According to guidelines from Hull University, the expectation that students ought to be able to write fluently is ‘homogenous, North European, white, male, and elite’. Academic staff at the University of the Arts London have been instructed to ‘actively accept spelling, grammar or other language mistakes that do not significantly impede communication unless the brief states that formally accurate language is a requirement’. However well-intentioned, the suggestion that rigorous standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar are inherently ‘elitist’ overlooks one of the chief benefits of
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