survey method and decisions on how closely to replicate Beason, we turned our attention to recruitment. We also departed from Beason’s (2001) original study to include a sampling method that is more reliable and replicable. We distributed our survey using purposive and then snowball sampling. In purposive sampling, “particular settings, persons, or events are deliberately selected for the important information they can provide that cannot be gotten as well from other choices” (Maxwell, 1997, p. 87). This method allowed us to recruit through one of our own personal networks by sending the request to a variety of business acquaintances and asking them to forward it to others. Our initial purposive sampling included only two people who understood the goals of the study and had access to large networks. The forwarding to others moved our sampling from purposive to snowball sampling, a “nonprobability sampling technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances” (Lewis-Beck et al., 2004, p. 1043). Using these two methods of sampling in tandem means that a rate of return cannot be determined.

Following the premise of replication research to replicate a study with different populations, we also indicated that participants had to be professionals who did not identify as having to write regularly in their organization. As readers of this journal will acknowledge, all professionals write on the job, but an important distinction can be made between those who are responsible for this output (e.g., communication managers, content strategists, medical writers, technical writers) and those who contribute to it (e.g., subject-matter experts, department heads, midlevel managers). But we deliberately recruited professionals who are not members of a communication organization (cf. Boettger, 2014) and who self-identified as having a job in which they did not need to write on a regular basis. This identification was the primary criterion for completing the survey. That is, the recruitment language specifically asked for only those who did not feel writing was part of their job to complete the survey. Thus, this study provides an important addition to existing research and will offer TPC another view on error in workplace writing.

Due to our recruitment method and the fact that not all respondents answered each question, we report the number of responses (n) to the particular questions discussed. We did not feel that including incomplete surveys would affect our overall analysis of the data. In other words, we were interested in understanding how professionals reacted to errors in writing, so we included all the questions that were answered rather than only fully completed survey responses. This research project was approved by the University of Cincinnati’s Institutional Review Board (#12-01-04-04).

Survey Participants

In all, 99 participants took the survey, but 5 were removed because their jobs were writing intensive, leaving 94 usable responses. Of the 94 participants, 63 (67%) were female, 28 (30%) were male, and 3 (3%) did not identify their gender. Table 3 includes the data on age breakdowns. We did not ask a race and ethnicity question.

Table 3.

Age of Participants.

Age Band	% (n of Participants)
22–30	13 (n = 12)
31–40	28 (n = 26)
41–50	23 (n = 21)
51+	36 (n = 34)

Note. One participant did not identify age.

To provide more background of the participants’ experiences, we also asked questions concerning the participants’ educational levels and industry fields (see Figure 1 and Table 4). Of the 92 participants who answered the question asking for their educational level, 55% (n = 51) had a master’s degree (MA, MS, or MBA) whereas 29% (n = 27) held a bachelor’s degree. Overall, 93% of those participants had a bachelor’s degree or higher (n = 86). Fewer than 10% indicated they had attended “some college” but either did not earn a degree or had earned only an associate’s degree. Table 4 indicates the industries in which participants work. Those who indicated that they work in higher education are not faculty but rather professionals who work in support positions necessary to higher education as an organization. Many of the participants in higher education were assistant or associate directors of university development offices or similar offices, such as Career Services, University Advancement, and Alumni Relations. The participants who indicated that they work in nonprofits included chief development or advancement officers, executive directors, development officers, and managers of donor relations.

Figure 1.

Educational background of survey participants. Note. Two participants did not answer this question.

Table 4.

Industries of Participants.

Industry	% (n of Participants)
Nonprofit	28 (n = 26)
Higher education	22 (n = 20)
Health care	12 (n = 11)
Other	12 (n = 11)
Finance, insurance, real estate	9 (n = 8)
Manufacturing	5 (n = 5)
Government	4 (n = 4)
Retail, wholesale	4 (n = 4)
Services	4 (n = 4)

Note. One participant did not identify industry.

Limitations

As with any survey, there are limitations with self-reported data as well as with the survey method itself. Particularly, the recruitment technique limits the overall findings because even though the participants self-identified as not feeling that writing was the primary part of their job, many hold advanced degrees that could affect the generalizability of the results and possibly predispose a bias toward error because of their educational attainment. Due to the way the survey was distributed, the findings are also weighted to certain industries, which again can reduce the widespread applicability of the results. But with any self-reported data, we need to take participants and their participation at face value.

Results and Discussion

Part of professionalism is learning to communicate effectively. Any error that distracts from the message decreases its effectiveness.

—Comment from study participant

In this section, we discuss our survey results on participants’ views of error. Specifically, we evaluate how their views relate to gender and age, to perceptions of the writer’s ethos, and to gender, age, and context.

Participants’ Views of Error

I forgive “quick typing” spelling errors in e-mail communication, but not in documents/presentations/contracts. I am highly critical of people who use words incorrectly in all forms of writing. It makes me think the person is not intelligent.

—Comment from study participant

We asked participants to rank each of 18 sentences “according to how bothersome you would find the error if it were written by a colleague and appeared in a work document” using a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from extremely bothersome to not bothersome. Converting the Likert-type categories to a 4-point Numerical Scale where not bothersome equaled 1 and extremely bothersome equaled 4, we averaged participants’ three responses for each error type (see Table 5). We then used each individual’s average score to rank how bothersome participants found each error type overall.

Table 5.

Participants’ Mean Responses for Each Type of Error.

Error	Mean
Wrong words	3.38
Run-on sentences	3.25
Fragments	3.10
Word-ending errors	3.05
Misspellings	2.94
Unnecessary quotation marks	2.62

Compared to the results of Beason’s (2001) study, our data show an increase in the level of bothersomeness in every category. We found that professionals were most bothered by wrong words, followed by run-on sentences and fragments. Beason’s study found fragments to be ranked most bothersome, followed by misspellings and word-ending errors. When comparing our results to Beason’s, we see the largest increases in the categories of run-on sentences (increase of 0.72) and word-ending errors (increase of 0.42). Misspellings and unnecessary quotation marks received 0.2–0.3 increases whereas fragments received an increase of less than 0.1. These findings contradict previous research, which has suggested that, as a society, we have become more tolerant of grammatical and mechanical errors in writing as time has passed.

Perhaps because we did not ask for comments about these error questions specifically, we received few comments related to how participants felt about the type of errors they came across. Misspellings were ranked fairly low in level of bothersomeness, perhaps due to the ubiquity of spell check systems; nonetheless, they received some of the most pointed qualitative comments:

Writer isn’t very smart because they could have used spell check and didn’t.

The sample errors would have been caught by most spell and grammar check programs. Even with software alerts, it seems the writer did not care enough to review his or her work. These are examples of a sloppy work product and reflect poorly upon the organization and the department.

These comments indicate that the participants objected to the writer’s lack of care in that the writing contained such easily fixable mistakes that the writer must have chosen not to use commonly available tools such as spell check.

We analyzed the mean level of bothersomeness by age (see Table 6). Our findings were similar to those of Gilsford and Leonard (2001) in that we also found that younger respondents were less bothered by errors than older respondents were. But participants from ages 22 to 30 and 31 to 40 experienced the same level of bothersomeness.

Table 6.

Mean Bothersomeness of Participants by Age.

Age Band	Mean
22–30	2.83
31–40	2.83
41–50	2.96
51+	3.28

Note. n = 86.

We also asked participants to answer the question, “Do you have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents as compared with external documents?” Internal documents are e-mails, memos, and other communications that are circulated within a workplace. External documents, on the other hand, are public-facing documents. Figure 2 displays the results of this question, broken down by gender. We found a small gender difference in the discussion of internal versus external contexts. More male participants (64%) believed that such context mattered to their error perception than did female participants (55%). Here is what one male participant (age 51+) said about context:

Depending on the level of formality, internal docs may be executed too quickly and at least among certain colleagues, minor errors can be less damning. All external docs to customers the public etc. should be as close to perfect as possible.

Figure 2.

Gender differences in responses to the question, “Do you have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents as compared to external documents?” (n = 85).

Previous research on writing errors has also found differences between gender and age. Gilsford and Leonard’s (2001) findings showed that 29 of the 50 statements with usage errors bothered females more than males. Five of the 29 errors resulted in a difference of more than 0.80, which included confusion between the words “affect” and “effect,” an unnecessary apostrophe in a possessive pronoun, a missing apostrophe in a contraction, a comma splice, and a lack of an apostrophe in a possessive noun (p. 456). And Boettger and Moore (2018) found that female participants were more bothered by errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and content than were male participants. Our data also show a gender difference in response to error. As one female participant (age 22–30) said about herself, “I am often referred to as a grammar Nazi.” Female participants had an overall mean level of bothersomeness of 3.07 whereas male participants had an overall mean level of bothersomeness of 2.80.

Age was a much bigger factor in how much context mattered to the perception of error (see Figure 3). An overwhelming 90% of participants in the 22–30 age group said that they have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents compared to external documents. Here are a few of their comments:

Internal documents are low impact and therefore it is not an efficient use of time to review/edit writing 100% (80/20 rule is typically applied). (Female participant, age 22–30)

You can get away with more errors in an internal document because you’re not “selling” anything to an external audience. (Female participant, age 22–30)

The use of smartphones creates the opportunity for a lot of innocent typos and writing errors. So long as these errors stay within the company, I don’t feel they are a serious problem. However, writing errors delivered to customers are unacceptable, regardless of whether or not a smartphone was used in the creation of the document. (Male participant, age 22–30)

Figure 3.

Age differences in responses to the question, “Do you have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents as compared to external documents?” (n = 85).

Overall, in response to the question, “Do you have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents as compared with external documents?” 58% of participants answered positively that such context did affect their perception of error (see Figure 4). Mistakes made on internal company documents, especially informal documents such as e-mails between coworkers, were not found to be especially bothersome to the majority of participants in our study:

I find it easier to overlook a minor error in an internal e-mail—especially if it is an informal request and not an e-mail that will be used to document some specific issue.

Informal documents don’t have to be as precise.

An error in an e-mail is still annoying but less consequential than in a report or proposal.

Published works, such as reports, advertising materials, newsletters, books, newspapers, and magazines, must be error-free. Internal e-mails or memos that are announcing changes or policies should be error-free. A quick response to a question that is not broadly distributed should also be error-free, but if there is a typo or wrong word because of haste, that is not as bad.

Figure 4.

Participants’ overall response to the question, “Do you have a different perception of writing errors for internal documents as compared to external documents?” (n = 85).

But some participants disagreed that such context makes a difference:

I feel that it is sloppy to put up with poorly written internal documents just because they are internal. It tends to lead to doing a poor writing job with the documents that go outside the organization.

Internal communications are often more important than external communications; so they should not get less attention or be held to lower standards.

Errors in both types of documents are bothersome. Lowering your standards for internal documents is a slippery slope, one that sends a message that the standards aren’t that important.

These responses provide a glimpse into the contextual approach to writing and error in the workplace. While those of us who teach and practice TPC have long understood the importance of context, it is important to see that working professionals who do not identify as writers see this connection as well.

Participants’ Perceptions of the Writer’s Ethos

Writer doesn’t care about the image he/she projects of self or organization.

—Comment from study participant

Previous research has rightfully looked at the concept of ethos and how it applies to errors in writing. Beason (2001) was the first to consider issues of ethos when he specifically asked those he interviewed about their perceptions of the writer. While Kotzee and Johnston (2011) refrained from directly addressing ethos, they observed that “UK employers seem to be of the view that many graduates struggle with the writing tasks expected of them and writing ability seems to be one of those abilities that…is often only noticed when absent” (p. 51). More recently, Brandenburg (2015) found that participants’ ranking of ethos in the categories of character, credibility, and presentation resulted in lower ethos scores for error-laden documents than error-free versions. She concluded that readers associate a higher status of ethos to error-free writing (p. 84).

Building on these three studies specifically, we intentionally designed the questions at the end of our survey to elicit open-ended responses in order to gather information on participants’ perceptions of a writer’s ethos. Beason (2001) concluded that there were three foreseeable ways in which a writer’s ethos can be damaged:

as a writer—in being hasty, careless, uncaring, or uninformed

as a business person—in being a faulty thinker, inconsiderate of details, a poor oral communicator, poorly educated, sarcastic, or aggressive

as a representative—in poorly representing the employer to customers and in legal proceedings (pp. 49–57)

Our open-ended questions were closely aligned to Beason’s conception of ethos, and we report those results in this section. Our findings indicate that grammatical and mechanical errors do negatively affect participants’ evaluation of writers who make these sorts of errors.

But several participants’ comments reflected the idea that participants were more forgiving of errors made by those they knew. Their comments suggest that people make judgments based on the totality of the information they have on an individual. So people with established reputations can typically “get away with” more mistakes, at least in internal company documents:

A writer whom I know well can get away with informal communication or errors. In fact, I may use abbreviated sentences or write in haste when sending messages to colleagues or managers who are very familiar with my work and my competence. However, it’s important to project a competent image each time we communicate with the outside world. We never know which of our messages will be forwarded or replicated.

I am more accepting of errors in internal documents. I generally know the parties involved and the time pressure employees face. I also expect that employees understand the importance of presenting our organization as competent, professional.

If the only information that individuals know about a person is the document in front of them, they appear to be much harsher in their judgments. So as we prepare students to enter the job market, we need to remind them that potential employers draw their initial judgments about them as potential employees from the information in their cover letter and résumé.

Much like Beason (2001), we wanted to understand how others in the organization perceive writers who make errors. Using some of the same concepts Beason asked about in his interviews, we included two questions that asked participants to select a response based on their perception of the writer. Despite the limitation of not letting the participants write in their own perception, these two questions could help TPC scholars understand in practical ways how those who do not write as a primary job responsibility feel about writing errors. The questions provide three different perspectives on the participants’ perceptions of writers who make errors. Figure 5 illustrates the participants’ perceptions of the image of writers who make grammatical or mechanical errors.

Figure 5.

Participants’ perceptions of a writer’s image as a writer when errors are present (n = 88). Note. Participants could select more than one answer, so the percentages total more than 100%.

As Figure 5 shows, by far the most common perception was that the writer is careless, with 84% (n = 74) of the participants selecting this option. Similar to Beason’s (2001) conception of ethos, our results demonstrate that error-ridden documents result in a negative perception of the writer as a writer. More than two thirds of the participants chose more than one answer. Writer is “careless” was most closely linked to the answers “Writer is hasty” and “Writer is indifferent.” Of the 25 participants who selected two answers, 13 of those chose that the writer is “careless” and “hasty.” Of the 29 individuals who selected only one comment, 20 people selected “Writer is careless.”

Only 4% of the participants felt that none of these answers adequately expressed their perception of the writer, which suggests that error plays an important role in how other professionals view those who make errors in their writing. To add nuance to these findings, here are several comments participants made:

Trust and confidence in an employee’s work product is eroded if errors such as these are the norm.

One error would not change my view of a person’s professional skills, but consistent errors would.

Minor mistakes are rarely offensive, can easily be corrected, and are overlooked when the individual is a member of management/executive team. However, if errors are always present in an individual’s work, it can easily reflect upon their perceived character.

Thus, participants appear to be more forgiving of occasional errors but note that frequent errors by the same individual would change their opinion of that writer’s ethos.

Figure 6 illustrates the participants’ perceptions of the ethos or credibility of writers as professionals when errors are present in their writing. This second set of responses reflects participants’ perceptions about the characteristics of the writers themselves rather than their writing.

Figure 6.

Participants’ perceptions of a writer as a business professional when errors are present (n = 86). Note. Participants could select more than one answer, so the percentages total more than 100%.

The majority of participants (67%) agreed with the statement, “Writer is not a detail person.” While this statement by itself does not seem particularly damaging, the next two statements that participants agreed with most often, “Writer is a poor communicator” (47%) and “Writer is poorly educated” (44%), certainly indicate a negative bias toward that ethos. Only 6% of participants agreed with the statement, “Writer is a faulty thinker.”

“Writer is poorly educated” was also linked with the writer being a “poor communicator” and not a “detail person,” with 23 participants selecting all three responses. Another nine participants selected just two of these responses: that the write is “poorly educated” and a “poor communicator.” “Poorly educated,” of course, is a direct indictment of the college education these hypothetical writers received. A further nine participants selected “poorly educated” only. Clearly, then, employees who make grammatical or mechanical mistakes in their writing are seen as less competent professionals. The words “poorly educated” were also directly mentioned in the following participants’ open-ended responses:

I tend to think that the person who writes poorly is both poorly educated and not interested in improving their skills. I also think that the person is perhaps not the most qualified person for the job.

I know, rationally, that the “poorly educated” thought is probably not true, but I wonder how the person got through college (or whatever training) and still makes spelling and/or tense errors.

Finally, we asked participants to rate their own reactions to seeing errors in documents. That is, we asked participants to rate their agreement or disagreement on a Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) with eight statements specific to their reaction to encountering error in documents at their workplace (see Table 7). Participants agreed most strongly with these statements:

I am embarrassed for my company and want the employee’s writing skill deficit to be rectified. (M = 3.10)

I tend to contextualize and react on a case-by-case basis. (M = 2.97)

Table 7.

Participants’ Mean Reactions to Encountering Error in Documents at Their Workplace.

Reaction to Error	Mean
I am embarrassed for my company and want the employee’s writing skill deficit to be rectified.	3.10
I tend to contextualize and react on a case-by-case basis.	2.97
I am likely to change my view of the employee’s professional skills in general when I encounter an error.	2.89
I have zero tolerance for sloppy writing in the workplace.	2.81
I don’t like to see errors, but I have bigger issues on my plate.	2.80
I tend to react based on who is writing the document.	2.67
I place the highest priority on the quality of the content and tend to overlook minor mistakes.	2.53
I have little to no reaction to errors in documents.	1.70

While contextualization is important, participants’ responses suggest that the participants are more concerned that professionals who make writing errors reflect poorly on the company. Participants might also be concerned that these mistakes reflect poorly on themselves as professionals. They disagreed strongly with the statement, “I place the highest priority on the quality of the content and tend to overlook minor mistakes” (M = 2.53). This disagreement seems to suggest, particularly when read against the statements most strongly agreed with, that the participants appreciated error-free writing. These participant comments all reflect that sentiment:

This document was clearly not important to the writer if they make a big error in it. This tells me they did it fast and I’m not important enough as a reader for the writer to take the time to re-read.

Internal documents are as important as external documents. If you make mistakes in internal documents, you make them in external documents as well.

Considering the participants’ responses to the question about whether they had a different perception of writing errors in internal versus external documents, it is not surprising that they tended to agree with the statement “I tend to contextualize and react on a case-by-case basis” when it comes to error. One of the primary tenets of TPC is contextualization, so it is not surprising that professionals also understand that the importance of the document varies based on its type and intended audience. For example, one of the participants wrote this:

I accept and forgive many, many errors on e-mails, less so on memos, and even far less in internally distributed reports. I am very unforgiving of errors in published documents that will be reviewed outside the organization—they should either be carefully proofread or a more expert writer should be tapped. If something is written by an obviously inexpert writer for external communications, I believe that it reflects the hubris of the writer and believe that it shows poor leadership within the organization.

Thus, the findings from our study, when read alongside those from Brandenburg’s (2015) study, underscore the importance of context. In this case, we take context to mean a specific organizational setting in which a specific communication event for a defined purpose and audience takes place. In other words, our findings lend credence to the idea that an error in an e-mail to a colleague is quite different from an error in a first-level heading of a report for an external client.

Some of these comments suggest that participants felt that the ethos of the writer was less important than the ethos of the organization as a whole. So, for instance, if an error-laden document is circulated externally, it reflects poorly on not just the individual but also the business:

If the document is only for our office, and is not an official policy/procedure document, writing errors are somewhat acceptable. Otherwise, they shed a poor light on our department as a whole.

Though equally important to be accurate in both kinds of documents, I am not embarrassed if the mistake does not go to the general public.

Our data provide an important confirmation that many professionals recognize what academics in TPC have instinctively known: Writing errors in organizational documents reflect poorly on the organization. The findings from this study provide academics, practitioners, and professionals with a suggestion of where to allocate time and energy resources in the writing and editing process as well as in ongoing professional development.

Implications for TPC

I have negative opinions toward business professionals who make writing errors.

—Comment from study participant

The results of this study have implications for the following areas: generalizable conclusions, pedagogy, linguistic diversity, and future research.

Generalizable Conclusions

One implication of this study is that it shows in several ways the importance of quasi-replication research studies and building on existing research. Recent critiques of research in the field (Melonçon, 2018; Melonçon & St.Amant, 2019; St.Amant & Graham, 2019) have pointed to the necessity for TPC to engage more fully with existing research and show the development of ideas over time. As a quasi-replication of existing research, this study can be combined with other studies with similar approaches—much like a systematic review and metasynthesis—to draw some generalizable conclusions about error research. Table 8 provides an overview of the findings from TPC research on error (including our study).

Table 8.

An Overview of the Research Findings From TPC Research on Error.

Year	Author	Findings Regarding Error
1981	Hairston	Found “status markers,” which include verb tense errors, double negatives, and sentences starting with an object pronoun, most bothersome; found sentence fragments, failure to capitalize proper names, and run-ons next most bothersome
1990	Leonard and Gilsdorf	Found sentence-structure errors (run-on sentences, fragments, danglers, and faulty parallel structure) to be most distracting
2001	Gilsdorf and Leonard	Concluded six of the most distracting errors involved sentence structure, two involved punctuation of parenthetical expression, one involved wrong word choice, and one involved using the pronoun “I”
2001	Beason	Found fragments, misspellings, word ending, run-on sentences, and quotation marks most bothersome
2003	Gray and Heuser	Concluded nonacademic professionals were less bothered by error than in Hairston’s (1981) study; found fewer errors in “bothers me a lot” category; found gender bias, in that female participants were less tolerant of error; and found “status marker” errors (see Hairston, 1981) most bothersome
2014	Boettger	Found spelling (including homonyms); unnecessary or missing capitalization; hyphen, em dash, or en dash; language or nomenclature consistency; and wrong-word errors most bothersome
2015	Brandenburg	Found wrong word was the highest weighted error, followed by misspelling; unnecessary or missing capitalization; redundant, expendable, or incomparable language; misplaced/dangling modifier; and hyphen, em-dash, or en-dash error
2018	Boettger and Moore	Found sentence fragment, unnecessary or missing apostrophe; misspelling (homophone), fancy tone/language, and wrong word were most bothersome
2020	Our study	Confirmed previous research regarding most bothersome errors: wrong word, run-on sentences, fragments, word endings, and misspellings; found increased levels of bothersomeness Confirmed previous research that context of writing (internal vs. external) does matter Added to existing research on ethos and perceptions of writers who make errors in workplace writing; opened new lines of inquiry

Note. TPC = technical and professional communication.

As Table 8 shows, the findings from these studies on error show consistency dating back to Hairston (1981). This consistency indicates that even with changes in communication technologies, errors in business writing are still bothersome to the majority of professionals. The results of our study along with those of existing research suggest that TPC scholars can state that professionals are bothered by errors in workplace writing. Although it is no surprise that technical and professional communicators and academics are bothered by error, given their training and job description, the fact that the professionals in our study were also bothered by many of the same errors indicates that TPC can likely conclude, based on the differing populations and the consistency of participants being bothered, that some errors are perceived as bothersome by professionals in general. Thus, common errors are bothersome across different professional groups, future research needs to refine its questions about what more we need to know about error.

Pedagogy

In Bad Ideas About Writing (Ball & Loewe, 2017), there are several chapters that directly address the idea that worrying about grammar or correctness in writing is actually disadvantageous (see, e.g., Dunn, 2017; Rule, 2017). These chapters posit, coinciding with much of the scholarship in composition studies, that teaching writing does not mean teaching grammar. But the limited research on teaching grammar and errors in TPC suggests that explicit grammar instruction would be useful.

Knievel et al. (2010) described a workshop they delivered as consultants to an environmental engineering firm. They noted that as “writing instructors professionalized during an era characterized by an emphasis on writing process and rhetorical concerns like audience and purpose,” they were at first hesitant to meet the specific request of the manager who invited them to give a “refresher workshop focusing on grammar and mechanics” (p. 58). Despite their initial discomfort, Knievel et al. had participants “complete brief exercises or ‘drills’”—even though doing so conflicted with “NCTE guidelines for teaching grammar, which encourage instructors to acknowledge the drawbacks of ‘traditional drill and practice’ work” (p. 64). To their surprise, they found that participants responded to these “drills” with “rapt attention…often making notes on the letter report, [and] many asked questions and added their own insights to the lectures, sharing the lessons and mnemonic devices derived from their own schooling” (p. 64). They concluded their description by inviting “teachers of technical communication to reevaluate the role of grammar instruction in their own classrooms” (p. 67).

Related to Knievel et al.’s (2010) findings, Quible (2006) developed teaching strategies to remediate sentence-level error and help stem the tide of a “lost generation of business writers” (Quible & Griffin, 2007). Quible (2006) used a quasi-experimental research study to explore whether error labeling and correcting—through the student practice of remediation exercises—result in stronger writing performance and fewer errors in subsequent projects. Using a convenience sample of his own classes, Quible asked students to read and label error codes in remediation exercises of roughly 100 words with 12–15 errors. His results suggested that error labeling and error correction, practiced on an ongoing basis over 8 weeks, reduced sentence-level errors in student business documents.

Quible and Griffin (2007) advocated for grammar instruction as part of teaching written communication but warned against relying on the established rules-based or context-based methods of instruction. Instead, they proposed that sentence-level errors can be improved through a combination of approaches including in-context writing, sentence combining, glossing, and error labeling. They also argued that instructors should mark and grade errors as part of the student’s grade. These findings suggest that much like Knievel et al.’s (2010) working professionals, students responded to explicit grammar instruction. Recent research on the editing course (Melonçon, 2019) shows that a “grammar quiz” is a common option, but it is unclear how this emphasis on grammar instruction is considered throughout the course, and the editing course is part of a TPC degree program. Although the ubiquitous service course provides an important site to gain a better understanding of grammar instruction, a study of service course syllabi shows that there is little to no emphasis on grammar concerns (Zarlengo, 2019).

These findings from existing TPC research, when read alongside the research in composition, raise questions for TPC pedagogy as to how to address the real concern of helping students find and handle errors in their writing. Even though errors might have been introduced because of the speed of workplace writing rather than because the writer did not understand grammar rules or spot errors, the writer’s ethos might still be affected. As seen in a number of the qualitative comments and the opening epigram of this essay, professionals expect a certain level of writing competence that does indeed include error-free writing. While it is beyond the scope of this article to provide specific suggestions for teaching grammar and mechanics, we do want to encourage faculty and administrators to incorporate innovative ways to emphasize writing errors not only by ensuring that students understand the errors but by helping students understand how their own authority can be undermined when they make such errors. Thus, TPC program administrators and faculty need to consciously and deliberately discuss how to integrate these findings into their curricula, particularly within service course curricula, because the findings suggest that not paying attention to issues of grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure is detrimental to students.

Linguistic Diversity

We would be remiss, then, to not include a brief discussion about issues of linguistic diversity. Williams’s (1981) classic summation looms large in composition studies and is an important point to revisit here. He argued that error is keyed to how it is experienced and that experience is then keyed to who we are and what we are reading. One of Williams’s larger concerns is how errors are defined because “we have to define categories of error other than those defined by systems of grammar or a theory of social class” (p. 159). We are acutely aware of the tensions between correctness (as seen in findings about errors in workplace writing in our study and others) and the idea that correctness has long been determined by those in power. Thus, we acknowledge that errors are not defined or experienced by students in the same way.

The questions, then, become, How does TPC effectively address this tension in our classrooms? How do faculty integrate grammar instruction into curricula, and yet pay attention to issues such as students’ right to their own language and linguistic diversity? We are not immune to the necessity of ensuring that students understand both the nuances and complexities of linguistic diversity and the fact that workplace writing functions on a definition of error that might be different from the student’s own.

TPC program administrators and faculty need to work directly toward addressing these tensions because they cannot turn away from these questions when considering curricular decisions. Students want to succeed in their careers and in doing so, as the data presented here suggest, rely in part on grammar correctness. But we also have a responsibility to acknowledge students’ own languages and to provide opportunities for them to learn how to counter what could be considered unjust language practices in the workplace. It is a tricky balance to be sure, but we want to encourage TPC administrators, faculty, and researchers to consider ways to balance these concerns within our courses and curricula.

Future Research

Although TPC can draw some conclusions about error, there is still room for future research on error and other aspects of language with working professionals. The field could do a replication or quasi-replication study with specific groups of professionals who have long associations with TPC, such as engineers. Obtaining replication data from several more distinct participant groups would move TPC one step closer to having generalizable information about errors in workplace writing.

We also need more studies on errors in context. The results from our study complement Brandenburg’s (2015) study on this topic in important ways and underscore that context does indeed matter. In particular, future research should explore contexts with a specific emphasis on age and gender. The views from our participants provide important insights and some discrepancies about the impact of context that warrant additional research. Related to questions of context, future research should also ask professionals how much they value careful proofreading and attention to grammar as part of their editing and writing process. Certain inferences could be made that if errors bother professionals, they would find value in proofreading for grammar and other errors during the writing process, but no study that we could find focuses on the value of these processes.

This study started from our curiosity about whether changes in technology had affected perceptions of errors, and future research should examine this area. For example, technology creates affordances for new forms of “internal” communications (e.g., texting, e-mail), and we wonder whether these new forms have affected tolerance for error. Other research questions could examine the relationship between perceptions of error and the impact of technology on writing. Our findings suggest a relationship between the type of writing and the perception of error, so by adding the technological component, future TPC research could provide insights into the relationships between these three key components.

As recent research points out (Melonçon et al., 2020), TPC needs to expand curricular studies to include control groups, experiments, and quasi-experimental designs in which some courses are taught with explicit grammar instruction while others are not. In addition, the same research-study design could be used to study linguistic diversity or to focus on how errors are introduced in time-compressed situations.

TPC needs to look to knowledge-transfer studies in order to work with students graduating from our programs and, more important (following the work of Ford, 2004), to determine how well students transfer knowledge from the service course into their other coursework in their majors or into their careers. An explicit question in knowledge transfer could center on grammar correctness. TPC also needs more in-depth research concerning writing, error, and multilingual and second language writers to gain more in-depth understandings specific to learning outcomes of TPC courses. All of these research possibilities would expand error research in useful and meaningful ways for TPC.

Conclusion

[Error] shows a lack of respect for other people—why do I have to go over speed bumps to try and figure out what you’re saying?

—Comment from study participant

Professionals who self-identified as not participating in written communication as the primary function of their job are bothered by common errors of grammar and spelling. These findings align with those from previous research participants who were academics and professional and technical communicators, suggesting that TPC can draw some limited generalizable conclusions about the importance of error-free writing. In addition, we have emphasized the need for TPC scholars to perform replication or quasi-replication research that directly builds on existing research to seek continuity across empirical studies on key issues in the discipline.

The areas that require additional research should focus on gender and age and on placing the errors in the context of the writing’s purpose and audience, the latter of which aligns with recent research and our own findings that writing context is important to reader’s perception of the writing and the writer. In other words, some errors might be considered excusable, particularly for internal documents and mechanisms of writing in which expediency is expected (e.g., e-mails or texts).

Although on the surface, the study of writing errors might not seem to be the most valuable type of research for academics and practitioners alike, it does provide important insights into the value that is placed on “correct” writing in the workplace. These insights can in turn help academics consider programmatic and pedagogical approaches in a different light.

Supplemental Material

JBT910205_Supplement - Do Writing Errors Bother Professionals? An Analysis of the Most Bothersome Errors and How the Writer’s Ethos is Affected

JBT910205_Supplement for Do Writing Errors Bother Professionals? An Analysis of the Most Bothersome Errors and How the Writer’s Ethos is Affected by Carolyn Gubala, Kara Larson and Lisa Melonçon in Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Lauren Thompson, Meredith Singleton, Kathy Rentz, Sharon McFarland, and Antoinette Larkin for their help at different points in this research project. We also wish to thank the peer reviewers and Lori Peterson for making the project better, and finally, we thank all our participants who took the time to share their insights.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lisa Melonçon

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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