Re: The state of State

Subject: Re: The state of State
From: Kate Salm <kate_salm -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 09:38:53 -0800 (PST)





--- keithwriter -at- hotmail -dot- com wrote:

>
> I agree that standards for written communication
> keep dropping in the US.
> I just hope that continues to mean there's a need
> for professional
> writers.
>
> I'm in the MBA program at a Minor State University
> (also not MSU), and the
> most grueling course so far has been an integrated
> communications course
> that monitors the papers and presentations we
> prepare for our other
> classes. The teachers are far more strict and severe
> than ANY English
> teacher I've ever had. At first I clashed constantly
> with my professor. I
> mean, how could *I* - a professional writer - learn
> anything from this
> overly fussy academian? But over the months I had to
> grudgingly admit that
> her constant nitpicking really helped improve my
> writing.
>
>
Hearing these posts has made me realize how incredibly
lucky I was to go to the undergrad school I did.
There were no TA's, the professors did the work
themselves, and if you made a grammatical error
consistently and didn't even attempt to correct it-
you failed. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do
not expect a grade higher then a C, and to bad if you
don't get to play in the big
basketball/baseball/football game this friday because
your failing your classes. I had one professor I
absolutly hated until my senior year because of how
hard she pushed to make us into good writers, she
nitpicked on everything from word choice to grammar to
organization. And you would re-write a paper seven or
eight times if she didn't like it. this woman is also
now my all time favorite professor-

But that was just the English Department. My
roommate, a biochem major, was told that grammar was
"not important enough to bother with" and that
sentence structure "is arbitrary and subjective to
those reviewing it"... yikes!!!! My sister, a student
at a major science college was also told something
similar. They were more concerned with content then
with whether you could convey the content (I have yet
to determine how one doesn't relate to the other- how
can you be concerned with the content but unable to
express yourself clearly enough to be understood??).

The problem is it carries through into jobs. There
are many people where I work who believe that grammar
is a "minor problem" that you don't need to worry
about, and that sentence structure and incorrect
grammar can't cause effects on the meaning or content
under discussion...


>
> But as for the regular English curriculum in most
> colleges, I agree: we're
> doomed. Soon AOL IM-speak may be our national
> language. OMG LOL WTF!
>
I have read several articles lately (for research
purposes) about high school English teachers allowing
students to use IM speak in their academic papers for
their high school courses- the two reasons being:
correcting them won't stop them, and the English
language must adapt to a new form of the language...
new form??? it's acronyms for crying out loud!!!!!

The teachers believe that there is no harm in allowing
the use of this language in these papers and that
students will still learn to use language properly.
Considering the problems with people learning correct
grammar with real words I can't begin to understand
how these teachers (who are just being lazy as far as
I'm concerned) can believe that students will learn
correct language skills without someone telling
them/showing them how to correctly use language.

since when did acronyms become words?????

There's my rant for November---



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