Once upon a time, long, long, ago, when I was a young man and kisses were
sweeter than wine (cf., Peter Seegar), explicit structures (like "this
paper will discuss A, B, and C") belonged to the discourses of the
sciences, and the humanities insisted on implicit ways of partitioning
(like "X is true because A, B, and C."). But 'taint true no more (even if
kisses still are sweeter than wine).
Still, situated rhetorical concepts like purpose (let alone
audience/readership or occasion) undermine capitalized stabilities like
"Good Writing,""General Ed Reader," and the Ten Commandments, not to
mention "Throughout history essays have always . . . ." I mean, what if
someone were to imagine that in some peculiar instance there were two or
four important examples/reasons/points.
I remember the hourglass notion from Sheridan Baker's classic textbook,
where it was different matter than the 5-para essay. It also led to
opening paragraphs that started with the universe and spent five sentences
narrowing to the topic. ("Throughout history, Man has always . . . . The
invasion of Iraq . . . .)
Cheers,
Rick
At 10:09 AM 10/27/2005 -0300, you wrote:
>My daughter is now in first year in an Ontario university, and I am
>learning from a different perspective about rigidity in university
>expectations of writing. She is distressed that comments on her essays so
>far (all from TAs) have been quite formulaic. For instance, "you must tie
>each of your paragraphs explicitly to your thesis statement". I happen to
>have read the paper as it was submitted, and it had a very clear thread of
>connection; it didn't, however, have sentences that said "The second
>aspect of the argument I am making is...".
>
>I don't know if this is just a matter of insecure TAs using (or having
>been given) criteria that are easy to use, but I note that the effect is
>that my articulate and sometimes even eloquent daughter is threatening to
>cripple her prose with such artificial splints just to score higher on
>some inflexible rubric.
>
>It is a reminder to me that assessing work on criteria related to whether
>or not it achieves its purpose is much harder than simply matching it
>against criteria that imply there is only one way (and that an
>unimaginative one) to achieve the purpose. That said, I will agree with
>Sandy about the (short-lived) usefulness of formulaic structures. Barre
>exercises are useful, even essential, to the dancer, but they aren't the
>dance. Academic writing (and not only by novices) seems to me more and
>more to approximate the former rather than the latter.
>
>That's tonight's rant!
>Susan
>
>
>Susan Drain, PhD
>Department of English
>Mount Saint Vincent University
>Halifax, NS Canada B3M 2J6
>902 457 6220
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