Ok, when I was in high school, turning in a paper was simple.  You either hand-wrote it in VERY neat handwriting, or typed it up IF you had a computer or typwriter.  (Yes, in the mid 90s not everyone had a home computer.)  Your teacher would read said paper and give you a grade hoping that you had not bought it from someone and thusly plagerized it.  Now they have plagerism software to detect potential violations.  You turn everything in online or typed AND online.  This brings up an interesting point with the grading of papers now.

When writing papers, be sure to have a CURRENT dictionary and thesaurus handy.  Over the years grammar rules, and even citations for quoting and paraphrasing, have been changed.  Today, for example, I was informed that the word myriad need not be followed by of. 

Example: The myriad of problems facing the American economy have no single solution.

This could also be written: The myriad problems facing the American economy have no single solution.

This was news to me, and so came as a shock when I saw my paper had been marked with the suggestion that I was using an improper, or archaic method to employ the word.  Personally, I can’t fathom dropping the of from the sentence.  To me it looks incomplete, wrong, and as though spoken by someone uneducated.  However in a society of text speak equating dollar signs on the best seller’s list, I suppose it’s only natural that our speech declines somewhat.  I know I make minor mistakes now and then, but it bothers me when mistakes become commonplace enough to be accepted.