Brad,
Here are some reasons why some of us have doubts about your
survey.
1.
Your sample is biased. This does not mean that you
have some skewed view of things. Rather it means that you don’t
have a representative sample, and so no conclusions can reasonably be
drawn. I suspect we’ve all been guilty of poor sampling technique
at one time or another.
2.
It is impossible to tell what raw percentages mean. Unless
you run some statistical measures on them, no one knows whether a difference of
ten percentage points or of twenty-seven is significant, so your question as to
what the numbers mean is premature. Until you process them, they don’t
mean anything.
3.
You have expressed the assumption that your sentences are simple
and straightforward, and therefore we are to conclude that any variation in
response, especially among grammarians, has to be significant. The
variation results from the scripts those who have responded have assumed as
context for each sentence. We don’t know what those assumptions are
and we have no way of understanding their influence, but when we get a sentence
with no context we do create a context in which to interpret it.
I don’t doubt that this is honest inquiry on your
part. It is, however, uninformed inquiry as well, and, as others have
suggested, your inquiry would be much more successful if you took some time to
study the area that you are researching. You might look, for example, at
the sections on tense and aspect in Sidney Greenbaum’s Oxford English
Grammar (OUP 1996). It’s a very thorough and readable reference
grammar and not terribly expensive, about $50 for the hardback edition. Amazon
has used copies at half that price. I think you’d find it useful.
In any survey research, by the way, no names should be included
or even available to the researcher to avoid both researcher bias and possible breach
of confidentiality. That’s a fundamental rule that researchers and
their institutions observe diligently.
Herb
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad
Johnston
Sent: 2008-02-15 09:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Brad's Grammar Survey - continued
Dear Grammarians,
I have read your several comments and find a certain
lack of focus. What is at issue is that forty people were kind enough,
or brave enough, to respond and the results came out this way.
%
( 45 )
John is upset because his application was turned down.
( 55 )
John is upset because his application has been
turned down.
( 37 )
John was upset because his application was turned down.
(
64 ) John was upset because his application had been
turned down.
The question is, what conclusions can be
drawn from what you see above? What does it mean that 40 grammar
professionals display the wide range of opinion displayed above?
There are no names attached to the results. It was
hard enough to rack them up by the numbers without trying to separate who said
what, so do not worry that I will try to call any entity to account. Please try
to view this exercise as the honest inquiry I claim it to be.
I honor your profession and your
professionalism. Please do not persuade me otherwise.
Please reply to [log in to unmask],
not to the listserv.
.sincerely.brad.15feb08.
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