Friday, February 1, 2013

Emails not sent



Fwd: Class
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:32:28 -0200
From: afapex@mynui.edu
To: undergraduate_dean@myuni.com

Dear Dean,

            This student seems to have been inadvertently registered as a senior in the Basket Fabrication major.  I would be happy to help with any paperwork to correct the error.

            Regards,
                        Alan from Apex


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Class
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 12:05:35 -0200
From:ConfusedCarl@snowflake.net
To: afapex@myuni.edu


Hello,

Im looking at the results section of the write-up for this basket, and am not sure what to put in it.  This template format has me kind of lost.  Its sections are “Abstract, Basket Results, and Discussion”.  The weaving examples have sections titled “Objectives, Assumptions and solution”.  Im not sure how to relate examples to a write-up format with different section names, and this is confusing to me.  Im not sure what to put where.  Im having another problem with the first example, it had 7 different reeds and 4 weaving patterns.  The second example basket had 14 reeds and two separate diagrams of weaving patterns which were the same, except for the 2nd row, which changed from [L R L R] to [L R L].  I’m having a difficult time piecing together this proprietary information and am trying to understand how to piece the information together.  Any help would be great.  Thanks.

            Carl

9 comments:

  1. Proprietary?

    You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My guess: some professor in Carl's past referred (correctly) to the "proprietary databases" purchased by the library as a way of distinguishing sources of "credible" information from those available on the internet at large, and now Carl thinks "proprietary" means "scholarly" (which is probably exactly what the marketers of said databases would like him to think, which reveals a flaw in current approaches to "information literacy," especially in at a time when we're moving -- I hope -- toward open access, but that's a a conversation for another day).

      Delete
  2. Your mistake, Alan (as you're probably aware), is that you asked Carl to think (and also, apparently, to read -- complex material, even). On your evaluations (and/or on The Site That Shall Not Be Named) you will be described as "unclear" and possibly "disorganized." Congratulations on your rigor (and I hope you have tenure).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tenure? If I had tenure, the e-mail would have been sent, or I'd have made use of the open door.

      I've not yet made it to The Site That Shall Not Be Named, but I've had three people recently remark on my word-of-mouth reputation as challenging. This pleases me immensely. And two of them were enrolled in a class of mine.

      Delete
  3. Met a grad-student (math) once who couldn't tell the difference between a finite set and an infinite one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tell him to count the members in each. If he doesn't grow old or starve to death before he finishes, it might be a finite set.

      Delete
    2. Met a physics grad student once who refused to believe in infinite sets on the grounds that he was an atheist.

      Delete
  4. What an excellent fantasy email to your dean.

    I've had students hand in graphs that didn't have labels on the axes or made the units inconsistent (300, 310, 320, 365, 430) because that's what the data points said. So I started teaching how to make a graph as part of giving them the assignment. Then they started handing in graphs where the axes were labeled "X" and "Y". And arguing afterwards that I'd said they had to label both the X and Y axes. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete

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