Of these lessons, one in particular strikes me as especially important the careful use of distinct styles of writing. In my experience, the quality of distance education courses can equal or surpass that of traditional courses if three distinct levels of style formal, standard, and colloquial are used by DE teachers and students. Highly polished, grammatically rigorous prose should form the backbone of all distance education courses. In addition, before the course starts, DE lecturers should make decisions about questions of tone in their own writing because, in the absence of visual contact, the emotional impact of one s prose plays a dominant role in the relationship between teacher and student. Above all, paragraph structure and length are extremely important in distance education.
Nothing makes a worse impression in the virtual classroom than a sloppily composed paragraph.
If such paragraphs are also excessively long, they become an eyesore and render effective teaching all but impossible. On the other hand, a perfectly sculpted, intellectually precise paragraph captures the student s attention and creates ideal conditions for learning. Establishing the importance of this formal style is a simple matter in a DE course. First, the instructor s introductory presentation can contain a brief set of guidelines for this formal level of writing. Second, the teacher s own prose naturally serves as a model for the student.