The professor gives students four introductions that other students have written to papers and tells them that two of these pieces started papers that eventually won honors while two received a b-minus or lower. He asks the students to read the introductions individually and then to work in their groups to determine which is which, and why they rank them as they do. 129

From the issue dated January 3, 2003
"Why Johnny Can't Write, Even Though He Went to Princeton" Many top colleges fear that their students lack basic composition skills By THOMAS BARTLETT

A few years back i wrote a paper entitle "Going the Way of the Oldsmobile" in which i argued that technical writers needed to learn programming or become obsolete. I remember wondering if i'd made up the reference to the end of the oldsmobile line because i never read about it after the initial rumor. But here's confirmation from the Affiliated Press wire:

Last Oldsmobile to Roll Off Assembly Line
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The Oldsmobile, the line of cars that started out in 1897 and featured models such as the Rocket 88 and the muscular 442, is coming to an end this week. The last Olds, an Alero, is due to roll off an assembly line Thursday in Lansing, the same city where the brand was born. (link)

Understanding slush, a primer on rejection Teresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor at Tor who's been in publishing for enough time to have developed some very advanced theories on the inner workings of the industry, has published a detailed account of the action on RejectionCollection.com, a site where writers post and complain about the rejection slips they've garnered from publishers.

Teresa invites us into the world of the "slushreader" -- the editor who goes through the unsolicited manuscripts, deciding which will to have a chance at publication and which will go back to their creators, and then analyses the mental model of this process implicit in the rejectionCollection.com commentary. The disconnect is profound and highly thought-provoking. At the very least, this should be required reading for anyone who aspires to a career in the arts (where the stiff competition from your fellow would-bes gives decision-makers the ultimate buyer's market).

But even if you don't want to write or paint or sing for a living, this is important stuff, illustrating the core principles of life in a world where we strive to get busy people to recognize the merit of our contributions.
Herewith, the rough breakdown of manuscript characteristics, from most to least obvious rejections:

1. Author is functionally illiterate.

2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don't publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.

3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.

4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, incentiary, reeking havoc, nearly penultimate, dire straights, viscous/vicious.

5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.

6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can't tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.

7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.

(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)