Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!calgary!xenlink!ajfcal!tony
From: tony@ajfcal.UUCP (Tony Field)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: engineering students and verbal skills
Message-ID: <35@ajfcal.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jan 89 02:14:52 GMT
Organization: Crafield Digital, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Lines: 29

In article <614@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
>In article <19443@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) writes:
>...
>> In fact, if you go back to my original postings, you'll see that I really 
>> was implicitly putting the blame on the FACULTY, for not adequately warning 
>> the students about the need for good verbal skills. 
>
>I heartily agree with this. The entire technical community has developed
>many bad writing habits. Since engineering schools do not teach students
>to write, students learn to write by subconsciously adapting to the
>style they read. That style is frequently abysmal. 

As an (long time) ex-student, I was under the impression that I was to
acquire my verbal skills before entering university. The university
assumed that such skills were provided by highschool and earlier education.

"Warning" a highschool students about the need to acquire good verbal
skills is probably six years too late for the warning to be effective.
They have already "subsconsciously adapted to the style they read, write
and listen to" in the public educational system. It is quite difficult
for a "faculty" to erase the damage already done and replace the void
with higher standards.

    .. comments from a non-educator..           tony...
-- 
+------------------------------------
|  Tony Field                       ..alberta!calgary!xenlink!ajfcal!tony
|  Co-Design Information Systems Ltd.
|  Calgary, Alberta, Canada