Comments on: Academic Writing Kills

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:04:10 +0000

PS: I do agree that in a creative writing workshop, using the word “text” instead of “book” or “story” is like using French in a Spanish classroom.

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:02:46 +0000

Literary theory, cultural theory, philosophy: they all have a lingo of their own. I enjoyed reading them and learning how to talk and write that way. For me, it wasn’t about obfuscation, it was about developing different ways of thinking–similar to learning a foreign language and discovering nuances of meaning that your own language doesn’t quite get at.

Stories and poems don’t use the same language as literary theory (although there are some who think that less accessible poetry “obfuscates” when in fact it’s attempting to create new meanings). I do agree that in general, poetry and stories are speaking to a different (and wider) audience than literary theory. I think that’s part of why I was drawn away from academic writing and into creative writing (although there are certainly people who do both creative writing and academic writing). And once I did, I really enjoyed creating with simpler words. It’s certainly not less difficult. It’s just different.

In the most recent Poets & Writers, poet Reginald Shepherd writes a litle bit about how as a poet he also values literary theory. He uses some of that heavy theoretical language when writing about identity, and he also uses quite common vernacular in the article. In a way, he’s bilingual!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:45:44 +0000

The quickest cure is one I use with my 8th grader son when he’s struggling over getting the words right in a writing assignment. I tell him to just say it to me out loud in very simple words, then to write that down and we can always jazz it up later. We rarely see the need to jazz it up at all. Simple, clear writing works, no matter the age, grade, or assignment.

By: Armand

Armand — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 04:16:47 +0000

Part of me fears writing posts and comments about grammar for the specific reason that those types of posts invite automatic scrutiny like the time that New Yorker’s Louis Menand did his best to rip Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots and Leaves) a new a-hole.

Anyway, there’s a difference between knowing a rule and making mistakes (which is something I will do every day of my life) and mixing and matching the rules of grammar in a haphazard attempt to sound smart.

Long ago, I made peace with the fact that Id never be a copy editor.

or some might say-

I never portray of a copy editor.

I don’t expect my students to be flawless. I expect them to develop awareness of the writing process and demonstrate improvement in certain skill sets.

cheers-

Armand

By: gordon

gordon — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 21:17:50 +0000

Har har. Everyone's a comedic copyeditor. DJ, you should stay tuned for my next article on anonymous Internet snark, aka, digital herpes.

Thanks for your comments, as always, Armand.

By: DJ

DJ — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:15:48 +0000

Sorry to be a downer, but it looks like your instructors didn’t cover the difference between “it’s” and “its” in your MFA program.

By: Armand

Armand — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:19:11 +0000

I’m with you on this Gordon. The freshmen that I teach will often try to incorporate so-called $3 words, but without grounding, it just sounds like they’re trying hard to “sound academic”.

Real trouble happens when they don’t understand the words they are using. For example, (and I don’t know why this happened this year, but it seems to be a trend) I had a number of students misuse “the media portrays” this Fall. They kept combining “portrays” and “of”

I kept getting sentences like:

“The media often portrays of women like Paris Hilton and Britney Speers (sp?)”

In fact, it happened so often that it was starting to drive me nuts.

My students are sophisticated enough to know that the word media often goes with verb “portrays” but can’t seem to understand that portrays is a verb and doesn’t need “of”. Furthermore, they don’t really understand the difference between shows, displays and and displays, so that portrays becomes a fancy substitute for the word show. I assume they tack on the word “of” because they they are confusing it with “portrayal of”

anyway, nice to see you posting again ! Hope all is well down New York way.

Armand