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Week One: BCIT

Week One: BCIT. Dr. Stephen Ogden LIBS 7001. Liberal Arts Benefit for Business Professionals. “….not all of us are arts students …. English course[s], in which the text is not as clear as in other courses…. lack the precise detail of business and science texts.”

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Week One: BCIT

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  1. Week One: BCIT Dr. Stephen Ogden LIBS 7001

  2. Liberal Arts Benefit for Business Professionals • “….not all of us are arts students …. English course[s], in which the text is not as clear as in other courses…. lack the precise detail of business and science texts.” • “…. it is better for the notes to be detailed, as having complete notes can help us better prepare for the final exam. Also, not everyone has awesome memory….” Question: Is there a practical professional benefit to studying critical reading & writing?

  3. BCBC: What Does Business Want from SFU Graduates? • BC Business Council: “2010 Biennial Skills & Attributes Survey Report: What are BC employers looking for?” • Skills preferred across all industry categories: • Nine out of ten preferred attributes ranked are non-technological. • Eight out of ten preferred skills ranked are non-technological • A “Liberal Arts” skill-set: e.g. speaking, writing, reading, critical thinking are the nine.

  4. Some Reasons to Write Well

  5. More Reasons to Write Well

  6. A personal case of a (3rd year) student who, having submitted a Term Paper to me one year late along with (what I suspected to be) a forged letter from a Doctor, responded to my return contact with a second letter from (it said) the same Dr. that reads as follows: “…. because you may not have understood the medical points in my first letter, I will now put [ the student’s ] condition in laments terms…” Reasons to Write Well: #1445

  7. Yet Another Reason to Write Well

  8. Language is a techne. A Formal System—closed, rule-based. Improved writing = improved salary. Increased opportunity of Managerial or Supervisory Promotion Language is business power: pure & simple. Vocabulary is strength Words = Tools More Words-More Power Grammar is Control Correct someone’s grammar & you own them. Do try this at home. ALTERNATIVE: Adj. & N. The other (of two), which may be chosen instead. “Hastings St. is a good alternative to Hwy 1.” ALTERNATE: Adj. & V. Done or changed by turns, coming each after one of the other kind. “Alternate between Hastings St. and Hwy 1 to see which is the quicker route.” More Reasons to Write Well

  9. Response to the “Language is Evolving” defense of slovenly language use. • [You] “’Alternate’ and ‘alternative’ are two different words with important distinctions between their meanings.” • [Them] “But language is evolving.” • [You] “Shut your ugly !&*^%&ingmouth you fat and #!%*&ing ignorantsonof a b_#(^&!!! • [Them] “???!!!!!” • [You] “No, no—I just meant that ‘I love you & I respect your opinion’: my language has just evolved, that’s all."

  10. More Reasons to Write Well • Darwinian principle: • You are not competing against everyone everywhere; you are competing against your own kind in the immediate environment. • You do not have to read and write better than everyone else: you just have to read and write better than the tiny number of other people applying for a job, or working in the same job in the same office.

  11. Orwell-Ogden’s Rules for Immediate Written Accomplishment Ogden: “If a word is not necessary for grammar or meaning, always cut it out” Orwell (‘Politics & the English Language’): • (i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. • (ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do. • (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. • (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active. • (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. • (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  12. Critical Writing + Critical Reading • Writing and Reading Critically are two sides of the same coin: • Effective writing is simply a matter of craft and technique. • Effective writing can be achieved by simple learning and training • When the rules and the techniques of writing are known, reading critically is entirely a matter of recognising the writing rules & techniques.

  13. Of Two Very Difficult Things, One is Far Harder Than the Other DIFFICULT VERY DIFFICULT Through critical reading, recognise and accept a strength or admirable fairness in a piece of writing—political, social, religious, etc.—with which you completely disagree. • Through critical reading, recognise and accept a weakness or injustice in a piece of writing—political, social, religious, etc.—with which you completely agree.

  14. Read Analyse (re-read with notation) Describe Evaluate (compare) Against examples &/or standards. Judge Read (or not!) Judge (Praise or Damn) Ladder of Critical ReadingRight WayversusWrong Way

  15. Course Method • I will adhere very reliably and directly to: • the Course Outline • the Weekly Guide • the two Course Texts • SSW + Course reader • This will allow you to: • very directly prepare for the weeks’ lecture • Very directly review the lecture material • Lecture slides will: • Add enlightening material • Recast terms & concepts into practical, plain-language, real-world form.

  16. Double-Aspect of the Course • The course has two, complementary, sides. • How to Write Effectively • How to Read Effectively • Knowing effective (sp) writing methods creates the ability to effectively read and analyse writing. • Knowing effective reading & analytical methods creates the ability to effectively write. A Natural pairing: (a.) every written work has a writer; (b.) every writer wants an audience (even if it is himself)

  17. Aristotle (4th C. BC): Founder of the Scientific Method • Aristotle’s teacher Plato studied ‘why things are.’ • Search for perfection • Aristotle himself instead looked at how things are. • “What is the purpose of this?” • “How does it operate best?” • Pragmatic, not ‘Ideal’

  18. Aristotle’s Universal Relevance (Alexander the Great’s teacher) • The Physics • The Politics • The Ethics (x3) • The Mechanics • The Soul • The Universe • The Rhetoric • On Animals • On Logic • The Poetics • ‘That Book Filed Beside The Physics’ = The Metaphysics. • The Poetics: Literature is • that which pleases and sustains interest of the audience. Has: • Mimesis: fundamental part of human nature, from our desire to know. I.e. homo sapiens. • Hamartia: injury committed unknowingly. • Catharsis: reordering of the emotions. • Peripateia: reversal of circumstance • Anagnorisis: recognition • The 3 Unities: Place, Time, Action

  19. Aristotle: writing is Techne—a science with order & rules. Middle-Ages through to (British) present: Trivium • Grammar: how words work • Rhetoric: how to arrange words to get them to do what you want. • Dialectic: how ideas are arranged in writing • Thus, Good Writing is judged essentially by its EFFECTIVENESS • Cf: With Quadrivium = ‘Seven Liberal Arts.’

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