Writing For University

writing for university"writing for university"
what is the point in writing university texts that don't make any sense for undergrad students?

Collecting royalties. I do not really believe that they write them with malice. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence, as incompetence is far more common than malice".

It is a real problem that some people who understand a subject matter very well cannot see how to explain it to those who do not.

I used to run part of a service lab. On occasion some researcher would bring down a sample to have us hydrogenate it [or whatever], said sample having taken months to make, and being therefore of great value.
I would write up the experimental protocol, then ask the secretary to read it and answer questions about what should be done in case of various experimental responses. I chose her because she knew nothing about what was to be done; if she could understand it, then my instructions were sufficiently clear. If not, she would at least help me see where I needed to rewrite the instructions. However, once I rewrote them, then I had to get someone else to read them, as the secretary now knew about the procedure, ie, was not [in the parlance] "naive" and so any response from her might be misleading, as she had figured out from the prior edition.
I wish more writers of texts and other instructions would do this sort of thing.

Geoff Dyer 1/2 - Creative Writing and the University


writing for university
writing for university
writing for university