First, the horrible spelling, grammar, and punctuation leap out at me immediately.
I just read that grant in its entirety. I noticed one possible typo, but did not find other bad grammar or spelling.
Second, the claim in the post that grant proposals are written to describe what they’re doing, rather than what they’re intending to achieve, holds up, for this grant at least.
The are asking for a grant to get equipment, primarily computers and software, for use in teaching students. It is not really a research project. What is the outcome hoped for from a grant like that? That students will be taught using these computers. They make a feint at claiming it will raise grades or enrolement, but really if I were a science teacher, my real goal would be to get the stuff and sit students down in front of it and teach them with it. I think that is pretty accurately reflected.
I’ll look at the ipad grant, and kudos for finding the site and bringing me that much closer to real contact with the kinds of grants under discussion.
First, the horrible spelling, grammar, and punctuation leap out at me immediately.
Me too. Good thing they’re not trying to improve writing ability!
I just read that grant in its entirety. I noticed one possible typo, but did not find other bad grammar or spelling.
The VERY FIRST SENTENCE has minor punctuation issues and refers to “Excellence in Leaning (sp) Through Technology”—I refuse to believe that the original Senate bill being referred to failed to spell the word “Learning” correctly in its title. :-)
The second sentence puts a space before the colon for no apparent reason.
“The moneys this school is requesting” ⇒ should probably be “money”, though I’d accept argument to the contrary.
“With request to …” ⇒ should probably be “With RESPECT to”
“This shows community support for improvement and a move forward with the support of a technology plan.” ⇒ You can tell what the writer is trying to say, but the writer is not actually saying it; the sentence is just broken.
“Teachers will...learn ho to integrate this technology” ⇒ should be “learn HOW to integrate...”
That’s just the first page, and it’s not even ALL the issues on the first page. Fortunately, the following pages are much better than the abstract page (which was painful). The second page is missing a bunch of hyphens—that’s a problem throughout—but otherwise not too bad.
Third page: “A desired outcome of this project is an increase in tile number of students taking high level science.” ⇒ change “tile number” to “total number” and possibly change “high level” to “high-level”
“By using MBL’s, less time is required” ⇒ change “MBL’s” to “MBLs”—it’s not a possessive.
“The purchase of this equipment would be in support of Colorado economy.” has a missing article; change it to ⇒ “would support THE Colorado economy”
“accommodate this set Up.” ⇒ “setup”.
Under IMPACT: “By obtaining these funds and implementing this program more students will be able to participate in hands on leaning” ⇒ again, it should be LEARNING, not LEANING. Also it’s “hands-on”, not “hands on”
“This science lab will be in place alter the grant period is over.” ⇒ AFTER the grant period, not ALTER.
Much of this suggests a very bad writer—less than 8th-grade level—who is using a spell-checker. But there some other mistakes that seem like the document might have been electronically scanned. For instance, the budget mentions “guides for teachers arid students” ⇒ should obviously be “teachers AND students” but I can’t imagine a human writer accidentally writing “arid” for “and” and “ri” does look an awful lot like “n”.
“By using MBL’s, less time is required” ⇒ change “MBL’s” to “MBLs”—it’s not a possessive.
If you look in an old enough style guide (the current standard is as you say), it will say to use an apostrophe when you pluralize an acronym. Wikipedia agrees.
With request to the Boulder Valley School District Science Content Standards, Nederland Middle Senior High School is highly motivated to reform their Science Department.
respect, regard, or reference.
Teachers will attend training sessions to become proficient with the technology and learn ho to integrate this technology into their classroom.
how
In order to meet the Science Content Standards set forth by Boulder Valley School District, our Science Department requires hardware. software, training and curriculum.
hardware, software
With a Microcomputer Based Laboratory (MBL) students can perform sophisticated experiments, collect and manipulate data, share their findings with classmates and do in depth analysis of natural phenomena.
in–depth
Productivity in the laboratory will be increased due to computers performing the data manipulation, enabling students more time to concentrate on scientific principals and concepts.
principles
With a more hands-on approach to science, many students who lose interest in science past the graduation requirements could find science to be more relevant to their day to day lives.
day–to–day
This science lab will be in place alter the grant period is over.
after
Team Labs will receive $30,175 for science curriculum, software and probeware. In addition, they will receive $2.250 for teacher training.
$2,250
Consistently ‘moneys’ is used where ‘money’ or ‘monies’ seems correct to me; I did not count this as an error despite not following a strict style guide. Most other ‘errors’ are very reasonably scanning errors rather than writing errors; the only error that couldn’t plausibly be a scanner error would be ‘principal’ for ‘principle’.
Overall, the writing was simplistic, sentences were short and simple, and would pass a technical writing test. Presented as a model for what complexity and intelligence level of grants are approved, that is very informative. Grant proposals (apparently) should be simple, repetitive, and full of Capitalized Buzzwords that are Important to the Right People.
I actually counted the really short sentences heavily against them mentally, probably too much. Owing to the way I parse sentences, reading the grant was like listening to William Shatner at his… not quite hammiest, but pretty close.
An alternative explanation is offered here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/h5z/problems_in_education/8qqj (Specifically, that the document may have been electronically scanned; this could also account for other apparent spelling mistakes. Handwriting recognition is getting better, but is still far from perfect.)
I just read that grant in its entirety. I noticed one possible typo, but did not find other bad grammar or spelling.
The are asking for a grant to get equipment, primarily computers and software, for use in teaching students. It is not really a research project. What is the outcome hoped for from a grant like that? That students will be taught using these computers. They make a feint at claiming it will raise grades or enrolement, but really if I were a science teacher, my real goal would be to get the stuff and sit students down in front of it and teach them with it. I think that is pretty accurately reflected.
I’ll look at the ipad grant, and kudos for finding the site and bringing me that much closer to real contact with the kinds of grants under discussion.
Me too. Good thing they’re not trying to improve writing ability!
The VERY FIRST SENTENCE has minor punctuation issues and refers to “Excellence in Leaning (sp) Through Technology”—I refuse to believe that the original Senate bill being referred to failed to spell the word “Learning” correctly in its title. :-)
The second sentence puts a space before the colon for no apparent reason.
“The moneys this school is requesting” ⇒ should probably be “money”, though I’d accept argument to the contrary. “With request to …” ⇒ should probably be “With RESPECT to”
“This shows community support for improvement and a move forward with the support of a technology plan.” ⇒ You can tell what the writer is trying to say, but the writer is not actually saying it; the sentence is just broken.
“Teachers will...learn ho to integrate this technology” ⇒ should be “learn HOW to integrate...”
That’s just the first page, and it’s not even ALL the issues on the first page. Fortunately, the following pages are much better than the abstract page (which was painful). The second page is missing a bunch of hyphens—that’s a problem throughout—but otherwise not too bad.
Third page: “A desired outcome of this project is an increase in tile number of students taking high level science.” ⇒ change “tile number” to “total number” and possibly change “high level” to “high-level”
“By using MBL’s, less time is required” ⇒ change “MBL’s” to “MBLs”—it’s not a possessive.
“The purchase of this equipment would be in support of Colorado economy.” has a missing article; change it to ⇒ “would support THE Colorado economy”
“accommodate this set Up.” ⇒ “setup”.
Under IMPACT: “By obtaining these funds and implementing this program more students will be able to participate in hands on leaning” ⇒ again, it should be LEARNING, not LEANING. Also it’s “hands-on”, not “hands on”
“This science lab will be in place alter the grant period is over.” ⇒ AFTER the grant period, not ALTER.
Much of this suggests a very bad writer—less than 8th-grade level—who is using a spell-checker. But there some other mistakes that seem like the document might have been electronically scanned. For instance, the budget mentions “guides for teachers arid students” ⇒ should obviously be “teachers AND students” but I can’t imagine a human writer accidentally writing “arid” for “and” and “ri” does look an awful lot like “n”.
Agree with everything but:
If you look in an old enough style guide (the current standard is as you say), it will say to use an apostrophe when you pluralize an acronym. Wikipedia agrees.
Quotes from the .pdf, with my corrections:
respect, regard, or reference.
how
hardware, software
in–depth
principles
day–to–day
after
$2,250
Consistently ‘moneys’ is used where ‘money’ or ‘monies’ seems correct to me; I did not count this as an error despite not following a strict style guide. Most other ‘errors’ are very reasonably scanning errors rather than writing errors; the only error that couldn’t plausibly be a scanner error would be ‘principal’ for ‘principle’.
Overall, the writing was simplistic, sentences were short and simple, and would pass a technical writing test. Presented as a model for what complexity and intelligence level of grants are approved, that is very informative. Grant proposals (apparently) should be simple, repetitive, and full of Capitalized Buzzwords that are Important to the Right People.
I actually counted the really short sentences heavily against them mentally, probably too much. Owing to the way I parse sentences, reading the grant was like listening to William Shatner at his… not quite hammiest, but pretty close.
As far as the 2.250 thing, that’s actually not that uncommon outside English-speaking nations; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_point#Countries_using_Arabic_numerals_with_decimal_comma which lists countries which use decimals as thousands separators and commas as decimal marks. (That may actually help to explain the short sentences, come to think of it.)
An alternative explanation is offered here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/h5z/problems_in_education/8qqj (Specifically, that the document may have been electronically scanned; this could also account for other apparent spelling mistakes. Handwriting recognition is getting better, but is still far from perfect.)