Students, Writing, and E-mail

It seems that I am constantly having to explain to my students why writing matters. There is nothing more annoying than reading teaching evaluations at the end of a semester and seeing "This is not an English class -- why did he grade only based on how good we wrote?" (QED)

It is idiocy to believe that only English professors should be encouraging writing skills, so in order to pre-empt this blood-boiling criticism I address it headlong (I relish pointing out that our history department has published more books than our English department). And one of the ways I do this is to argue that in nearly every career that they choose they will have to write and that a huge percentage of that writing will come in the form of emails.

It might seem odd to equate writing a college essay with constructing an email. But the two really are not all that different. In both you are trying to make a point and eventually accomplish some goal. To be effective both must be clear, well organized, and well thought out. And in both cases the audience matters.

At his fine blog that is otherwise devoted to "research, international development, foreign policy, and violent conflict," Chris Blattman has a nice post that I hope gets as much attention as possible: "Students: How to Email to your Professor, employer, and professional peers." Students, and all of us, really, should commit his twelve rules to memory.

Technology's Burdens

Rob Horning at Popmatters has an insightful post on consumerism and the false allure of free stuff that more than anything speaks to me about the tyranny of technology that supposedly makes our life better by giving us more access to free information at our fingertips. And for those of us who work in the realm of knowledge and information there is nothing more seductive than free information.

And yet at least for me, this access is at best a dual-edged sword. I get probably a score of news sources sent to my main email account regularly. Most of this I can justify as work, at least broadly, inasmuch as so much of it helps me stay abreast of African developments that are crucial to my writing on the Foreign Policy Association blogs and elsewhere. But couple these with far too many listservs, and then with a slew of personal email or email from actual people related to professional stuff, and then emails that qualify as junk, and then emails that qualify as semi-welcome junk (emails I signed up for that nonetheless is geared toward selling me something), and then emails regarding financial stuff -- credit card statements, cell phone, etc. and you begin to see the problem. On a day when I'm diligent about emails I find that I'll stay on top of that day's inbox -- unless something big happens in Africa, say -- and may whittle away at ten emails from, more than likely, yesterday, before other duties intercede. then to top that off with the fact that my account was violated some time ago, and I am still dealing with the ramifications (oh yes -- whoever got in there not only copied my contact list but stole it. If we know one another I probably don't have your email address any longer).

And so it was with equal parts fear and loathing that I loaded my main and campus email accounts on to my new Blackberry today. The deluge is already coming. And I asked for it.

(Via Andrew Sullivan, who picked it up from Nicholas Carr

Spam as Felony

As I kill time before today's games, a thought that often comes to me crossed my mind again. In all of the talk about Spam email and its various annoyances, why isn't the issue of fraud a part of this discussion. Spam is an annoyance, but it is often more than that. If you send me an email claiming that there is a problem with my bank account, and you are not actually a representative from my bank, how have you not committed about a dozen fairly serious crimes? Some try to couch spam discussions as matters of free speech, but there is no protection for attempting to defraud someone.

Obviously most of these emails fall into the category of petty irritants. If I don't have an account at the community federal credit union that is in the dire straits that you claim it is, that simply clutters my inbox. Such phishing expeditions still ought to be patently illegal, but their odds of doing me harm are minimal. However, more and more, likely based purely on the sheer amount of email I receive and the probability that comes with it, I receive emails allegedly from banks and other institutions (Amazon being a common example) with which I do business. I know that my bank does not contact me by email, but Amazon does, as do others. At this point, the risk of fraud increases substantially and such spam crosses from being a bother to being potentially devastating. Ho are attempts to defraud thousands, maybe millions, of people in one fell swoop not considered significant threats?

The Dual-Edged Sword of Email

I'm certain I'm not alone among my readers, but I spend an insane, inordinate amount of time on email. Keeping up with friends, of course, but also academic listserves, which proliferate seemingly daily, and news sources -- newspapers and magazines and journals -- and too many sports-related emails to mention. Much of my daily contact with Africa comes to me via email. Email that by any definition is work-related. There are days, it seems, when "work" consists entirely of deleting email, responding to email, ignoring email, blogging based on things I receive via email, and engaging in endeavors and making the sort of inquiries that will lead to more email. A day away from the computer can set me back two days. A week away from email and I cannot imagine how I would dig myself out.

Now we have confirmation that we are not alone from the website of the respected literary magazine-cum-journal N+1, which explicitly makes the case"Against Email." Here is a sample, though the whole thing is worthwhile:

America, most efficient country on earth, is in fact a nightmare economy of squandered time. Our economic system condemns people to work in offices and send email; that’s what they do there. (And in order to cover their asses, they cc everyone about everything.) Then they go home and take with them all the work they were supposed to be doing all day. Their revenge upon those of us who don’t work in offices? To send us email from nine to five.

We too have sometimes been the have-nots in the email economy. In the role of supplicant emailer, we have labored to achieve the impossible right tone: so winning that others will have to write back, so casual you can pretend it doesn’t matter when they don’t. The whole thing is painful all around. And this, finally, is what must be understood: email, which presents itself as a convenience, a breeze, is in fact a stern disciplinary phenomenon. You must not stray too far from your desk. You must be polite, you must write back soon. And yet in order to strike the right note, you must not write when too giddy, angry, tired, or drunk. Always at the disposal of email, never, except guiltily, at the disposal of your moods. . . . It fits our phase of capitalism: the collective attitude is casual, natural-seeming, offhand; the discipline is constant and intense.

Email represents a form of self-inflicted tyranny, but it is tyranny nonetheless. But I have to cut this short. I have to check if I have any new messages before I go to bed.