Flight -- Too Many Fatals

I'm sad to report four people fataled this assignment. And I'm even sadder to report that this one will probably ding your final grade in here quite a bit. This assignment was five percent of your final grade, so that's enough to potentially tip it down by a half-point.

The thing to remember out of this is that fatals are catchable. Please make sure you do you due diligence on your remaining assignments and avid any more fatals, to spare your grade any further unintended slippages. If you need help in creating a fatal-catching strategy, please see me ASAP.

Let's look at each fatal and try to learn from 'em.

In the first one, you said the plane overshot the runway about 100 miles from Lansing. That wasn't possible, since the emergency landing was at the Lansing airport. What happened 100 miles away was the pilot losing consciousness. That's when the control tower first noticed a problem.

This fatal falls under the category of making sure you understand the facts and sequence of events. Make sure you thoroughly read and understand what you are writing, before you start writing. And after you finish writing, please make sure your narrative is understandable and that it makes logical sense and that you haven't unintentionally inserted in some error.

In the second one, you correctly cited the incident beginning 100 miles away, but you said 100 mils west of Lansing. In fact, it was 100 miles east.

This one could have been caught if you rigorously double-checked against your notes every fact, statistic, time, name, address, title, ect., after finishing writing your story, to make sure you used each set of information correctly and didn't inadvertently make a goof.

In the third one, you said the plane came to rest 10 feel from an interstate highway. What you meant to say was 10 feet. But that's not what you wrote, and what you did write changed the meaning of the sentence.

This one falls under the category of not relying solely on spell check. I'll say it one more time: SPELL CHECK WILL NOT CATCH WORDS THAT ARE SPELLED INCORRECTLY AND THAT CREATE A CORRECTLY-SPELLED BUT UNINTENDED WORD.

The solution here is to run spell check AND then follow it up with a word-by-word and line-by-line scrutinization of your work.

The fourth one had the same problem. You were quoting the girl as saying she "couldn't reach the rubber pedals." You meant to say, rudder pedals.

I wish we had time for the extra-credit opportunities during the regular school year that would allow you to show me you can correct such problems and that would allow me to replace the old grade with the new. I'm afraid we simply don't have that time.

In assigning final grades, I will allow some leeway in your favor in projecting out your growth and possibly moving your grade up a notch. But I need to have ample proof that you're picking up good habits.

Please, guys, make sure you're giving yourself enough time to fact-check your material. No more fatals, okay?