Blog Post #10 (Darius Stewart)

A week or so ago I had a Ph.D. student (who was also ESL) come in for help writing his comps in public health. He had to respond to a series of case studies and I recall he had to be very specific about his responses. For instance, one of the questions asked him to respond to how well a  study about a food-borne illness that affected people's gastrointestinal system was conducted. Much of the language he used was extremely esoteric and his answers were lengthy. Brevity, apparently, isn't rewarded in his field. That proved somewhat problematic in the beginning since I had to determine when he was extraneous and when he wasn't. Eventually, by asking questions whenever the language tripped me up, his clarifications often revealed areas that could be cut because it was superfluous or he had incorrectly articulated a point. Of course, reading out loud also revealed organizational or grammatical hiccups. So, ironically enough, my unfamiliarity with his field is what allowed us to get his comps in better shape.

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