Marking a Peer's Practice Sheet: Five Ambiguous Errors
You are marking a classmate's 10-minute practice passage. The centre's marking rules are: a wrong word, an omission, or an addition counts as one error; a transposition of two adjacent letters within a word counts as one error; each punctuation or capitalisation error counts separately; a missing space that joins two words counts as one error; an extra space that does not change meaning is not penalised. The printed copy reads: The chief engineer said, "We will finish the bridge by 31 December." The typed copy reads: The chief enginer said "We will finish the brigde by31 December". You must mark the typed copy and give a total error count. The classmate argues that 'by31' is only a small spacing slip and should not count, and that the full stop after the quotation mark is a minor difference.
1. Identify every error in the typed copy and state the total. Explain how you treat the missing comma, 'enginer', 'brigde', 'by31', and the full stop.
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Work through the typed copy against the printed copy item by item:
- Missing comma after 'said' - the printed copy has
said,but the typed copy hassaidwith no comma. This is a punctuation error: 1 error. - 'enginer' instead of 'engineer' - the typed word omits the second
e. That is a wrong word/misspelling under the rule: 1 error. - 'brigde' instead of 'bridge' - the letters
dandgare transposed. The rule explicitly treats a transposition of adjacent letters as one error: 1 error. - 'by31' instead of 'by 31' - the missing space joins two words. The rule says a missing space that joins two words counts as one error: 1 error. The fact that it is readable does not matter; the rule is specific.
- Full stop outside the closing quotation mark - the printed copy has
December."with the full stop inside the quotation marks. The typed copy hasDecember".with the full stop outside. Punctuation placement is part of the copy and counts separately: 1 error.
Total: 5 errors. The classmate's argument that 'by31' is minor does not change the written rule. The full stop is not a trivial difference either, because punctuation errors are counted separately in the scheme.
2. The classmate says a missing space should be ignored because the words are still readable. Using the stated rules, decide and justify. What would change if the rule said 'a missing space counts only if it changes the meaning'?
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Under the stated rule, the missing space must be counted. The rule is not 'count a spacing error only when the reader is confused'; it says a missing space that joins two words counts as one error. 'by31' joins by and 31, so it is exactly the case the rule describes. Readability is irrelevant because the marking scheme is designed to be applied consistently, not to reward a marker's impression of clarity. Counting it as one error also prevents a candidate from gaining words by omitting spaces.
If the rule were changed to 'a missing space counts only if it changes the meaning', the analysis would shift. 'by31' is still non-standard, but a reader can recover the intended meaning from context. Under that alternative rule, you could argue that it should not be counted, or that it should be recorded as a minor format note rather than an error. The important point is that the marker must apply the rule actually stated, not substitute a personal standard of severity. In this case, the original rule produces a total of 5 errors.