Lester Smith is a Writer/Technologist at Sebranek, Inc., parent company of Write Source. He is a 1989 graduate of Illinois State University with a BA in English, Magna cum laude, Honors in English, University Honors Scholar, and with a minor in Spanish. In 1985, while pursuing his degree, he began working as a writer and editor for Game Designers’ Workshop in Normal, Illinois, which led to a design position with TSR (publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons® game) in 1991. He joined the staff of Sebranek, Inc. in 1998 as an assistant writer and was soon assigned Webmaster duties as well. In 2000 he led the creation of the company’s e-Publishing Department. Currently he maintains the company’s Websites and podcasts, troubleshoots technology issues, and contributes as a writer and editor to various projects. In his spare time, he is president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
Yesterday I stumbled across an article about college students getting miffed when they didn’t get an “A for Effort”: “Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes.” I find it a difficult attitude to understand; it breaks down as soon as it’s applied to the working world. A building doesn’t care whether an architect tried her hardest—the design either stands or falls. A gall bladder doesn’t care that a surgeon did his best—the cholecystectomy is either a success or a failure. So why are students reaching college with this unrealistic attitude that if they read the material and show up for class they deserve an A? (more…)
Part of my job here at Sebranek Inc. is to stay abreast of ongoing technology issues as they relate to writing. That means, among other things, having a Twitter account and following people like Tim O’Reilly (of tech publishing giant O’Reilly Media). Today, Tim reTweeted the following post by Lewis Shepherd (CTO of Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments): (more…)
On Tuesday, shortly after President Obama’s inaugural address, Lynn Gaertner-Johnston posted “Deconstructing the Inaugural Address” from a business-writer’s standpoint. She has some great things to say about the power of practical language.
On Wednesday, Al Tompkins posted “What Inaugural Speeches Can Teach Writers,” from a journalist’s standpoint. He compares the speech section by section with pieces from Lincoln and Kennedy, to demonstrate it’s overall rhetorical strategy. (more…)
As the person who usually answers questions (both in-house and out) regarding documenting research reports, let me second Dave Kemper’s most recent post about breathing life into the research process. Dave summarized Ken Macrorie’s I-Search approach to research writing. I’d like to parallel that with a digital-era view of what research is really all about.
The first step is to back away from a fixation on whether our references are punctuated correctly. The second is to unlearn the word plagiarism.
I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that collective gasp of outrage and will forge ahead. If you can trust me for just a few more paragraphs, you will be happy with where we land, I believe. (more…)
Today I finally got a chance to read Liz O’Neill’s Teaching Beowulf to Vikings Fans essay at www.TheWritingTeacher.org. Mrs. O’Neill obviously has had both quite a bit of experience in the classroom and at least one great teacher to inspire her. I’m happy she took the opportunity to pass that inspiration along in this essay.
—Les
In a posting about two weeks ago, I mentioned that my daughter recommended Of Human Bondage. At this point, both of us have finished reading, and tough as it was to bear with the protagonist through it all, the book was well worth the time. Elements still come to mind at odd moments, shaping the way I perceive human behavior and civilization.
All that aside, one of the more unexpected revelations from my conversation with her was the discovery that she often reads books on her cell phone. A part of me is cheering even now to write that. Here’s why. (more…)
My oldest daughter called the other day to say that she is reading Of Human Bondage. She picked up a copy at a sale because her best friend in high school had said it was her favorite book, and my daughter figured any novel that could so impress a 17-year-old girl must be worth reading. Upon hearing this, I started reading the ebook copy which has resided on my pda ever since the title caught my attention on a Gutenberg.org search for something else some years ago.
So my daughter and I are sharing the experience of this book, which she and her old friend have now shared in retrospect, and the three of us will have shared an experience with the author, W. Somerset Maugham. That’s quite a span of time, and quite a varied set of personalities and perspectives. (more…)
Recently one of my novelist friends and I were out to dinner, discussing writing. He happened to mention being stuck at a spot in his most recent story and having called another novelist to talk it through. My first reaction was surprise, to think that one professional novel writer needed to confer with another. It jarred with my image of both these people as masters of their craft, each sitting in a solitary tower, quietly capturing words on paper.
I suspect you might have reacted the same, just now. We are so used to thinking of writing as a lonely occupation that we forget its innate nature as communication. A writer puts words on paper hoping someone else will read them. That is as true of novelists as of newspaper columnists. (more…)
Two years ago for Christmas, after much begging and pleading on my part, my wife bought me a Chihuahua puppy. Dobie’s an affectionate little guy (5.5 lbs. now, fully grown) who loves to perform tricks. When teaching him a new one, I can see in the glint of his eye his effort to puzzle out just what his big buddy the human expects this time. And oh the excitement in his stance, his wagging tail, his bark, when it becomes clear! Watching him celebrate his success (with much bouncing and licking of my face), I’m reminded of my childhood school days, the joyful feeling of having finished a test for which I was well prepared in a subject I loved.
Then the old saw, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” casts its shadow on my current happiness, and I wonder how much longer Dobie will be able to take on new learning. Is there some tragic turning point at which his brain will rigidify? Of course, the saying isn’t really about a dog at all, but a cynical opinion about human nature. It suggests that you and I become unable to adapt and learn as age sets in.
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Over the course of several entries on this blog, I’ve called into question the value of traditional approaches to teaching literature. My objection has been two-fold:
- It’s a shame to ruin perfectly good literature by force-feeding it to students. Worse, doing so inspires in those students a distaste for reading, so they’ll avoid other good literature in the future.
- The choice of texts is always motivated by agendas imposed both by cultural assumptions (”Everyone should experience Anne Frank’s story”) and market forces (”Our competitors include ‘Flowers for Algernon’ in their texts, so we can’t afford not to”).
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