Slashdot Mirror
Teaching Engineers to Write?
$hecky asks: "I teach several sections of a first-year writing course at a small, private college where most of the students are, or plan to be, some flavor of engineer. Right now, I'm planning next year's courses and wondering what has (and hasn't) helped Slashdot readers become better writers. Also, I'm wondering which writing skills you, in your roles as workers and teachers, would most like to see emphasized in first year writing courses. Put another way, where do you see people who have completed first-year writing courses screwing up their writing, and which experiences, practices, and pressures you think have made you a better writer?"
"First, let's head a couple wagons off at the pass. Let's avoid the vulgar confusion of good writing and good grammar. Horrifying grammar is a common problem, but its not a problem I can fix in a semester-long class. About a century of research tells us that native English speakers aren't rule-based parsers, so teaching grammatical rules (like when to use the subjunctive or where to put commas) doesn't improve compliance. The best strategy on those fronts is a habitual reading of clearly-formatted texts and scrupulous multi-stage review of everything you write, both of which are somewhat outside the scope of a semester-long class.
Second, let's say that the chief virtue of good writing is clarity. While some kinds of writing prize being strategically elliptical, and others prize brisk and clever metaphor, most of my students aren't writing grant applications, patents, or poems. So metaphor, however brisk or clever, is out of place if it obscures its subject.
Third, this course is a cultural studies type, rather than a workshop. This means that the course has a topic of inquiry about which all of the students read and write for a semester and that, while being reasonably complex, the topic should accommodate students who are going to become accountants, math teachers, and advertisers. It's common for engineering students to wash out into the business school, and there's a significant contingent of humanities students as well. Anything other than a general interest topic (like the 1960s, ideas about the American West, or fairy tales) isn't an option.
So think back to your writing. What has made you more comfortable with your writing, or eager to improve what you've written? What inspires you to read outside of a classroom or mandated context? Was has impressed on you the importance of revision, or at least of reviewing your writing at intervals? Which parts of which college (or high school) curricula have helped you write better? Finally, which aspects of your students' or co-workers' writing do you find most troublesome?"
Second, let's say that the chief virtue of good writing is clarity. While some kinds of writing prize being strategically elliptical, and others prize brisk and clever metaphor, most of my students aren't writing grant applications, patents, or poems. So metaphor, however brisk or clever, is out of place if it obscures its subject.
Third, this course is a cultural studies type, rather than a workshop. This means that the course has a topic of inquiry about which all of the students read and write for a semester and that, while being reasonably complex, the topic should accommodate students who are going to become accountants, math teachers, and advertisers. It's common for engineering students to wash out into the business school, and there's a significant contingent of humanities students as well. Anything other than a general interest topic (like the 1960s, ideas about the American West, or fairy tales) isn't an option.
So think back to your writing. What has made you more comfortable with your writing, or eager to improve what you've written? What inspires you to read outside of a classroom or mandated context? Was has impressed on you the importance of revision, or at least of reviewing your writing at intervals? Which parts of which college (or high school) curricula have helped you write better? Finally, which aspects of your students' or co-workers' writing do you find most troublesome?"
wuldn't it be ironik if no1 respondid?
This is Slashdot, where grammar, punctuation, and subject verb agreement long ago came to die.
Also, less is more. I repeated myself in the post. Writing sober also seems to help.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Horrifying grammar is a common problem, but its not a problem I can fix in a semester-long class.
it's
About what am I to write? For conveying technical information accurately and succinctly, I would use K&R's C book as a guide. For scorching hot lesbian erotica, I emulate Elizabeth Oliver's "Pagan Dreams." To date, both approaches work, but only on the appropriate topics.
Lemon curry?
And yet, you use the word chiasmus...
Fired for not using your Shift key, were you?
A nitpick: since this article is about technical writing, isn't getting the facts straight (the boy is going to the *store*, not the shore, in the poster's example) more important than whether active or passive voice is used?
And possibly illegal.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
most grammar instruction (AKA prescribed grammar) actually does more harm than good, because people replace the unspoken grammar instruction that they learned from their family and friends with incorrect and confused uses of prescribed grammar.
Not if they're smart.
Check out my women's designer clothing store.
Yes, but do realize that English speakers, um, already speak English.
Are you adequate?
It's a pity that you weren't paying attention when they were talking about the use of paragraphs.
I see -- so it's because of political correctness that nobody taught you about the paragraph?
:P
If that's really how bad things are, my southern brothers, I think it's time to rise up against the status quo, and bring about a REVOLUTION! VIVA! VIVA! VIVA LOS PARAGRAPHOS!
It's been a long time.