Re:Do "interesting details" really hurt learning?
by ahoyhere on Saturday January 03, 2009 @03:11PM
(#418628)
I don't agree with your unstated assumption that "interesting details" must necessarily be off-topic.
Of course, I still have a little collection of quotes from my old Photographic Design professor, including, among others, "That's why it pays to know your guano" and "There are as many types of breast as there are types of women." Useless bugger.
But as a writer and a speaker, I am always trying to take the basic facts and make them more interesting, more palatable, & more immediate by spicing them up -- with diagrams, pictures, good metaphors, whatever. Done right, these are both on-topic and helpful.
Of course, I still have a little collection of quotes from my old Photographic Design professor, including, among others, "That's why it pays to know your guano" and "There are as many types of breast as there are types of women." Useless bugger.
But as a writer and a speaker, I am always trying to take the basic facts and make them more interesting, more palatable, & more immediate by spicing them up -- with diagrams, pictures, good metaphors, whatever. Done right, these are both on-topic and helpful.