Quote:These are supposed to be well-educated men and women, able to communicate clearly; the subject my sister teaches is Education, after all, and they're all more-or-less in the same field.Well, university educators should be capable of writing and speaking well. After all, they need to teach and produce material for publication. But you can be an excellent teacher and not a terribly good writer, or vice-versa.
I assume the book is about basic literacy, teaching methods, and so on. It sounds like the contributing writers are experts in technical issues of education, not zealots of heartbreakingly precise English.
Most folks abuse the English language in some way. Everyone's got a few favourite expressions. But chances are some of those favourite phrases aren't strictly grammatical. That's normal, it's not a huge crime.
Personally, I tend to place brevity over grammar. It's my radio training, you see.
Anyway, all writing can be improved by getting someone else to edit and proof the thing. All writing, no matter how perfect the author thinks it is.
-- Acyl