Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] People just keep getting dumber. - How to use email 101

["Christian M. Cepel" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I was setting up new Macs in GCB 222 once upon a time and heard 
something that made me want to scream at the teacher and tell her to do 
things with her course materials that would have been non-academic in 
nature.

It was a case of the Morons teaching the Morons how to propagate Moronic 
doctrine.

This is back when people were using Eudora 1.x and email was young, and 
certain types of business courses were teaching people proscribed 
methods of email correspondence (like it's any different from normal 
mail/memo correspondence), as 'new technology'.

The materials she was teaching were from morons writing materials who 
had absolutely no grasp of their subject whatsoever.  It's tantamount to 
Senators making judgments on domain registry and DMCA, and other such 
topics when they themselves have to have their secretaries print out 
their email so they can read it. (Think Ed [now thankfully somewhere 
else where he can damage some other organization, or better yet, placed 
into a position equal to his incompetence where he can do no damage] of 
IATS).

It was like someone writing a book on how to use the restroom and 
proscribing how many sheets of toilet paper you should use and how they 
should be folded, which hand to use, and when you should make the 
decision to sit or stand and how it's appropriate to give it a shake at 
the end, but not to whap it against the rim of the bowl.... and all 
written by someone with a catheter and colostomy bag inserted at birth.

Somewhere in between that and where we are today is what should be 
taught....   or moreover, people should be taught how to compose 
themselves in any form of communication and that the same rules that 
apply in other mediums apply just as strongly when it comes to email.

Mike Miller wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Sep 2006, Hargus, Diana wrote:
>
> > Ok, that hurt...
> > Are people like these the future of our country? I saw a recent Dear
> > Abby (possibly Ann Landers) column recently where a kid was complaining
> > about having to go to school and they knew everything they needed to
> > know.  Is this what is happening to all the kids?  I see a lot of
> > children with the same attitude and it has me wondering now.  Since a
> > lot of this list is involved in some way with Academia, has anyone
> > noticed the trend of "that's what spellcheck is for" in students?
>
> I only teach grad students right now.  I would say that some people 
> have an "it's only email" attitude which implies that any kind of 
> sloppiness (bad grammar, misspellings, all lower case, obscure 
> abbreviations galore, etc., etc.) is fine if it's in an email 
> message.  As a professor, I feel that they should pretend to care 
> about style and clarity when they write a message to me -- it's good 
> practice for them.  I don't usually complain but sometimes it bugs 
> me.  It definitely makes the student look bad to me.
>
> Mike
>
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