Maidom-Lampadan, R. (2001). Grammar and writing: Is there any connection between them?

The
Scriptor (A journal of the English Department, Mission College). Vol. 2, 1-4.

Grammar & Writing: Is There Any Connection Between Them?

Ritha Maidom-Lampadan

The common practice of prescribing generous doses of grammar instruction to

remedy writing problem reflects the belief of many writing instructors in the power of
grammar instruction to enhance the development of good writing. However, my
teaching experience in grammar and writing classes shows that strength in grammar is
not always transferable to writing. Students can excel in grammar while performing
poorly in writing tasks and vice versa. The discrepancy between what teachers
believe grammar can do and what grammar can actually do prompted me to study the
connection between these two areas. As a result of the study, this short article is
written to accomplish two goals. Firstly, to examine why grammar instruction fails to
produce any significant improvement in students’ writing. Secondly, to locate areas
where grammar instruction and writing overlap and therefore identifying the areas
where grammar instruction is relevant to writing.
Various research studies had been conducted on the relationship between
formal grammar instruction and student writing by both pro-grammar and anti-
grammar teachers over the years, but anti-grammar studies have, by far, out-numbered
the pro-grammar ones. In his book Research on Written Composition: New
Directions for Teaching, Hillocks summarizes and assesses such studies from 1967 to
1986. His conclusion is highly critical of formal grammar instruction, particularly
formal instruction in traditional grammar in schools. He boldly argues that the study
of traditional grammar has no effect on raising the quality of student writing.
Furthermore, taught in certain ways, grammar instruction has a deleterious effect on
student writing. Some studies reveal that a heavy emphasis on mechanics and usage
resulted in significant losses in overall quality (1987: 248-249). Holt also notes that
people who oppose the formal instruction of grammar base their argument on research
studies which prove that “knowledge of grammar does not guarantee the ability to
write well” (1982:173). In addition, of the ten reasons Davis outlines for using
traditional grammar as a pedagogical tool in school, none of them has a direct relation
to writing (1984:162-163).
Assuming that such studies are valid and reliable, we need to examine the
reasons for the failure of formal grammar instruction in producing significant
improvement in writing quality. The first step we need to take is to discover the

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connection between writing and grammar. We need to look for the areas of grammar
and writing which overlap because if writing comprises mainly of areas which do not
overlap with grammar, it is easy to understand why grammar instruction fails to
improve student’s writing. Once overlapping areas are identified, teachers can
effectively focus grammar instruction specifically on those areas.
To discover the area where grammar and writing overlap, we need to examine
the components of writing. I would like to adopt Raimes’s diagram showing what
writers have to deal with as they produce a piece of writing (1983: 6). This
examination will reveal more clearly the areas in which a knowledge of formal
grammar can and cannot contribute to writing improvement.
Ann Raimes’ diagram (p.6)
Producing a Piece of Writing

SYNTAX CONTENT
sentence structure, relevance, clarity,
GRAMMAR sentence boundaries, originality, logic,
rules for verbs, stylistic choices, etc. etc.
agreement, articles,
pronouns, etc.

THE WRITER’S
MECHANICS PROCESS
handwriting, spelling, getting ideas, getting
punctuation, etc. Clear, fluent, and started, writing
effective drafts, revising, etc.
communication of
ideas
ORGANIZATION AUDIENCE
paragraphs, topic and the reader/s
support, cohesion and
unity, etc.
PURPOSE
WORD CHOICE
the reason for writing
vocabulary, idiom,
tone

My discussion will focus on content, organization, mechanics, grammar,

syntax and word choice since these are the areas most commonly evaluated in writing
(Hughes, 1989:87-96). I will also group grammar, syntax and word choice under
form or style since they deal with syntactic structure.
GRAMMAR AND CONTENT
Content in writing refers to ideas and supporting details that give the writing
its substance which is evaluated on the basis of relevance, clarity and logic (Raimes,
1983:6). It must be acknowledged here that the relationship between content

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(meaning) and form is extremely intimate. Consequently, an error in form inevitably
distorts content. Nonetheless, grammar instruction can only give assistance in the
area of form. A study by Noguchi indicates that formal grammar cannot help students
improve or generate ideas since it deals with the structure of sentences and its parts
and not with the semantic content of these structures (1991:9). Although sentences
offer a form as means to convey context, knowledge of sentence structure can offer no
help if writers have little content to convey.
Pollock has expressed a similar view in her book, Communicate What You
Mean. She maintains that grammatical rules of a language do not dictate what to be
said. Rather, they provide guidelines of the manner in which meaning is conveyed.
In short, “grammatical rules do not tell us what to say but rather how to say what we
want to say” (1982:ix). When students relate that they have “nothing to say” in their
writing, teachers cannot help them by giving more grammar instruction but rather
help by asking students to participate in activities such as brainstorming, group
discussion, interviewing, or library research. When students’ writing is under-
developed, they can be taught to use supporting ideas such as using of facts,
examples, and description (Reid, 1988:17-41). All of these can be and are best
conducted without recourse to formal grammar.
GRAMMAR AND ORGANIZATION
In writing, the term organization refers to the order of ideas and placement of
supporting details. It is the component of writing that produces sense of unity and
cohesion in the written text and enables readers to trace and follow the writer’s flow
of thoughts. To a large extent, cohesion and unity are created by the combined effect
of specific words and phrases (transitions, pronouns and repetition of key words) that
tie prose together (Johnston and Zukowski/Faust: 1985, 244). Holt voices similar
view in “In Defense of Grammar.” He maintains that “coherence in language use
depends on the consistent observation of the implicit rules of sentence construction”
(172).
On the other hand, Noguchi argues that essays are organized not just by form
but also by meaning. Although knowledge of grammar may enlighten students on
how words are organized in a sentence, it will not guide them on how one sentence is
sequenced with respect to other sentences in a paragraph or essay. Even though an
essay is comprised of sentences, it does not necessarily follow that the structure of the
parts is equivalent to the structure of the whole. Just as knowledge of the structure of

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words cannot enhance knowledge of the structure of sentences, knowledge of the
structure of sentences cannot enhance knowledge of the structure of essays. Even if
we assume that an essay is organized strictly on the basis of form, knowledge of
sentence structure still cannot help in organizing the essay. This is so because the
organization of an essay, among other things, involves arrangement of units larger
than the sentence and, within paragraphs, the sequential organization of one sentence
to the next, the “connectedness” of sentences (10). Lindemann agrees with Noguchi
and suggests that teaching paragraphing implies that we teach students how to
discover relationships among ideas, words and sentences. Sentence structure,
however, deals with the relationships within the sentence, not between and among
sentences (1982:146). As a result, grammar instruction cannot contribute much
assistance in the area of organization.
GRAMMAR AND STYLE
In this article, style is defined broadly. It refers to the manipulation of forms
to convey thoughts; in other words, style is the use of words to express content. It
covers such aspects of “mechanics” as verb tense, sentence fragments, run-ons,
comma splices, and subject-verb agreement. In addition, it also deals with options
that lead to effective communication of content (e.g. the sequencing of linguistic
elements, parallelism, subordination, transitions, and pronoun reference).
Considering the components encapsulated in area of style, Noguchi presents that
formal grammar instruction seems especially promising in the area of style for several
reasons. He writes:
For one, style, like grammar, typically has to do with form, at least,
can be viewed with respect to form. Thus we can speak of a style of
sentences. Second, style can be studied with respect to sentences.
Third, the style of sentences can and does contribute significantly to
the overall style of an essay; that is, there is considerable overlap
between cumulative effects of sentence style and the overall style of
an essay (11).

STYLE AND WRITING

Style has often been narrowly defined by writing instructors. Some give too
little attention to the interaction of style with content and organization while others

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have probably given too much emphasis to just one aspect of style, namely, sentence
mechanics. These misconceptions have led both writing teachers to the extremes,
which stem from viewing style primarily as matters of mechanics. On one extreme,
we find instructors who place so much emphasis on the mechanical error that they
correct all errors and “bleed” students’ papers to death. The preoccupation with
correct sentence structure reveals that form, rather than substance is given more
attention. By concentrating on form, teachers unconsciously encourage students to
submit papers which are flawless in grammar but lacking in substance (Penaflorida,
1998: 73). Although these instructors are decreasing in number, their influence
remains strong at all levels of formal education.
At the other extreme, we find a growing number of writing teachers who view
mechanical errors as unimportant low-level “surface” features which detract little
from writing quality and which students can easily edit out during the writing process.
Such instructors abandon any kind of grammar instruction since they believe that
students will eventually outgrow mechanical errors. The assumption they make is
that as students increase their reading and writing experience, they will correct all
their errors on their own. Unfortunately, mechanical errors are not easily edited out
during the rewriting process. In addition, although stylistic errors are surface errors,
they should not be considered simply unimportant since many readers perceive them
as prime indicators of poor writing. While classroom teachers may overlook these
unconventional features as minor in comparison to errors in content and organization,
this is not so with most of the educated reading public who perceives such features as
major mistakes (Hairson, 1981:794-806). In fact, grammatical errors can distract
discriminating readers from a writer’s ideas and may even diminish the writer’s
authority (Cook, 1995:ix).
The problem here is that, if students do not recognize grammatical error as
error, they cannot edit them out. The persistence of unconventional writing features
well into the college years and even beyond suggests that editing without recognition
will not work (Noguchi: 14). This recognition and subsequent revision can be
facilitated by relevant instruction in grammar. If grammar instruction is properly
focused on the area of style, it can help students remedy a considerable number of
frequently occurring errors.
To help students improve their quality of writing, instructors need to put into
practice Hillocks’ advice of approaching writing problems only after careful analysis

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of student writing (1986:248-49). This careful assessment is necessary since it is easy
to confuse content problem with stylistic difficulty. It is only after weak areas have
been determined that teachers can provide relevant and effective assistance to
students. Those demonstrating weakness in the areas of substance and organization
will not benefit from grammar instruction since it offers little in the area of content
and essay cohesion. On the other hand, if students exhibit problem in the areas of
style, formal grammar instruction will definitely bring significant benefit to them.

REFERENCES

Cook, Claire Kehrwald. Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing. (Boston,
MA: Houghton Mifflin Company) 1995.

Davis, Frederica. “In Defense of Grammar.” Curriculum Review. 21:173-78, 1982.

Hairston, Maxine. “Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Nonacademic Readers in the
Professions Respond to Lapses in Usage.” College English. 43:794-806, 1981.

Hillocks, George. Research on Written Composition: New Directions for Teaching.

Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills and the
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Holt, J.R. Holt. “In Defense of Formal Grammar.” Curriculum Review. 21:73-78,
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Hughes, Arthur. Testing for Language Teachers. (Cambridge: Cambridge
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