Re: Seeking advice on English MA

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- progeny -dot- com>]

Elna Tymes wrote:
 
> I've found that, in general, people with degrees in English tend to be somewhat
> more prickly about nitpicky items than those with degrees in other disciplines,
> and unless I'm hiring for an editing position (where I *want* someone who's
> nitpicky), I prefer people who have a somewhat broader perspective. Hence my
> hiring bias is slightly against English majors. An advanced degree in English
> proves to me only that the person had the funds necessary to support a variation
> on intellectual curiosity, not that they were inherently better communicators.

I used to divide English majors into two main camps: those who were
there because they felt they were vaguely artistic and didn't know what
else to do with themselves, and those who had a genuine interest and
love of the material they were working with.

The vaguely artistic ones are those who tend to nitpick; it's a way of
quieting their doubts and asserting their authority. While some of this
type grow out of it, or find a useful niche like copyediting, many of
them don't. They end up inflicting their pedanticness on another
generation of students, or transferring their pretensions to another
field like tech-writing. There, they exasparate, but also sometimes
provide a good source of unconscious humor when they attempt to import
their self-importance and often inflated diction to documentation.

Those who love the material made an active choice, rather than a passive
one. Their transcripts tend to show a broad range of interests, and
often they have made some attempt at serious writing. Often, they make
good teachers. If their attention veers toward tech-writing, they can
generally gain the technical background they lack without too much
trouble.

Unfortunately, the poseurs are much more common. So, on the whole, maybe
Elna is right to be careful about English majors (even though I'm one
myself).


-- 
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- progeny -dot- com

"Rose bouquet, wedding band,
Their recipe for romance might have come out of a can."
- The Mollies, "I Don't Wanna Go to Bed"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems 
Available 4/30/01 at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001 Conference East, 
June 4-6, Baltimore, MD. Now covering Acrobat 5. Early registration deadline 
April 27. http://www.pdfconference.com. 

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.