In my practicum, English 603, the class has been assigned to write what we teach. The purpose is to write a textual analysis, which the students usually struggle with. Even for graduate students, writing a textual analysis is difficult. We want to produce the desired effect in writing, and so we remember the effect we feel when we read "scholarly" articles: confusion.
In duplicating the Ivory Tower (IT) language of scholarly notes, writers slip into patterns. Long sentences, rambling thoughts, and nonsense words like lapsarianism. We also strive to make the text seem objective, although we never stop to ask if that's a good idea. First, I'll give you a thesis statement in an "academic paper." Here's an example:
Readers may find the persistent and unyielding effect of Aldus Huxley's lapsarianism is responsible for creating a complicated dichotomy between pleasure and life, that is, the actual act of living; however, his negative outlook also undermines his thesis in many places, because it calls into question his authority, not to mention his verisimilitude.
What's wrong with this sentence? Besides the confusion it creates? What's the verb, as Richard Lanham might say, and what's the subject? And what the hell does lapsarianism even mean?
Lapsarianism refers, or so I'm told (the word shows no hits in most dictionaries), to the tradition of civilization sliding downwards, generation after generation, towards the apocalypse. In Jewish culture, for example, each Rabbi is less perfect than his predecessor. We're descending towards chaos. It sounds like pessimism, or a bad attitude. This is over-simplifying a bit, but I feel all right cutting out the word and putting something else in, since I'm pretty confident the writer has no idea what she or he means anyway.
Let's try some revision:
Brave New World sets up a working contrast between pleasure and life; however, Aldus Huxley undermines his credibility with readers by being too preachy, too negative about the future of humanity, and too sparse with his supporting logic.
That first sentence had 53 words; the second has 38. That means the sentence before had a Bullshit Factor (Lanham calls it the Lard Factor) of 28%.
Remember, academic writing doesn't mean complicated writing. Attempts to brick up walls between the disciplines are detrimental, wrongheaded, and part of a system of oppression. Mystifying the lines between literature and criticism allows for an Ivory Clubhouse, a place for Them and Us. It makes great writers into demigods, not men and women. And it creates a culture that not everyone wants to be a part of -- especially not all freshman writing students.
In all cases, writing is writing. Creative writing and academic writing work with the same framework: letters, words, paragraphs, sections, chapters, ideas, and so on. Nonfiction has characters and plots, too. Textual analysis will be at its best when the authors are, as John Gardner put it, making up stories about stories.
In duplicating the Ivory Tower (IT) language of scholarly notes, writers slip into patterns. Long sentences, rambling thoughts, and nonsense words like lapsarianism. We also strive to make the text seem objective, although we never stop to ask if that's a good idea. First, I'll give you a thesis statement in an "academic paper." Here's an example:
Readers may find the persistent and unyielding effect of Aldus Huxley's lapsarianism is responsible for creating a complicated dichotomy between pleasure and life, that is, the actual act of living; however, his negative outlook also undermines his thesis in many places, because it calls into question his authority, not to mention his verisimilitude.
What's wrong with this sentence? Besides the confusion it creates? What's the verb, as Richard Lanham might say, and what's the subject? And what the hell does lapsarianism even mean?
Lapsarianism refers, or so I'm told (the word shows no hits in most dictionaries), to the tradition of civilization sliding downwards, generation after generation, towards the apocalypse. In Jewish culture, for example, each Rabbi is less perfect than his predecessor. We're descending towards chaos. It sounds like pessimism, or a bad attitude. This is over-simplifying a bit, but I feel all right cutting out the word and putting something else in, since I'm pretty confident the writer has no idea what she or he means anyway.
Let's try some revision:
Brave New World sets up a working contrast between pleasure and life; however, Aldus Huxley undermines his credibility with readers by being too preachy, too negative about the future of humanity, and too sparse with his supporting logic.
That first sentence had 53 words; the second has 38. That means the sentence before had a Bullshit Factor (Lanham calls it the Lard Factor) of 28%.
Remember, academic writing doesn't mean complicated writing. Attempts to brick up walls between the disciplines are detrimental, wrongheaded, and part of a system of oppression. Mystifying the lines between literature and criticism allows for an Ivory Clubhouse, a place for Them and Us. It makes great writers into demigods, not men and women. And it creates a culture that not everyone wants to be a part of -- especially not all freshman writing students.
In all cases, writing is writing. Creative writing and academic writing work with the same framework: letters, words, paragraphs, sections, chapters, ideas, and so on. Nonfiction has characters and plots, too. Textual analysis will be at its best when the authors are, as John Gardner put it, making up stories about stories.
Leave a comment