Point taken... Touché :shhh:

 

:rofl: Indeed my good man.

 

:a: That statement couldn't possibly be more sanctimonious.

In reality, what you're saying is: "I'm too busy to pick up a dictionary and expand my vocabulary."

Quit whining.

 

Touche David :shhh:

 

Well, overly complex words and phrases probably aren't crucial for effective communication, unless you're talking to Rhodes Scholars or something.

 

I agree... for the most part. :hsugh:
When the language becomes overly obtuse, you will probably lose your audience.

But OTOH, to expect all college material to be written at the 10th-grade level is just ridiculous. That expectation negates the whole point of higher education IMO.

 

Well, in a major such as yours, I agree...but for other careers, primarily ones that are science related, communications that are brief, simple and concise tend to be the most effective.

One example that comes to mind is my girlfriend who is a forensic science major. She has to write 5-6 page lab reports that could easily be 25-30 pages. Using overly verbose and complex words tends to earn her lab reports worse grades.

But for anything linguisticly related, I agree.

 

Point well taken.
I over-simplified things. h:

As I've been spending equal amounts of time in History and Journalism, the two forms of writing have become quite distinct.

The history professors love long-winded, deeply analytical prose, but when writing for the press.. you must be concise and vividly energetic with your words.

 

I feel the same way, but one has to expect some people may not have learned the exact same advanced vocabulary that they have. I know quite a few words other people do not, and I'm sure they also know a few that I don't know.

The question is simply put like this " Is it ok to put a trivial word or two in a required document for understanding a course?" and I'd have to say no. It's understandable to want to expand a students vocabulary beyond a normal scope, but don't go to town with the thesaurus button in something that is supposed to be informative and is crucial to understanding the task at hand.

When it comes down to it in 3 weeks when I try and remember the syllabus i most likely won't remember much of what was on it other than the five or six words I learned, just because they wanted to make a simple document into a Wall Street Journal article.

In this case I feel that the words detract from what we need to know, I focused more on decrypting a simple paragraph than actually paying attention to it.

cliffs: i'd rather leave the vocab learning up to my extra-curricular reading, let me know what i need to when i'm reading something thats supposed to outline what i'm supposed to understand.

 

go bitch at the professor