Smoke without fire: a reply to Hardy, Segatore and Edge.

Literacy is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the ability to read and write, and illiteracy as an inability to read. Hardy, Segatore and Edge (1993) suggest a serious problem of illiteracy among student nurses that endangers patient safety. Their evidence is entirely anecdotal, some of which is misclassified as literacy errors. They provide no substantive or statistical evidence to support their claims. Educators making serious and provocative charges on such flimsy grounds ought either to recant or obtain evidence that is more convincing.