Is there one term for grammar, punctuation and spelling?

I"d like to find one term which unites three parts of writing: grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Could orthography or proofreading be used to describe this?

Solution 1:

There isn't really a word that refers to those three things and no others.

Grammar is not a part of writing. It's part of language, which is spoken.

Spoken language, of course, doesn't have any punctuation or spelling, but it does have grammar. And there are a lot of other things that go into writing besides spelling and punctuation.

I fear someone has been misinforming you.

Solution 2:

Teachers who assign student writing typically use some kind of rubric listing the various criteria by which the grade for the work is to be calculated. A common term for the criterion that includes grammar, spelling and punctuation is mechanics.

Here are is an extract from the online writing rubric by readwritethink under the criterion Mechanics:

Level 1 = Minimal : Many spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors; sentence fragments; incorrect use of capitalization

Level 4 = Outstanding : Correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation; complete sentences; correct use of capitalization

And here is an one from longwood.edu under the criterion Writing mechanics (Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Citations)

Level 4: The student uses correct grammar, makes essentially no errors of spelling or punctuation, and formats citations (if any) correctly.

Level 0: The writing's low-level mechanics are so poor that the language is incoherent and difficult to understand.