Ask Prof. Jerz: Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
- What is This "Weblog" of Which You Speak?
- What is an academic thesis?
- How do I find peer-reviewed academic journal articles?
- How do I cite a source in an MLA Works Cited list?
- How do I format an MLA-style paper?
Specific Questions
I Missed Class...Did Anything Important
Happen?
Most teachers I know cringe when students request an e-mail
transcript of a class they missed. My policy is to ask you to get the
notes from a classmate first, and then come to me if you have specific
questions.
My Computer Crashed -- Do I Get an Extension?
Well... no, not automatically. If it's a minor assignment and it's the
first time you've run into this problem, I might accept a rough
draft at the proper due date and then let you turn in a clean draft
by the end of the day; but if you can't even turn in a rough draft because
some last-minute computer trouble prevented you from turning in anything
at all, then I'd say the problem wasn't really computer trouble -- it
was probably the "last-minute" part.
Online Class
Projects: What You Should Know First
You do not have to be a computer programmer in order to create
a good, useful web page. But you need to account for the needs
of strangers who might follow a search engine to your pages, which means
writing in a slightly different way. And don't spend too much time fiddling
with the style of your site, so that you end up neglecting the substance.
What is Tenure?
Tenure is a professor's [more or less] permanent job contract, granted
after a probationary period of six or seven years. At the larger, big-name
schools, a professor's tenure is mostly dependent on achieving a national
reputation as a scholar (or artist, or performer, etc.) in a particular
field. At smaller schools, research is still important, but teaching
ability is paramount.
What is the Difference between Public Relations
and Technical Writing?
While there is certainly some overlap, a technical writer typically
writes inside an organization, for experts, or for existing customers;
a public relations person writes or delivers messages for a broader
range of people (the "public").
What is Technical Writing?
While technical writers need to have good computer skills, they do not
necessarily have to write about computers all their lives. The Greek
word techne simply means "skill".
