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Re: Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails



In her Phys-L post of 10 Mar 2003 12:36:16-0600 titled "Re: Spelling
and Grammar in our e-mails," Julie Montgomery responded to my post
Hake (2003) as follows:

"Please pardon my ignorance. I honestly can't recall having seenyour
post from last October, but surely the fact that I didn't know to use
brackets indicates a serious deficiency on my part. Perhaps I'll
rejoin the rest of the lurkers who feel too intimidated to
participate."

I apologize to Julie and to the list if my recent Phys-L post seemed
to single Julie for criticism. That was not at all my intention.
Instead I was sincerely trying to be helpful to her and to other
Phys-L'ers.

And, of course, no one but a crank like me ;-> would regard not
placing angle brackets around URL's as a serious deficiency.

In my opinion, there's no reason whatsoever for anyone to feel intimidated.

I wrote:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Suggestion #9 of my ignored "13 Posting Suggestion". . .[Hake 2002].
. . is (slightly edited):

"9. Give URL's as <http://www......> (NOTE THE ANGLE BRACKETS) so
that they will USUALLY survive line breaks and are hot-linked [note
that <www.....> is NOT hot-linked]. Check all URL's (by clicking on
them) in your message to be sure they work."
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I have been using the adjective "ignored" to modify "Posting
Suggestions" for many years on many different discussion lists. My
common-sense suggestions, taken largely from Dan MacIsaac (2002) and
Adam Ernst (1999), have been UNIVERSALLY ignored. Julie is just one
of many thousands. Besides, since my post (Hake 2002) was on AERA-D
(not Phys-L), there's little chance that she would have seen it.

At the seldom used Phys-L search engine
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=phys-l>, typing "Hake" into the
author slot, and "posting" into the subject slot, both without
quotes, yields two hits, one from 2000 and one from 2001. Both posts
appear to have been totally ignored by Phys-L'ers :-(.

Why else would Phys-L posts continue to contain, year after year,
superfluous anonymous posts already posted once ">", twice ">>",
thrice ">>>", etc., etc. by the inveterate reply-button pushers who,
come Hell or High Water will continue to ignore common-sense posting
suggestions?

Aside from the relatively trivial matter of net etiquette, I think
most women who survive in physics have all grown THICK skins (Mallow
& Hake 2002). That's also true of men who survive in physics. IMO,
one reason that physics advances is the constant criticism of
physicists by one another (Redish 2000).

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

"Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and
memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like
passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving. Not that it always
effects this result; but that conflict is a sine qua non of
reflection and ingenuity.

John Dewey, "Morals Are Human," Dewey: Middle Works, Vol.14, p. 207.


REFERENCES
Engst, A.C. 1999. "Mailing List Manners 101 & 102", online at
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1141>. In my opinion
Engst's Manners Courses 101 & 102 should be prerequisites for all
list subscriptions.

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Bad URL? & THIRTEEN POSTING SUGGESTIONS," AERA-D
post of 17 Oct 2002 11:14:50-0700; online at
<http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0210&L=aera-d&P=R3188>.

Hake, R.R. 2003. "Re: Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails," Phys-L
post of 10 Mar 2003 09:26:28-0800; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0303&L=phys-l&F=&S=&P=11905>.

MacIsaac, D.L. 2002. "Etiquette for PHYS-L and Similar Electronic
Mailing List Postings" online at
<http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu/PHYS-L/index.html> see also MacIsaac (2000).

MacIsaac, D.L. 2000. "Communities of on-line physics educators," The
Physics Teacher 38(4), 210-213; online as a pdf at
<http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu/PHYS-L/index.html>.

Mallow, J.V. & R.R. Hake. 2002. "Gender Issues in Physics/Science
Education (GIPSE) - Some References"; online at
<http://www.luc.edu/depts/physics/mallow.html>, and as ref. 21 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>; about 300 references and 200
hot-linked URL's.

Redish, E.F. 1999. Millikan lecture 1998: building a science of
teaching physics. Am. J. Phys. 67(7): 562-573; online at
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/perg/cpt.html>.