Writing to Please Robot Readers

Some time ago we wrote about Les Perelman’s (MIT) challenge to the authors of a study that claimed machines could grade writing as well as teachers.  Mark D. Shermis, one of the authors of the study, said “mostly Perelman’s criticisms don’t add up.” Perelman, on the other side of the argument, is worried that states will go along with machine grading based on the study. The machine graders may, according to Perelman, lead teachers to teach to please the robot readers, which look for “length and loquacious wording, even if they don’t quite make sense.”