noble@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Noble) (12/07/90)
I would like to (briefly) add my support to the idea that word processing is a tool to help you write; teaching about them does not substitute for teaching someone how to write. I would like to comment on one area that I see an enormous benefit: spelling and grammar checkers. When I was in high school, I had a teacher who held a doctorate from Radcliffe in English. (I know, lucky me!!) She ruthlessly harped on spelling, grammar and the like. As a pompous scientist-to-be, I naturally thought this was silly, since I had a spelling checker, etc. at home. Her response was, "Someday, you'll look back and appreciate this red ink." It was many moons before I realized what she meant; by having my mistakes pointed out to me, I would cease to make them. I learned this when I started to _use_ the spelling and grammar checker to help proof my papers. Instead of having feedback a week or two after I had written the paper, I recieved comments _right_after_I_wrote_! Lo and behold, before too much longer, I noticed that the errors became few and far between, and that I was actually writing better! Of course, having a spelling checker and a grammar checker does not absolve you from actually checking your paper yourself - after all computers do make mistakes. Used properly, they can allow both instructor and student alike to worry more about content and idea, and less about where the comma goes. Brian Noble noble@tenet.Berkeley.edu "Don't ask me, I'm just an undergraduate."