SIR: “The Soft-Marking Syndrome” by Malcolm Saunders (June 2008) is an excellent article. It sums up what most of us have been talking about, once we had left the university (often early)! Hans-Peter Stoffel, Murray’s Bay, New Zealand. SIR: While Professor Saunders’ article on soft marking in universities is not wholly inaccurate, it is hardly a sophisticated analysis of the issues. Causa causae causatis est, if my Latin has more or less survived. To see what has gone wrong, and gone right, with universities in recent times, one needs to look rather more carefully into the mechanisms than he does.…