My brother Steven has always been well
read. Long before Google and the
Internet, Steven was avid at finding reference materials. He read about various subjects until there
was nothing left to research. He has
always been well informed about so many subjects – except maybe the Pan Am
Conferences of 1910 – not even a subject of his choosing but rather one that
had been assigned to him in school. The
encyclopedia included perhaps an entire paragraph for the Pan Am Conference of
1932 or 36 or some year in that decade.
I can’t remember. But it was a
couple of decades after the assigned year which had even less documented.
I don’t recall what the word count was
assigned to the students or if they all had the same topic or exactly how it
worked. Steven was miffed as he’s been
required to come up with more information that he could find. And so he got creative with his report and
wrote it in form of a detective novel searching for clues. In the end his report had more than the
required amount – possibly too many words.
I don’t remember what kind of a grade he received, but I think his
creativity had worked to his advantage.
I see Wikipedia has much more information that he was able to come with. But then again, maybe not as over a century
of conferences are mentioned – but nothing detailed.
So what triggered this memory for
me? Richard’s ranting about required
writing and using peer reviewed references and language so explicit that even
the average professor wouldn’t understand – let alone the common folk that
hopefully he will be able to supervise when or before he is through with all
this nonsense. I am a majorly bored
sounding board. But it somehow helps him
to think out loud. I get fed up with professors who nit pick at the format rather than the context. What are we learning?
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