(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

Paper just arrived in my school inbox from another seminar member; we're required to send out papers to the entire class list if we're doing reports that week. One paragraph in, I stopped and went, "He must be British, he writes like aella_irene and also he used the British spelling for one word." Which makes me curious, again; I know aella_irene and I have talked about this a bit, but is there a real, actual difference in how the UK and the U.S. teaches essay-writing? Because that -- for lack of a better term -- the paper's self-knowledge of it as paper, as artificial construction, has jumped out at me, and I know that at least the way I was taught essay-writing was directly counter to that. One never says, "The purpose of this paper is to do x, y, and z by means of a, b, c." One has an introduction, and then a thesis statement, but never in either one of the two does the writer say, "The point of this paper is x" or "It shall be demonstrated that Y." My high school English and history professors would have had a fit if I'd ever done such a thing.

Which is not saying that writing a paper that way is wrong! It is just by no means the method in which I was taught (and in fact counter to how I was taught) so seeing it in an actual formal paper kind of blows my mind. So is that a UK-ism, or was I just taught in a really bizarre style?

ETA: Also, oh my god, person who wrote this essay, who the hell taught you to cite? That is not Chicago! That is not even MLA, though that is the closest it comes to! Where is your works cited page/bibliography? FAIL. FAIL A LOT. Also, you used too many quotes.

Comments

[celes-ia.livejournal.com]

Well I can assure you that you were not taught in a bizarre style, at least :) New Yorker here, and although I am really bad at essay writing (aka average grade is around a C+/B-) I do know that my high school and college english teachers would probably have failed me if I'd tried that -_-;;

Of course, technical papers are sometimes written like this... It always weirds me out.

~Jineen (aka lurker, not random stalker person ^_^)

[bedlamsbard]

Well, that's reassuring! It looks like I'm getting different answers for different settings, fields, and levels of education, which is...interesting.

[ineptshieldmaid]

I say "this thesis will..." a bit. I didn't used to do it in early undergrad, but it became a workable formula for me during honours. I just sent off a paper abstract announcing "this paper will..." Generally I prefer to say "I will...", though. It goes against all the rules of high school english, but my mentor at uni bashed it into my head that I need to *own* this shit. If I say "it will be demonstrated that..." I remove myself as the subject of the sentence and the originator of the spiffy idea, and you really do not need to erase yourself like that in academia.

My high school English and history professors would have had a fit if I'd ever done such a thing.

Around here, that's a good reason for *doing* something at university level. DO say I (but never I think, I'll grant them that). DO be clear about your intentions. NEVER use a generalising introduction. Don't fence-sit, unless you want to genuinely and coherently argue that the fence is the only place to be on this particular issue; certainly don't expect points for saying "well this person said blah and that person said the other" (except in a lit crit review or if you're about to argue why both of them are WRONG). It's a thing: university teachers have to grab the firsties and shake all their ideas about how to write an essay from high school right out of their heads.

[bedlamsbard]

I think -- hmm, I'm reasonably sure that we've been told, at the university level, not to use the first person in a history or literature paper (since those are the majority of classes I've taken). But, yes, we are taught to be clear about our intentions! Just not to the point where we sit down and say, "This paper will say that, first, that X. Next, that Y. And thirdly, Z, which will demonstrate that A." At least I've never been taught that way, and I've never been told that about a university paper by a professor.

(I don't know, bear with me, I'm really loopy right now. Brain function? WHO NEEDS THAT.)

[ineptshieldmaid]

I didn't get told to be so very obvious about things until I got to writing my thesis - perhaps that has something to do with it?

[toujours_nigel]

We were told to use that formula, actually.

We got, not penalised, exactly, but told off, if we didn't say 'this paper seeks to examine/analyse/prove so-and-so'. I'm Indian, and we were taught in a very UK-style.