LET'S COMMUNICATE 
Agriculture Communication Newsletter 
July 2002, No. 79

CONTENTS: 

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD 
BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND 
NEW IN THE STAFF RESOURCE LIBRARY

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD

"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."--George Bernard Shaw

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There is a phrase that always strikes me as clumsy at best and borderline illiterate at worst. But, I have been seeing it more often in the local newspaper, and it even turned up the other day in a nationally syndicated comic strip (see, I do read more than the sports page). The phrase is "good of a," as in, "How good of a golfer are you?" I see no reason for the "of" and think it's a useless interruption. It bugs me enough that I checked all the style and useage guides within reach. No mention of it. Looked in the unabridged dictionary. Not there. Tried a Google search. No hits. So I have no support for my bias, but I still don't like it. Please join my crusade and just use, "How good a (whatever) is (he, she or it)?"

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I can't think of any grammatical reason not to use "good of a" (see above), but that doesn't mean it's "right." Geoff Hart, an editor for a forest research institute in Canada, says, "Hart's 17th law states that if something is grammatically correct but still looks funny, you must rewrite." Good advice. If something doesn't ring true in your own mind when you know exactly (more or less) what you are trying to say, the effect will likely multiply with your readers.

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Web master Dave Rice has added a feature to the Let's Communicate (www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/letscomm/letscomm.htm) archives. Click on the "Versus" button for a selection of items about troublesome word pairs, like allude and elude, compliment and complement, etc. They're in alphabetical order, so you can scroll quickly to see if the word you want is there.

BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

"Begin with the End in Mind" is the second of Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." (Book and audiotape available in the Staff Resource Library.)

Covey's words, the Logic Model and other tools encourage us to first think about what we want our final results to be, then to plan and carry out the steps required to reach those results, whether in our teaching, our personal lives or other situations.

In teaching, think "What do I want my students to be able to do when they leave my class?" rather than "How many experiments can I fit into the semester?" Consider "How should these producers change their practices after my session?" rather than "How many Powerpoints can I fit into my 45 minutes?" Ponder "What actions do we want these youth to take after our camp?" instead of "How can I keep these kids busy all day?"

Covey says, "Begin with the end in mind is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things." For example, when building a new home, we visualize how we want the exterior and each room to look. Then we develop the blueprint and gather the materials, then actually carry out the construction. In education, we visualize what we want our learners to do (the desired outcomes), then organize what we need make this happen (the inputs), then carry out the program (the outputs).

Becky Koch

NEW IN THE STAFF RESOURCE LIBRARY

Rural Telework: Bringing Work to Rural America Washington State University Extension Service 2002, two-hour satellite downlink on videotape This program illustrates how telecommuting, videoconferencing and other technologies can support work for employees and both small and large businesses for community development.

Many other audio cassettes, books and videos are in the Staff Resource Library listing on the Web at http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/staffres/library/contents.htm  . You're also welcome to stop by the Distribution Center in Morrill 10 to browse the shelves. Books may be checked out for one month, audio and video tapes for two weeks. Contact the Distribution Center at dctr@ndsuext.nodak.edu  or call 231-7882 to check out materials.