On 23 Feb 2010, at 10:59, John Harbord wrote:
> Using your 3 ECTS to perfect a single genre would be doing
> the students a disservice unless they will only (or mainly) need to
> write that genre.
Well, yes and no. My course is 3 ECTs (for reasons that are hazy to me, because as a consultant lecturer, I was outside that negotiation). In it, PhD students work on a single article they plan to publish. In working through that genre, we naturally touch on the differences between it and a proposal. a report, etc., so the course has the form they most need as the focus, but they see aspects of differences as well. Then there's the readability of that article... that half of the course applies to anything technical they write in future, and I know people keep and refer to the class notes for years afterwards, so, disservice? No.
I can't really see you disagreeing with this, so maybe it's the word 'perfect' that you're stressing? I'm looking for successful papers, flexible writers, and can't really believe in 'perfect'.
Linda McPhee
http://www.lindamcpheeconsulting.com
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