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RE: Tech Writing Curriculum

Subject: RE: Tech Writing Curriculum
From: Win Day <winday -at- home -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 09:09:01 -0500

At 05:51 AM 15/11/2001 -0800, Iggy wrote:

<SNIP the long post>



And don't teach tools. A college should NEVER have a
FrameMaker 101 course or anything of the sort. Why?
Because tools are tools folks. Teach the tools, but do
so in a useful context. I learned a shload of tools in
college, but not because they taught them. Rather,
courses focused on writing practices, and assignments
mandated a tool to use for the job. If you couldn't
learn the tool on your own, you talked to the
professor and got a tutor.

Look at engineers... they don't have an AutoCAD 101
course. Rather, that skill is taught during various
practice courses - structural analysis and design
courses. You learn the theory and practice and APPLY
it to a tool.


Well, actually we do take a drafting course in first year. Or we did, when I went through chemical engineering school 20mumble years ago. I also took drafting in high school.

Of course, when I took drafting, it was with pen and vellum, not a PC. But the idea is the same -- we learned the TOOL and its application in our first year of engineering.

And we learned to use the analytical chemistry tools in chem lab. There were periodic lab classes to teach us the new tool we'd be using over the next couple of weeks.

To learn to use our sliderules, though, we were on our own. THAT skill you were expected to walk in with.

Win
----------------

Win Day
Multimedia Developer

http://www.wordsplus.net
mailto:winday -at- wordsplus -dot- net


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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: Tech Writing Curriculum: From: Sarah Bane
RE: Tech Writing Curriculum: From: Iggy

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