One problem is that English departments often don't focus on efficient and succinct communication of ideas. Occasionally it seems as if they are focused on enco

One problem is that English departments often don't focus on efficient and succinct communication of ideas. Occasionally it seems as if they are focused on encouraging willful misinterpretation of another person's writing. I've had the experience of telling a teacher that I wanted to get better at writing technical documentation and being laughed at and told that was boring. Of course, these experiences aren't universal and certainly my memory of them suffers from selection bias. But so do the memories of other folks, leading them to be highly skeptical of the argument that the English department is a valuable way to provide students with skill in communicating clearly.