because I had good ideas and could phrase them well, no one one had called me out on the fact that my papers had no overall structure
My sister was saying she'd gotten away with this for a long time. The standard way of presenting your thesis argument, etc, and constructing an essay? Greek to both of us. We both just stumble through trying to be convincing until we reach some sort of wrap up. However, she's done a million degrees by now, so she's gotten that under control. I went into IT, so I never needed to.
It was scarily apparent, however, reading her students' essays that they had no idea how to construct an argument. She also teaches technical writing to
Master's
students, and is insisting on more lengthy writing samples before students are accepted into her program, because she's just tired of dealing. As I can well understand.
It's not that my parents were notable for not praising us for being smart--they didn't praise us for anything. Our grades weren't good enough for comment. Neither was our effort. Our arts. Our sports. Our looks. Nothing. It was all back to the drawing board and achieve more, and praise might get in the way of further elevation.
My sister was saying she'd gotten away with this for a long time. The standard way of presenting your thesis argument, etc, and constructing an essay? Greek to both of us. We both just stumble through trying to be convincing until we reach some sort of wrap up.
Oh god, I still have this. It's kind of embarrassing sometimes, since theoretically my job is basically constructing arguments.
The standard way of presenting your thesis argument, etc, and constructing an essay? Greek to both of us. We both just stumble through trying to be convincing until we reach some sort of wrap up.
I was telling someone this just this week. I was always good enough with language to sound like I knew what I was talking about, even if there wasn't much there there.
This is also why I write fiction.
I write in an inverted pyramid style for journalism, so I usually want to get it all out in three paragraphs.
Thank goodness for rambling style columns!
I am a very, very lazy student.
I remember inverted pyramid style!
We had the five paragraph essay style totally drilled into us in middle school and high school. We would never start writing before writing an outline. I know several people who went to my high school who got to college and had no idea how to write essays any other way -- when they got assigned 10 page papers to write, they ended up writing them as five really long paragraphs.
My sister was saying she'd gotten away with this for a long time. The standard way of presenting your thesis argument, etc, and constructing an essay? Greek to both of us. We both just stumble through trying to be convincing until we reach some sort of wrap up.
This is so me. I was a disaster in university. Every paper was started the night before it was due and almost all were handed in late. I had so many "reads like a first draft comments." Occasionally, in the midst of panic and sleep deprivation, I would do something pretty smart, but that was rare. Also, because the non-existent arguments just petered out, my essays were always short of the required word count.
Theatre school was the only place I had any discipline. That was because the schedule was so punishing (six days a week (if I was lucky) and almost always a 12-hour day), I didn't dare slack off.
Oh God yes, save me from the five-paragraph essay. I have to drill it out of my students. It’s a good foundation for younger kids to learn, though, so I don’t advocate not teaching it--it’s just a bear to un-train.
Totally appropos to this conversation, it's National Day on Writing.
