pjd@alpha.ces.cwru.edu (dr. funk) (01/31/89)
Now that I'm back from round 2 with the flu, I can reenter the fray....
Jeez! Lighten up!
The best laugh I had was Dan Levy pointing out the ambiguity in my
sentence construction! Touche! Thanks for the levity! Good thing that
I'm not consistently ambiguous. :-)
Anyway, folks! The World War III message is a condensed version of a ten
minute talk. I think everyone agrees that it is bad to insult your students.
BUT, it's hard for most twenty year olds to know what they want or what is
important in "the work world." (The design lab is a Fall semester, Junior
year course.) I hate professors that preach and don't teach. Tens minutes of
motivation doesn't mean anything without making a consistent effort to help
people with the process of writing throughout the semester. I emphasize the
practical importance of writing for two reasons.
1. Many of the students treat the technical writing requirement as a joke
instead of the opportunity that it is.
2. My controversial pseudo-quote is reality. Better to fail safely in
school than fail in the face of a $125,000 mortgage, two kids and
payments on the 944.
AND! I do not support or advocate the establish of a national, strict
grammarian police state. Look at this wonderful message for proof. In order
to create or write creatively, however, one needs good technical skills. Thus,
the study of grammar is appropriate even if the purpose is to refute or
reject its principles. Music composition is another good analogy.
{Dan Levy was truly adding humor to the discussion. But, everytime somebody
rags about grammar on the net, they get shot in the neck. Please! Net
communications are informal and colloquial.}
paul j. drongowski usenet: {decvax,sun,att}!cwjcc!pjd!pjd
case western reserve university csnet: pjd@alpha.ces.cwru.edu