Re: For English majors only

["Brasel, Russell" <russell -dot- brasel -at- hccredit -dot- com>]

I've mentioned this off list to others, but I think it bears mentioning
here.  Reading Foucault, Derrida, Jameson, or any other recent critical
theorists is a great help in technical writing.  I recall when one of my
fellow graduate students, who wasn't well-versed in theory, asked me to
decipher a passage from Jameson's Postmodernism-it was a long, rambling
passage that could have been condensed to "In post-capitalist society
the dominant aesthetic model is the pastiche."  She asked, "Why didn't
he come out and just say that?"  I thought for a second and replied,
"Because he's not a very good writer."  (He won awards the year
Postmodernism was published for best and worst book.  Great content,
terrible writing.)

The analogy is this:  Jameson=SME, Me=Technical Writer, Fellow
Student=User.

And to think that I once thought reading critical theory had no
practical application in real life.  Wait, it really doesn't, but in
retrospect, it was good preparation for a career in technical writing.

RGBrasel
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