Re: Exercises for Students

["David S. Broudy" <broudy -at- BCF -dot- USC -dot- EDU>]

Rich Lippincott:
> That -assumes- you know where the
>jack is located, what the jack stand is, and which piece is the baseplate.
>(And those of you on the list who own Jeep Wranglers or CJs know that the
>jack isn't -always- gonna be found in the trunk...)

I think an excellent exercise for students would be to re-write a portion
of the owner's manuals for their cars. The student is obviously familiar
with the car. The one for my Toyota is obtuse, and the one for my old Audi
neglected to mention that the battery was under the back seat. Foreign car
manuals tend to be the worst, but some domestics have equally bad manuals.
Er, I'm making the false assumption that all students have cars, possibly
because so many here do (and some of them have cars that cost more than
three years' salary for me!).

Hm, I wonder how one gets a gig writing owner's manuals for cars... some of
those things are veritable epics.

I'm taking a graduate TW course here at USC; we've had a diagnostic test
that summarizes our familiarity with the foibles of English and that's
about it. I haven't written a thing yet except for course notes (though we
do have two sample grant proposals due next week... aigh!). About half of
the students are Master of Public Arts Studies and they're required to take
the course; the others are either Cinema students, Master of Professional
Writing students, or staff like moi. I've been considering applying for the
MPW program and specializing in tech writing but several people in the biz
have advised me not to bother, telling me that my corporate experience
along with the course would be just as marketable.

David, Mac/car geek.

-------------
broudy -at- mizar -dot- usc -dot- edu  --  http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~broudy/
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