Haven't been blogging lately due to the slow internet connection. Just got better yesterday. So here am i.
Have been pretty busy lately. Assignments and test date are eating up space in my personal organiser.
This morning i got back my Technical n Professional Writing Assignment. Before giving out the assignments, my dear "We're-in-outcome-based-learning-system-and-this-is-university" or "i'm-merely-here-to-guide-you" lecturer, said:"The marks on the top right corner is the raw score and also the final marks for your final exam, since this is out of 15 marks and it carries a 15% weightage in your finals!"
It's an assignment where we're supposed to identify a problem in UTP, and find a relevant article about this issue. Then based on this article, do an outline and a memo to adress this problem to our programme head.
So my friends get their assignments back one by one scoring 14 most of them.
"Benny and Sam!"
I went out and collected mine. Shocked!
11/15!!Cruel!! Before submitting, we even went to see her twice to check if there's any error or if she have any comments. And every single question i ask, she'll be more of holding back then answering.
"Well, if u think this is best, then by all means carry on!"
"There's no right or wrong answer, It's all up to the writer which is you!"
"It's up to you! Look at the text book for reference."
And honestly, i followed every single detail in the text book because that's the only hint that she gave us. And see what happened? In the end, she took away 4 marks even before i sit for my finals!! And her reason? The article you chose to summarise is too long! WTF?? You penalise me not based on my summary but based on the length of article that i chose?
Then she went on and said my outline doesn't represent my article well. Why? Because the article there's this heading that reads Biological mechanism, and she couldn't find it in my outline.
WTF(again)?! In the article, under the section of Biological mechanism, it talks about obesity and how is obesity caused by softdrink. My title is softdrinks are bad for health. And there are other problems caused by softdrinks mentioned in the article. So i sum these problems together and put these under
Problems heading as a subtopic as
OVERWEIGHT.
And she's telling me this is wrong because it doesn't represents the article!? My question is this, do u evaluate based on the one line headings? or the main part of the article which is the content? I said to her that i change the headings because i want to sum all these problems up and overweight is a better and clearer word than Biological mechanism. She asked me, "Then why do you choose this article where the
idiotic writer label it's headings as Biological mechanism?"
WTF(again^2)?! Because the writer is dumb????!!! i din say that, instead i said, "Because the writer wrote it for a more technical group of people which understand the term biological mechanism better? And i'm writing it for a more general group of people which lack understanding of technical terms." She's kind of speechless and just ignoring by saying" you chose the wrong article."
Then she says "Your outline should represent the article fully. It should be a backbone of the article. For example if i take your bones out, i should still put it in a correct structure where your head is on top and legs at the bottom."
"Ok, let me give you an example, if you look at this Projector screen here, what's the outline of it?" Both me and sam gave her a blur look. then she continues "What's it's shape for example?"
Sam said"rectangular. "Then she gives a surprised look and say "no, it's square!!" then she turned around and look at the screen again, and realizing it's not that squared either she said "Well it might not be square because it's not exactly the same length each side, but still..."
I interrupted "you see, it all depends on how you see it isn't it?"
I guess she might feel a little embarrased by her own example which turn out to prove her wrong. However, she didn't show it, and that's what you call PROFESSIONAL!
She continued and said "I understand your point but i disagree"
Geez, feel like banging my head on the wall. If you understand then why disagree? Sensing that she isn't going to give in, i reluctantly gave up on arguing. I just kept my mouth shut and nod all the way through.
The moral lesson of the story: Appreciate your school teacher well even if they shout or yell at you. Because when u come into Uni, leturers smile at you, talk nicely to you. they'll never shout or yell! And if you have any problems and need seek for their opinion, all they'll say is "go ahead, go on, if you think it's right then proceed" and let you walk on the wrong path till you fall. And when u finally realise the mistake, it's already too late and you can do nothing about it other than blogging about it like me!!
