In the Arcata Library. The librarian is looking at the list of people waiting to use the computers.
Librarian: “Is Eagle here? Eagle?”
No answer.
Librarian: “How about 'Mystery?'”
A crazy indigent stumbles up.
Mystery: “I'm here.”
Librarian: “Okay, you can use number two.”
Librarian: “Eagle? Is Eagle here?”
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Bloviating for the Humanities
Dear Student,
Fourteen more weeks of academic writing are upon you. For those of you in the Humanities, you will be asked to write a number of windy essays before the term is out.
But academic writing is not for those of us who entertain imaginations. There are rules. The following are some of the writing techniques I learned as a humanities student at a prestigious academic institution.
1. Learn the Professor's Political Sentiments and Pander to Them
The most important thing to do in the first weeks of this quarter is to peg your professor's political sentiments. In every essay you write for that professor, your arguments must pander to those sentiments.
Professors fall into a variety of different political groups. There are Marxist theorists, radical feminists, black nationalists, Chicano revolutionaries, post-realists and experimental jazz musicians.
Those of each group are highly sensitive about the plight of one attendant identity group, a group you and I may hardly ever think about. These include transsexuals, people from Latin America, Kurds, Whey, and Harvey Milk.
You can usually peg the professor in one glance. Poor dress and hygiene indicates a Marxist theorist and a jazz musician. Women who look similar to men are feminists. African Americans who dress like Nazis are black nationalists. Bearded Latin Americans who speak good English are Chicano revolutionaries. Post-realists occupy a separate plane of existence, and are not always visible.
2. Write the Thesis
Your thesis is going to pander to your professor's political sentiments, completely reiterating and re-validating them. But you must never advance an original argument. You are not yet fully steeped in the internal politics of the field you are studying. Even though you've identified your professor's general political bend, you have no idea where he stands in relation to his colleagues.
For instance, say your Professor of Sexual Identities in Pre-Columbian Hispaniola dresses in mauve, pill-covered wool sweater vests and smells of tuna. You've identified him as a Marxist theorist/jazz musician. You plan to argue in your paper that the United States systematically disenfranchised proletariat saxophonists during the Conquest of Azatlan.
You have become over-confident! You are crossing into uncharted territory! What you don't know is that your professor has been locked in a conflict of speculation with Marcus Hornsby, a post-realist at Wayne State University, for the last two decades. Professor Hornsby has the audacity to question the proletariat saxophonists' contribution to the development of acid jazz in pre-Columbian Hispaniola. This is poisonous territory.
Now that you're ready to write an unoriginal argument, follow this formula for a winning thesis:
The professor's cherished identity group x was originally antagonized within or by the United States. The identity group bravely marched on y. They have found solidarity with z, a similarly deprived identity group in an exotic, impoverished land.
For example:
The Suffi Proletariat Feminists in the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire were disenfranchised. The right-wing demagogues who controlled the American regime refused to recognize their contributions to post-Cubist art jazz. When the Suffi Proletariat Feminists marched on Vienna, the American regime admitted that the Suffi Proletariat Feminists were instrumental in developing Viennese art jazz in the early 16th century, and granted them their due reparations and civil rights. Since then, the Suffi Proletariat Feminists have found solidarity with the Zumaboho of the Vietnamese highlands, a tribe of transsexuals who worship parrots.
The library is full of material that will back up your claims.
3. The Title
Now that you've written your thesis, you can write the title.
The title is the most important part of your essay. While the graduate student assigned to reading your essay will not actually do so, he will certainly read the title. His initial judgment of it determines your grade.
The title of an academic work conforms to the following formula:
intellectual identity group + professor's cherished identity group + academic power word + connector + historical conflict + colon + redundant illustrative passage
For instance,
Islamic Transsexual Identities in the Crimean War: Suffi Cross-Dressers in Napoleon's Ukraine
The author goes on to argue that the United States failed to do enough to protect Islamic Trassexuals displaced from their ancestral homes in the Ukraine by the Crimean War.
Or
Dadaist Chicano Resistance during the Russian Revolution: Anarcho-Mexican Voices in Tsarist Moscow
The author here argues that Dadaist Mexicans in Tsar Nicolas' Moscow struggled to find a voice, and that the United States did not do enough to support them during this devastating crisis, which led to their eventual debasement, until they marched on the Kremlin, and then found solidarity with the Zumaboho tribe.
The title should never include fewer than thirteen words.
4. Voice
Never use the active voice. Always use passive voice.
This rule goes against what you might learn in most English courses. But passive voice is a crucial element of academic writing. It allows the writer to avoid making any strong commitments.
Remember, academic writing is a delicate exercise in vacillation.
Say you need to argue that Suffi Feminists are disenfranchised, but you're not clear on who is disenfranchising them.
You could say, “Someone is disenfranchising the Suffi Feminists.”
Or you could say, “The Suffi Feminists are disenfranchised.”
Which do you think sounds more authoritative?
On the other hand, if you need a subject for a sentence like the above one, in which a cherished identity group is being disenfranchised, the American regime will always suffice.
5. Academic Power Words for the Humanities
You must sprinkle powerful, vague affirmations throughout your essay. Furthermore, each title needs one academic power word. Use one of the following:
Identity, voice, solidarity, struggle, parity, empowerment, elemental, radical, inherent, dispossessed, disenfranchised, integration, patriarchal, stratified, interpretations, theories, discussion, aspect, role, progressive, contrast, representation, misrepresentation, cohesion, counterpart, perspective, dualism, distinctions, correlation, implication, predominant, ideology, influence, symbolic, doctrine, status, gendered, complexity, analysis, bias.
6. Bloviate to Meet the Page Count
Your professor will require that you fill a certain number of pages with words. He will say nothing about writing concisely. It therefore follows that you must show your concise statements to the door and replace them with bloated, byzantine descriptions. Otherwise, you will not be able to reach the required number of pages. It will not be possible. Length requirements are meant to encourage you to write in the proper academic style.
There are countless techniques at your disposal to accomplish windiness.
For example, say you need to say something along the lines of the following:
Muslims hold different views on transsexuality. (47 characters)
With a little tinkering, one can reorganize the above into:
A great diversity of interpretations in regards to transsexuality have been held by individuals of the Islamic faith. (116 characters)
The second sentence says the same thing as the first but is almost two and a half times as long. That's the difference between 10 pages and 24 pages! Also, the second sentence uses the superior passive construction.
Always digress by stating flatly what you propose to illustrate, and provide a series of redundant examples. For instance:
The Suffi feminists were claimed to be collectivist deceivers by the corrupt American regime. “The Suffi feminists are communist imposters,” wrote Ambassador Anchovy (6974). “The communist Suffi feminists are charlatans,” said Secretary Sardine (qtd. in Anchovy, 11458).
Three statements take up three times as much space as would only one. Use a thesaurus to say the same thing multiple times.
Also, eliminate all contractions.
When you extrapolate these techniques across your vast gulfs of drivel, they may be just enough to push you over the top.
7. Conclusion
The conclusion of your essay is a reiteration of you thesis with the addition of a little “Selah” moment that strives to validate all your professor's preconceived notions. Your essay must include a suitable moral! Here, unlike in other areas, you may include an anecdotal passage.
For example, for the essay regarding the art jazz of the Suffi Proletariat Feminists, the conclusion might resemble the following:
Every child born after 1853 owes a debt of gratitude to the Suffi Proletariat Feminists. With their brave public art jazz jams, they stood against the forces of anti-Dadaist injustice to expose the crimes of the United State's disastrous policy of imperialism, and empowered women to find their own sex role voices in postcolonial Crimea.
My mother was born a man in post-Cubist America. If it were not for Suffi Proletariat Feminists, she would never have stood a chance of finding her true sex identity. I would not have been born.
If not for the Suffi Proletariat Feminists, the crimes of the United States would continue to this day.
Fourteen more weeks of academic writing are upon you. For those of you in the Humanities, you will be asked to write a number of windy essays before the term is out.
But academic writing is not for those of us who entertain imaginations. There are rules. The following are some of the writing techniques I learned as a humanities student at a prestigious academic institution.
1. Learn the Professor's Political Sentiments and Pander to Them
The most important thing to do in the first weeks of this quarter is to peg your professor's political sentiments. In every essay you write for that professor, your arguments must pander to those sentiments.
Professors fall into a variety of different political groups. There are Marxist theorists, radical feminists, black nationalists, Chicano revolutionaries, post-realists and experimental jazz musicians.
Those of each group are highly sensitive about the plight of one attendant identity group, a group you and I may hardly ever think about. These include transsexuals, people from Latin America, Kurds, Whey, and Harvey Milk.
You can usually peg the professor in one glance. Poor dress and hygiene indicates a Marxist theorist and a jazz musician. Women who look similar to men are feminists. African Americans who dress like Nazis are black nationalists. Bearded Latin Americans who speak good English are Chicano revolutionaries. Post-realists occupy a separate plane of existence, and are not always visible.
2. Write the Thesis
Your thesis is going to pander to your professor's political sentiments, completely reiterating and re-validating them. But you must never advance an original argument. You are not yet fully steeped in the internal politics of the field you are studying. Even though you've identified your professor's general political bend, you have no idea where he stands in relation to his colleagues.
For instance, say your Professor of Sexual Identities in Pre-Columbian Hispaniola dresses in mauve, pill-covered wool sweater vests and smells of tuna. You've identified him as a Marxist theorist/jazz musician. You plan to argue in your paper that the United States systematically disenfranchised proletariat saxophonists during the Conquest of Azatlan.
You have become over-confident! You are crossing into uncharted territory! What you don't know is that your professor has been locked in a conflict of speculation with Marcus Hornsby, a post-realist at Wayne State University, for the last two decades. Professor Hornsby has the audacity to question the proletariat saxophonists' contribution to the development of acid jazz in pre-Columbian Hispaniola. This is poisonous territory.
Now that you're ready to write an unoriginal argument, follow this formula for a winning thesis:
The professor's cherished identity group x was originally antagonized within or by the United States. The identity group bravely marched on y. They have found solidarity with z, a similarly deprived identity group in an exotic, impoverished land.
For example:
The Suffi Proletariat Feminists in the Hapsburg's Austro-Hungarian Empire were disenfranchised. The right-wing demagogues who controlled the American regime refused to recognize their contributions to post-Cubist art jazz. When the Suffi Proletariat Feminists marched on Vienna, the American regime admitted that the Suffi Proletariat Feminists were instrumental in developing Viennese art jazz in the early 16th century, and granted them their due reparations and civil rights. Since then, the Suffi Proletariat Feminists have found solidarity with the Zumaboho of the Vietnamese highlands, a tribe of transsexuals who worship parrots.
The library is full of material that will back up your claims.
3. The Title
Now that you've written your thesis, you can write the title.
The title is the most important part of your essay. While the graduate student assigned to reading your essay will not actually do so, he will certainly read the title. His initial judgment of it determines your grade.
The title of an academic work conforms to the following formula:
intellectual identity group + professor's cherished identity group + academic power word + connector + historical conflict + colon + redundant illustrative passage
For instance,
Islamic Transsexual Identities in the Crimean War: Suffi Cross-Dressers in Napoleon's Ukraine
The author goes on to argue that the United States failed to do enough to protect Islamic Trassexuals displaced from their ancestral homes in the Ukraine by the Crimean War.
Or
Dadaist Chicano Resistance during the Russian Revolution: Anarcho-Mexican Voices in Tsarist Moscow
The author here argues that Dadaist Mexicans in Tsar Nicolas' Moscow struggled to find a voice, and that the United States did not do enough to support them during this devastating crisis, which led to their eventual debasement, until they marched on the Kremlin, and then found solidarity with the Zumaboho tribe.
The title should never include fewer than thirteen words.
4. Voice
Never use the active voice. Always use passive voice.
This rule goes against what you might learn in most English courses. But passive voice is a crucial element of academic writing. It allows the writer to avoid making any strong commitments.
Remember, academic writing is a delicate exercise in vacillation.
Say you need to argue that Suffi Feminists are disenfranchised, but you're not clear on who is disenfranchising them.
You could say, “Someone is disenfranchising the Suffi Feminists.”
Or you could say, “The Suffi Feminists are disenfranchised.”
Which do you think sounds more authoritative?
On the other hand, if you need a subject for a sentence like the above one, in which a cherished identity group is being disenfranchised, the American regime will always suffice.
5. Academic Power Words for the Humanities
You must sprinkle powerful, vague affirmations throughout your essay. Furthermore, each title needs one academic power word. Use one of the following:
Identity, voice, solidarity, struggle, parity, empowerment, elemental, radical, inherent, dispossessed, disenfranchised, integration, patriarchal, stratified, interpretations, theories, discussion, aspect, role, progressive, contrast, representation, misrepresentation, cohesion, counterpart, perspective, dualism, distinctions, correlation, implication, predominant, ideology, influence, symbolic, doctrine, status, gendered, complexity, analysis, bias.
6. Bloviate to Meet the Page Count
Your professor will require that you fill a certain number of pages with words. He will say nothing about writing concisely. It therefore follows that you must show your concise statements to the door and replace them with bloated, byzantine descriptions. Otherwise, you will not be able to reach the required number of pages. It will not be possible. Length requirements are meant to encourage you to write in the proper academic style.
There are countless techniques at your disposal to accomplish windiness.
For example, say you need to say something along the lines of the following:
Muslims hold different views on transsexuality. (47 characters)
With a little tinkering, one can reorganize the above into:
A great diversity of interpretations in regards to transsexuality have been held by individuals of the Islamic faith. (116 characters)
The second sentence says the same thing as the first but is almost two and a half times as long. That's the difference between 10 pages and 24 pages! Also, the second sentence uses the superior passive construction.
Always digress by stating flatly what you propose to illustrate, and provide a series of redundant examples. For instance:
The Suffi feminists were claimed to be collectivist deceivers by the corrupt American regime. “The Suffi feminists are communist imposters,” wrote Ambassador Anchovy (6974). “The communist Suffi feminists are charlatans,” said Secretary Sardine (qtd. in Anchovy, 11458).
Three statements take up three times as much space as would only one. Use a thesaurus to say the same thing multiple times.
Also, eliminate all contractions.
When you extrapolate these techniques across your vast gulfs of drivel, they may be just enough to push you over the top.
7. Conclusion
The conclusion of your essay is a reiteration of you thesis with the addition of a little “Selah” moment that strives to validate all your professor's preconceived notions. Your essay must include a suitable moral! Here, unlike in other areas, you may include an anecdotal passage.
For example, for the essay regarding the art jazz of the Suffi Proletariat Feminists, the conclusion might resemble the following:
Every child born after 1853 owes a debt of gratitude to the Suffi Proletariat Feminists. With their brave public art jazz jams, they stood against the forces of anti-Dadaist injustice to expose the crimes of the United State's disastrous policy of imperialism, and empowered women to find their own sex role voices in postcolonial Crimea.
My mother was born a man in post-Cubist America. If it were not for Suffi Proletariat Feminists, she would never have stood a chance of finding her true sex identity. I would not have been born.
If not for the Suffi Proletariat Feminists, the crimes of the United States would continue to this day.
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