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RE: Remember secretaries? (was RE: Proof that content is moreimportant than style)
Subject:RE: Remember secretaries? (was RE: Proof that content is moreimportant than style) From:"Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 20 Nov 2002 06:31:01 -0500
JB Foster <jb -dot- foster -at- shaw -dot- ca> wrote:
[snip of stuff proving Bruce is no more than a decade younger than I am]
>Unfortunately, this type of knowledge (English and publishing) was (is?)
>never considered important enough to teach professionals such as architects,
>or engineers.
Yes and no. It depended (and presumably still depends) where you went to school. The engineering students I knew at Cornell grumbled about engineering professors who graded them on the basis of their writing, but those professors taught core freshman courses. There was no escaping them, and they made it clear that anyone who left Cornell with an engineering degree would be able to write a clear and coherent engineering report. (That's at least the first step toward competent technical communication. Granted, it isn't everything.)
I learned, once out in the real world, that companies happily hired engineers who had been graduated from schools that did not have that requirement. Of course that has made it much easier for me to earn a living, so I'm not complaining. I just wanted to point out that at least some engineering schools consider competent use of language worth teaching.
Dick
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