Writing is a process - you shut up.
I know that developing good writing is a process. I really, really do. And I want to develop as a writer, and continually evolve my style, and grow more sophisticated in my facility with language and expression. I do.
I just wish it didn't all have to happen in the next fourteen days.
Turns out the problem with signing up for all seminars this term is that all the evaluation is coming at the end. It is, in fact, reminiscent of a dump truck. Shovel, shovel, shovel, all semester. And now? *Beep beep beep*, dump truck backs up and wham! evaluation!, and all of a sudden great leaps in my rhetorical ability have to be made. Which I don't object to. I'm simply wondering if I can make them in two weeks or so.
I'm trying desperately to take it constructively and have a good attitude, because I know it's all for the best, and most of the suggestions are valid (I know, I am overly rhetorical sometimes and yes, I do need to avoid an overly narrative style), but my goodness, what a difference a little positive reinforcement makes! I had two meetings today, both evaluating some written work, and here they are...
Meeting Number One
I walked in, and the professor made a point to preface the whole thing by saying, "I read this twice, it was really interesting. I have a lot of comments for you, and it's because I want to help you make this paper better." With my good attitude switched on, I agreed with 98% of what (s)he wanted to change [yes, the pronoun's gender-neutral, I'm not telling you who it is], and argued successfully for my other 2%.
Meeting Number Two
The professor launched right into criticism, which took about the same amount of time and was substantively the same as Meeting Numero Uno. But this time, I had to keep reminding myself that (s)he was really actually interested in the topic and that (s)he really did have my best interests at heart in ripping this to shreds, because (s)he certainly never said so. I think I might have gotten an "It was interesting" on the way out, but please. I've worked with this professor enough to know that (s)he is on my side, but it was really hard not to feel defensive when all I got was negative feedback.
All right, all right, I'm whining. Fine, I'll stop, because I'm sure the manner in which I'm whining is rhetorically unsatisfactory anyway. And off I go to write some more, because unsatisfactory or not, I've got three papers to write and a thesis to revise before Kalamazoo.
I just wish it didn't all have to happen in the next fourteen days.
Turns out the problem with signing up for all seminars this term is that all the evaluation is coming at the end. It is, in fact, reminiscent of a dump truck. Shovel, shovel, shovel, all semester. And now? *Beep beep beep*, dump truck backs up and wham! evaluation!, and all of a sudden great leaps in my rhetorical ability have to be made. Which I don't object to. I'm simply wondering if I can make them in two weeks or so.
I'm trying desperately to take it constructively and have a good attitude, because I know it's all for the best, and most of the suggestions are valid (I know, I am overly rhetorical sometimes and yes, I do need to avoid an overly narrative style), but my goodness, what a difference a little positive reinforcement makes! I had two meetings today, both evaluating some written work, and here they are...
Meeting Number One
I walked in, and the professor made a point to preface the whole thing by saying, "I read this twice, it was really interesting. I have a lot of comments for you, and it's because I want to help you make this paper better." With my good attitude switched on, I agreed with 98% of what (s)he wanted to change [yes, the pronoun's gender-neutral, I'm not telling you who it is], and argued successfully for my other 2%.
Meeting Number Two
The professor launched right into criticism, which took about the same amount of time and was substantively the same as Meeting Numero Uno. But this time, I had to keep reminding myself that (s)he was really actually interested in the topic and that (s)he really did have my best interests at heart in ripping this to shreds, because (s)he certainly never said so. I think I might have gotten an "It was interesting" on the way out, but please. I've worked with this professor enough to know that (s)he is on my side, but it was really hard not to feel defensive when all I got was negative feedback.
All right, all right, I'm whining. Fine, I'll stop, because I'm sure the manner in which I'm whining is rhetorically unsatisfactory anyway. And off I go to write some more, because unsatisfactory or not, I've got three papers to write and a thesis to revise before Kalamazoo.
posted by Katie at
1:27 AM
4 Comments:
It's a shame academic writing can't be of the same quality as the content on In A Model Environment. Have you seen the item about the MIT grad students whose computer program's randomly generated paper was accepted by a conference?
I have. And bearing in mind the discursive paradigm they accessed with regard to constructing means of production of meaning, the governing structuring structures certainly failed to be unproblematic.
Or something...but it certainly made me laugh! God knows I've read articles like that - when I collapse into helpless laughter and immediately seek out a victim to hear the tortured prose, it must be horrible academic writing!
Katie, you lack rhetorical skill, just face it. You are a madwoman, locked in an asylum, using your tin drum to beat out the so-called academic writing you aim to produce.
You know, God said the same thing about you... Weird. Only I'm pretty sure my God was better, since he muttered something about one true-ness. He remarked about "some big-assed bitch" who had found a magzine clipping of Peter North's penis and called that god. I asummed he meant you (though it could have been Ly too...). Naturally.
Good luck with your evals, I hope you choke to death on cock immediately after your successful completion of seminars!
You lack rhetorical skill, R. How about that? Eh?
Incidentally, continue to start sentences with conjunctions - when the revolution comes, we can all do that all the time. It was one of the things I got yelled at for this week.
And I can't say I always agree.
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