What’s another word for “Gah”?
SEK: What you have here is a solid B+ paper. You need to elevate your diction if you want to convince me that this is an A.
STUDENT: So I need to sound more academic?
SEK: Yes.
STUDENT: So I need to predicate the logic of my arguments on rhetorical substance of the visual nature of the dynamic?
SEK: Come again?
STUDENT: If I accentuate the propositional strength of my argumentative units –
SEK: What are you doing?
STUDENT: Convincing you to give me an A?
SEK: Don’t be that guy.
Kid deserves an “A”. At least by the terms you laid out. If you wanted him to write a better paper you should have told him he needed to sound less academic, not more.
That’d make him a better writer, generally speaking, but not a more successful academic. You need to speak the same language as the professors to please them, after all.
But in this case, it’s a changing informal phrases like “right away” into their more formal equivalents, like “immediately.”
what about “instantly?”
I know you need to speak the lingo to get a job, and jobs justify many evils, but if you don’t teach them to write well now then when will it happen?
Works for me. A+!
Personally I prefer “with alacrity.”
It must be said, for crimes against the English language, “If I accentuate the propositional strength of my argumentative units –” surely must require retribution.
“With celerity” is even better. “In a celeritous manner” is perhaps a bit too much.
what would I get for anon or instanter?
Stat?
hippie punched
And before Freddie asks, this post places me to the left of Scott and the right of Loomis, I think. (Sorry, those threads about political purity that lump the lot of us together confuse me. Or maybe they just make me feel left out. Where’s my unwarranted opprobrium, damn it?)
Are you saying your opprobrium is unwonted but not unwanted?
it might be unWarrented
I’m with C.S on this. Kid demonstrated on the spot he has a mastery of academic diction. Heck, in the link you even lament “Why must charges importune their prose with exorbitant diction?”
He gave you what you wanted.
No, the kid demonstrated on the spot that he has a passing familiarity with the academic practice of throwing up a word cloud the way a squid throws up a cloud of ink to slink away unseen.
Yes many academics do this. No, it is not something that should be rewarded.
Yes it is rewarded by many peer reviewers who read such word clouds and are bizarrely impressed by them instead of printing them out, scrawling “for the love of GOD MAKE IT STOP” on the print outs in their own blood, and mailing them back to the authors. I’ve been told that doing this would violate the anonymity of peer review and that filling out the online form is always better, but I’m not sure they get the point of just what a sin against the sharing of knowledge this kind of crap is without the blood.
A student writes like this and she loses points with me. But I’m in philosophy.
I was always annoyed when we had to read the works of professor’s who wrote like this in the Classics. I don’t care about big words but if I can’t even understand your point because of your diction there is an issue…
Simpler is always better. As long as it reads like a paper and not a text message.
I remember one professor always telling us, “Nouns and verbs. Nouns and verbs.”
What’s an argumentative unit? Can it be in mks or cgs?
The unit is ilk (impertinent little kid).
Is said kid named RAY ALLEN, perchance?
Newtons. At least as a unit to end an argument.
I assume you’re talking about ending the argument through the application of force? It’s been an awful long time since I took freshman physics, but I think your units are missing a time factor, ie how rapidly those Newtons are delivered unto the victim (apparently, this quantity is a yank).
Newtons have time in the unit — it is mass multiplied by acceleration
Sure, but you still need to know how rapidly the quantity of force is applied. It’s the difference between a warm hand gently resting on your shoulder for a time and a wallop to the shoulder: same amount of force, different speed of delivery.
Hey! Let’s keep it clean here.
Hertz or Decibels.
The original unit was the whineon, but it turned out to be much too small for practical use. 10,000 whineons make a git.
Oh right. And 1 git=142.0653125 Imperial prats.
you British and your British whingeing units
Saying “elevate your diction” when what you mean is ‘use formal rather than informal language’ is a perfect example of precisely what’s wrong with your position.
You’re trolling your own blog, aren’t you?
Let’s all just be happy the kid didn’t take it as a veiled request for sexual favors.
the angle of the dangle is proportional to the elevation of the diction?
That was my first thought as well.
This isn’t a graduate student symposium on Judith Butler, it’s freshmen comp. Clarity above all else.
I would say clarity above all else should always be the rule.
Clarity above all else? No, that won’t work–people might understand what you are trying to say, and then where would you be?
You should have told him his response was perfectly cromulent.
Fuck, man. I would’ve just taken the B+.
To be fair you ought to have specified whether it was the diction of his paper or of his grade-grubbing that needed to be elevated. I thought his response hedged this issue rather nicely.
Whatever happened to “eschew obfuscation”?
When I taught freshmen comp as a grad. instructor we were reminded that our job was to get students writing in as clear and jargon-free a style as possible.
Telling a kid to “write more like an academic” sounds like a recipe for disaster.
srsly, the interaction between SEK & CAT in the package-tape scene had more educational value.
Can STUDENT be nudged towards a career in packaging? Will there be video of his/her apprenticeship w/ the Electric Stapler?
Yeah…Be this guy instead.
Is this from an American spin-off of Yes Minister!?
“Counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor” . . . Death is too good for them.
YES! That is the reference that was at the back of my brain and it just wouldn’t step forward and take its place at the front.
Thank you, my good sir. You are a hoopy frood.
Greatest comment ever.
That sounds like a fancy way of saying “heighten the contradictions.” You’re asking for trouble…
A or B+, the kid won and you lost. And you know it. Your department should now get up a collection to buy you a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and throw a sherry party to welcome you to the club.
I think the kid’s earned an A-. Their extemporaneous editing seems completely convincing.