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Incorrect is not the same as "without content" (which is what the original author claimed). Something can be incorrect and still be taught because it contains
by TomOfTTB 18y ago
Incorrect is not the same as "without content" (which is what the original author claimed). Something can be incorrect and still be taught because it contains content (albeit false content). Something that is without content can't be taught because teaching something requires gleening the meaning from the writing and then repositioning it in dialogue.
Finally, tearing someone apart rarely leads to good discussion. What it leads to is entertaining discussion (e.g. people on the sidelines take pleasure in watching two people cause harm to each other).
Or put more simply, tearing someone apart is about emotion while good discussion is about intellect
- unalone 18y agoOkay, fair enough. (I would argue that you can tear somebody apart and still keep it intellectual.)
- trominos 18y ago"Something that is without content can't be taught because teaching something requires gleening the meaning from the writing and then repositioning it in dialogue." If it's literally contentless, okay. But something that merely has low levels of content can definitely be taught; the teacher just has to pad out the content with any of a number of time-wasters. As somebody who went to high school, I can attest that this is not very hard to do. This particular book (or at least its excerpt) suffers, in my opinion, from an excess of examples and the occasional restatement. That's not to say that it's a bad book. Virtually all nonfiction, other than textbooks, has this problem (and as a result I very rarely actually finish a nonfictional book). I think that many of the author's points are valuable even for competent writers. But it is kind of bloated.