the purpose of marking up a document (in my context) is to indicate errors in logic, mechanical errors, malapropisms. If I circle a word and mark it w/ a question mark, that indicates to the student that there is something amiss in their writing.
We agree, in other words, on the purpose of marking up a paper.
The real exercise is critical thinking.
The real exercise is doing your job. Mine is to learn. Yours is to teach. In the case of writing a paper, the objective, the skill I should be learning, is how to adequately express myself in writing. It is NOT to try to decipher your notation or intent.
Lead by example. If I have to do your job as well as mine in order to be successful at the task, you are superfluous to the process and should be eliminated.
If a student doesn't understand a notation that I've made, I expect them to come to me and ask for clarification.
If you expect a student to come to you in order to understand something that you wrote that was inherently unintelligible, you have failed in your task. You might as well have simply shot the stack of papers from a distance with a paintball marker and waited for the entire class to come ask you what it all means.
If, instead of circles and question marks, you instead chose a notation system comprised of hand-drawn bunnies and flowers, would you expect the student to understand? No, because it is inherently meaningless to anyone but you. Should students be forced to come to you every time they see a new combination of bunnies and flowers in order to understand your meaning?
We have language for a reason. Failure to exercise it, either in your attempts to understand my usage of it or your own usage of it in your outward communications, is pure laziness. Your attempt to spin it as a learning exercise is pure, egotistical BS.
If you don't recognize a word I have written, look it up or shut up about it. If you aren't familiar with it and you think I used it wrong, you had damn well better look it up to make sure before you mark me off on it. My job is not to catch your stupid mistakes. Your job is to catch mine.
If I were a cop, and I constantly hauled you in for questioning without so much as a word as to what I suspected you'd done, would that be fair? Should you have to drag it out of me and prove me wrong before you can go about your business?
Anyway, whatever you do, communicate your intent in f**king English or don't communicate it at all.
