Say No to Robo-Readers!

             Technology may be advancing in the world that we live in today, but does that mean that our schools should adopt technology to take over the task of grading papers written by their students? Surprisingly, there are some good arguments supporting these Robo-Readers; however, I'm not a fan of having robots take over grading.  With the use of Robo-readers, the writers and teachers will experience an insufficient quality of grading and a decline in skill and uniqueness. The main problem revolves around what is chosen to be graded and what is not.
             Robo-Readers are programmed to analyze only certain aspects of writing. These e-raters have features that analyze “proportion of grammar errors,” “proportion of usage errors,” “organization and development,” and more (Source C). At first, it may seem that these features may be all that is needed to grade a paper effectively, but what about the true content? According to Michael Winerip of the New York Times, one of the biggest known problems “is that it can’t identify truth. He tells students not to waste time worrying about whether their facts are accurate, since pretty much any fact will do as long as it is incorporated into a well-structured sentence”(Source B).  Since when is it okay to only grade one half of the quality of a paper. Writing should not be only analyzed based on the fundamental writing rules; ideas, accuracy, and substance should all matter as well. Furthermore, certain stylistic elements like short sentences and short paragraphs are looked down upon as undesirable for a good paper.
             With this idea of only accepting certain styles and only grading certain aspects of writing, there is a concern with whether or not writing will excel in the future. If students’ papers are continually graded by a Robo-reader, those students will learn to write by focusing on what the robots want and not what is actually a well-written paper. Melissa Block interviewed Michael Winerip, who said, “…a lot of juice of the English language is going to disappear…you’re going to get a more and more homogenized form of writing when the joy of writing is surprise” (Source E). By creating an atmosphere in which students only write to receive good grades from the robots, the uniqueness of writing disappears.
             The use of Robo-readers may be more efficient, but it will not help our development of writing in the future. With these robots, our unique styles and skills will be cast aside, and aspects that are seemingly unimportant will be graded instead of content and accuracy. Robo-readers aren't the greatest idea, and I hope that there are some changes before we utilize them.