On the final exam, I write in capital letters “ANSWER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES” in every single assignment. I also repeat it verbally at the beginning of the exam. When the exam is about 50% done, I remind everybody to answer in complete sentences.
Then, it always turns out that about half of the students did not answer in complete sentences.
I know my students and I know that they are perfectly capable of creating complete sentences at this point. It is not the lack of knowledge that makes them do this. It’s the annoying carelessness and shoddiness that seem to be very pervasive.
Many people would be so much more successful in life if they learned to be a little more meticulous and detail-oriented.
Clarissa's Blog 
Very true! I am marking statistics assignments at the moment. Many students find these hard, so the first part of each question is ‘make a graph of these data’ – this should be very easy for them by now, and it lets everyone get some marks. EVERY class, every homework, we have always begun by making a graph of the data. I gave them tips on doing well in the assignment – which included discussing how to get top marks for the graphs they would all be making. Yet about one in five students has submitted work where there are no graphs, for any of the questions… WHY??? WHY skip this easy step, these easy marks?
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If it is an intermediate/advanced class: 50% of the grade of very exercise goes to grammar and 50% goes to content/vocab. The good but careless students are shocked in the first exam and they do not repeat their mistake. This also makes cheating much more complicated.
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I thought I’d managed to shock them enough but I’m seeing the exams in my Beginners II course and oy yoy yoy.
It was my slacker section, though. The hard-working section is writing the exam right now.
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I have noticed this phenomenon too in my students. I think some of this is the result of overly generous grading policies in high school and early college; in some of our lower division classes for example, the grading is very slack, and partial or even full credit is given for “just trying” or “getting the right idea”. As a consequence students never learn to do careful work, and demand points in upper division classes for “trying” or for “reading the question wrong”.
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