Honestly, this chapter made me laugh out loud like a Christopher Moore book. “Yes/No/Okay, But” attached a definition, a “thing,” I do in my writing. See, I have this cloud that always surrounds my writing, something I got from one of my first English classes: Always write like your reader doesn’t know. Taking this to heart, I have a tendency to over-explain everything in my paper which doesn’t allow the reader to participate. This makes the paper long-winded, pompous, and patronizing which overshadows the thesis of the work. My style of writing comes off like a self-important, congratulatory exercise meant to bolster my self confidence at the expense of the reader. When in reality it is nothing more than an attempt to stay true an adage of a former instructor.
With the templates and the tools they lay out, I can see clear, easy ways to show how I agree or disagree with the established premise, how to construct my arguments better and ultimately use my writing to persuade, not to use it to didactically condescend.
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2 comments:
Your blogs are pleasant to read and I don't feel condescended to whatsoever...but I'm glad you feel like you're making progress. Sometimes I feel stuck, well especially right now, seeing as I am repeating Prof. Rhodes course. (If you talk to your mother any time soon, please send my fond regards. She is amazing.)
Hmmm. Yeah, the art of whatever supposedly is pertinent for retorting a scholarly read never ceases to amaze me. What is it? Why would I find it interesting, agreeable or too far-fetched intellectually to digest? Repeatedly, I need to step out of myself and see a purpose or connection to clearly be able to interpret the read without using my inexhaustible babble. My dissertations tend to be very overindulgent, pithy, and infested with tiresome words, which circularly lead the reader into another state of oblivion. I could call it being creative, but that might be my unconsciousness reaching out for creative survival. Forget it! Occasionally, I wonder: how in the hell did I ever make it this far in academia? Sometimes, I even get caught up in my own alliterations. I waste time not getting to the point. I think I’m creating something beautiful, but in fact, I’m the only one who understands. Sigh.
Some research papers I’ve done, I’ve deliberately placed words throughout the text because I thought it was a piece of poetic art. But the truth of the matter is I forever forget whatever logical intention was the onset of investigative write.
I can create a thought, and then it will become another dimensional being that often times become unrelated to the topic. Unless I keep that heavy hand of organization hanging over my head, my intellectual focus drifts into a nonsensical swirl that keeps me bound up and blind to my bad habits of writing.
At times, I can see so clearly what I am trying to say, but people look at me and say like, whaa? Then I’ll reread later, and I think, man, did I really say that? Be patient, be concise, be brief, and to the point. These are my rules that I continually shoot for but fail. These templates offer solutions to practice good writing. Guess I’ll save the flare for later. Practice, practice, practice …until it becomes a working order of the mind.
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