“Directed study”
The Capital Times ran a story today about UW athletes taking directed study courses, seemingly only to boost their GPA or maintain their 12 credit minimum. I’m sure the whole situation is an under the table scam, but it’s nice to see some reporting like this. Universities are for learning, not playing sports, right?
In any case, my problem is that the writer seems to think everyone knows what directed study is. That can’t be the case, though, because she puts the term in quotes in the second paragraph, as if it’s a foreign phrase. You’d expect the next sentence or paragraph to go on to explain exactly what directed study is, but no, that doesn’t happen. You have to read through the entire article and infer what it means, guessing at the exact definition each time the words come up in a sentence.
No, I’m not lazy or dumb. Yes, I can determine what the term means by the end of the article. But, it seems to me like you’d want to point out a definition like that pretty early on to provide some context for the rest of the article.