to be aghast you can get a GCSE in 'digital communications'

[fyrtlemertile]

Was speaking to a family member today whose choosing her options, apparently English Literature is an option, like History, French, Art or Music used to be while 'The English suite of qualifications are English Language, Media Studies and Digital Communications. Gifted student may have the opportunity to take English Literature as a twilight course and it will be offered as an option for band 1 students' (Band 1 = top half of the year, sets 1,2 and 3 I think).

AIBU or is digital communications probably a GCSE in facebook, texting and tweeting?

Ha love the suggestion of berrieberrie xxx HA! I'm not 12.

Check this out www.101emailetiquettetips.com/ it's a minefield, anyone who thinks that writing a letter is the same as an email needs ato do a bit of reading.

I would use, 'Regards' most likely. Possibly 'Sincerley' if I was writing to somewhere I knew to be stuffy and old fashioned.

On the contrary, anyone who thinks that it's ok to be sloppy and unprofessional in an email needs to smarten up their standards.

There is nothing wrong with being 'stuffy' and 'old fashioned'.

You and me both, evidently. I don't think that's ever happened before; soon I'll be painting me crack pipe in farrow and ball.

alistron1 if you are doing business with people that aren't then there is something wrong with it.

I have never been sloppy or unprofessional in an email.

LeQueen sadly the jury is out on a lot of items but if you google the subject there are lots of blogs with some great advise. The things most people get wrong are things like CCing someone who you need a response from. Or 'Reply to all' when it's not a matter to bother the whole group with. Or The address at the top of the body of the emal when it shouldn't be there... all of the basics are covered on line in blogs etc, but as i say, there are a few matters which people contest.

What i meant by somewhere stuffy and oldfashioned is that was if I was writing a business email to an older style solicitors or somewhere like that then I would use a more formal sign off such as 'sincerley'

I do most of my business with marketing companies.. if I ended an email with 'Yours sincerley' i think they'sd block me! 'Kind regards' is just as professional but much more appropriate.

i think ECDL is an excellent idea- but surely schools already offer it.

Some NT, not all.

'berrie is there a recognised format somewhere for correct email scripting'

I looked that up a year or so ago; answer seemed to be no. Advice was when in doubt script as per letter and amend to suit, erring on the side of formality.

No I agree the 'rules' of email are fairly straightforward and if you have been taught how to communicate, how to spell and the basics of grammar you should be able to apply these skills to the field of email.

Yes basic English should be taught before any other sort of communication.

"Your" and "you're", for example, are bloody easy to learn if you can be bothered. I'm severely dyslexic but it's just common sense. One is a word and the other is a short form of two words.

I think the same about logic
basic ands, ors, not
correlation does not imply causation
a implies b does not mean b implies a

Might solve some problems - might even have prevented a war or two :o

This is (even more) off-topic, but just out of interest, pigeon, there's a poster on here called altinkum who says that the kind of dyslexia she has makes it really hard to cope with 'common sense' distinctions like that as well - she seems to have the sort of structuring/pattern-finding problems some dyslexics have, applied to syntax.

Not saying this to take issue, just because I thought it was interesting when she explained and it wasn't something I'd come across before.

There are different types of dyslexia certainly.

Dh has a type that sounds much like Altinkum's variant; whilst ds2 has no obvious issues with the logic, much like pigeon.

Is an interesting subject. In autism research we move towards a usage of the term autismS, as there are different types and difering causalities: maybe it's the same with SPLDs such as dyslexia too?

Yes, people talk about the 'dyslexia spectrum'. Lots of ed. psychs won't diagnose straight 'dyslexia' except in very obvious cases and prefer to use terms like 'a learning difficulty on the dyslexia spectrum' or a 'dyslexia spectrum disorder'.

But even if you are dyslexic, you still need to be taught how to write good English, and you will probably find ways around your problems. I think this is quite relevant because I suspect lots of schools would love to be able to shunt their dyslexic students away from English GCSE, but these are some of the students who really need it most.

Absolutely LRD

DH and I complement each other quite well becuase I am teaching him how to write essays that don't make a very intelligent piece fo work look as if it's beenw ritten by a twelve year old(dyslexia) and he has taught me a whole new way to do maths (my weak point) that works for me.

It takes a certain amount of creative teaching though.

sounds good!