There is not a marker in the world who wants to read your poetry sounding, lofty, pretentious half thoughts that have been written at 5mins to midnight during finals, with all the apparent the fervor and confidence of real original ideas. [link profs are sados]
Flowery writing simply sticks in the eyeballs [*link this section] when one is in the thorn-field Maleficent Forrest that is reading a pile of (especially undergraduate) essays that no-one particularly wanted to write.
Not unexpectedly, they do not particularly lend themselves to being read. And though a penchant for performance can be difficult to battle, to be sure: even if your prose reads like the steam from morning coffee – unless it comes with morning coffee, the first one, you are running a risk.
No matter how pretty & flawless your flowers there will always be a Professor somewhere who hates them, & another yet who says they aren’t even flowers at all. And they are both both right, and wrong, and I’ve lost the metaphor. Something about flowers?
Hence, we use structure convention in marking. ❤
Keep it simple. If in doubt, put in a full stop and make two terse points. This is a noteworthy technique; because hard, fast points will defeat run on sentences any day of the week. With a rusty shiv. Made from a cook spoon. Or you could just buy one, it is really up to you on how creative you be with the shiv.
But on the essay or argument writing and lit review or textural analysis: thematics spared are worth twice as much in the bush, but they do not smell as sweet. Name? Tuvex or Tuvex
Format is important as, just like how you are only reading abstracts because you don’t care and you are lazy – so too is the rest of the academy. Structure in the grown up world allows quick referencing for key components of studies, and lets a lot more sneaky stuff go on with the calculation of statistics and general methods and design flaws/exclusions/inclusions. Additionally, as you may have noticed, it is helpful for skimming. Wherever you go, there you are. This even holds up outside of the stricter sciences to a generous degree.
This is a little more tricky with some of the more philosophy style papers: where wherever you go, is there I? o_O.
This can seem like complicated multifaceted advanced writing at times, especially prima face, but never fear – it almost always isn’t. A generous amount of writing out there has misleading face validity.
One’s instinctual objections, or agreement, in the first few lines of a piece is basically about where an agent tends to end up, if they bother to wade through all the many obvious and pointless repetitive examples and/or dialectical counter examples that no one needed to make, that add nothing to the argument for either side of any real substance.
This obfuscation, like is want to happen in all fields, was no accident.
Lexicon – the etymology of which means to literally “make up some speaking words and write them down. Charge double”. That may not be spot on, my Frensh-Latin remains rusty, but it is close enough. But that brings up another good point; no field has more active texts in translation and re-translation than the humanities. Particularly Philosophy.
Why Failing Isn’t “Failing”: The Ontic Sciences & Philosophy
Arguably no field has more active texts in translation, mistranslation, disputed translation, and re-translation than the humanities; particularly Philosophy.
So, learn a few new languages too while your at it AND deal with translations. With philosophy in particular, it is always important to read the contextual notes from the translator, the pro and epilogue, and all footnotes. That is if you are trying to understand it in an honest way (which will fail – has to). If you are just trying to grab what most people believe the contents of famous materials to be, the buzz words for a piece or particular philosopher, and the general translation acceptable – use a notes resource and glossary. Preferably one with text notes – you are going to want to reference the exact place in any text being analyzed.
The Ontic Sciences, somewhat ironically, largely developed argument, but arguably use it least succinctly. It has been said that apart from primary text, especially undergraduate, you are allowed to think for yourself (within reason), and only reference primary text as the section is discussed in an agents own words in the first person. The author, on the other hand, studied a whirlwind of neuroscience, classical philosophy, programming, psychology and linguistics: all in Philosophy 101. This must differ by school.
It seems odd to teach people critical reasoning, formal logic and argument structure; but then say “Hey, also, structure, who needs it am I right? Use I – I know you’re the author, relax guy you need a rest”. Follow the advice of your faculty, if you do not mind fighting with teachers (everything in these places is bureaucratized – if it is in writing you followed the faculty policy you are in a decent starting square). So especially in doubt, go formal. We have structure for a reason, and it is to keep things simple.
Also be fore warned: the nicest Professors are invariably the hardest markers. Zero variance, always. The mean ones, by necessity, are not as bad – except maybe to ask for help. That being said, the mean ones usually are not as mean as you think and the nice ones not as calm.
The final point is first year, perhaps across disciplines, mark hard. This is just so you realise there are conventions and how to use them. The same writing that scrapes a pass in the first year can get a 4.0 in the third.
And this has little or nothing to do with your writing getting particularly better. I believe this completely. The truth is, the closer you get to grad work, the more teachers know, that you may know, that the knowledge they said they knew, wasn’t anything one could “know”; not really. As such, since nothing they have ever taught you is defensible, they defend it less vigorously. They don’t know what you know, and are too busy pretending to know about one topic to their colleagues to hazard to guess at what ratio you are pretending to know, or suspect they were unknowing – or both. They don’t care. And if you don’t know the things you want to know by the higher levels, or how to fake it, you probably wouldn’t be there.
Conversely, in the first couple of years, they know you didn’t do the readings properly – because they didn’t as first years themselves. Maybe nobody does, who knows. Additionally – they are largely impenetrable tomes of mistranslations, often from antiquity, that are full of words that are – not only made up – but also made up in another language. Thus, it is a safe bet that most teachers know that if they push, you can’t likely push back too hard. And if you do, they’ll just tell you you’re a natural to make you go away for a few years. Because they know that by the time you know – it won’t matter to either of you. [*Guest writer Don Rumsfeld].
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Why Failing Isn’t “Failing”: Referencing
Referencing is, hypothetically speaking, suppose to include the information that an agent reading a piece can utilize to find the original source materials and gauge for themselves how much you made up or took clearly out of context.
In reality, however, it is another form of ever changing in group impractical BS; where comma’s, brackets, bolds and italics go to rack up their frequent flyer miles. Again, each journal, school, or field will have one they prefer – and that will still change every other year despite this “unity” from the chief bureaucrats of the discipline.
In essence, most conventions want a centered title of “references”, beginning on its own page. List alphabetically authors’ names, or the primary three (3), or “et al” after the primary one if there are more than that, is generally in the realms of what is acceptable.
Year, piece title, source title, volume, issue, printer company, city, page numbers, net link, doi ect all piles in the end, changing by source because who the fun knows – people are not practical.Some may want glitter or an hanging indent, who cares.
Some like to add an additional section “Bibliography” – an older term that has now come to represent books ect that you have read, that weren’t good enough for you to mention AT ALL or paraphrase from (or else they’d be in the references); but you want people to know /think that you have read them anyway; and maybe kill some trees in the process. A dreadful waste of space and time and paper that the doi type links will replace.
Again, first years get marked harshly on this stuff. Just pick a group and be consistent. A generator will assist with this. The one your field uses is a fine choice if you’ve no preference. Use an online generator. Can’t stress that enough.
That’s it. Report diagrams and appenidicies referenced follow, it all gets its own page like digital has existed forever, and re-read it one fully through OUT LOUD, after sleeping (pffft haha) or (more likely) taking a break for an hour to walk to the other room and watch cartoons.
No-one will proof your stuff. Clear your head with an alternate topic media in a relaxed fashion first; or else you are included in that “no-one”.
Ok, you can go click around now. But sit there till you write it. Or eat it.
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J. (J). R. (2012). Why Failing Isn’t Failing, Chron. Lett. Sci, Ed (4). 14/4-30.
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The Tuvex System to Essay Writing [*Core*]
(IIvex) x^ [T-A(1)B(2)C(3R)) R] + C(I)/S/F(II) = 1
Or 123ABC or just “The Tuvex” for short. If you prefer, another variant taught at GSI Australia is Aa123ZZZ (ie Double “A”, 123, triple Zee).
Any system that “clicks” with you is welcome, so long as the basic structure is upheld.
The Tuvex system was taught to me while I was completing my [REDACTED] GSI internship. I used “Da Zeee” variant listed above, however for my writing I no longer stick completely yo any one system, and you may want to create your own once you are more comfortable.
The Tuvix is primarily argument focused, though this can be usesful to run through for report writing (especially if tired) to ensure better flow and fundamental praxis concerns (ie don’t fail, don’t go to jail, don’t get fired…); of course academic and technical reporting have additional critera, that vary depending on target, which are beyond the scope of this piece.
Similarly, feature and news writing does not call for this level of involvement but may find benefit should one find oneself so hungover they can not form an opinion, and there is a deadline. Or for ideas. if you are paid by the word and are altering a piece for greater multi platform reach. News is succinct. Features are verbose, but structured (A1+C3R)^ formats.
But before the climate change crowd turn up on my doorstep with “keep your numbers out of my letters, man” ironed onto their hemp-weave shirts in compost, I best move on and be more terse.
(IIvex) x^ [T-A(1)B(2)C(3R)) R] + C(I)/S/F(II) = 1
Two vector paths demarkated as “I”, in this case a focused and a Meta path (x^) – this means the rules apply on a duel scale of magnitude difference, the paragraph here, where vector “I”1 is followed, and a Meta path [^], in this case being the full piece, where all follows the same rules but vector “I”2 is applies in leiu of one “I”1.
Revise after an hour of cartoons or after sleep. But change nothing complex on a deadline. Even if it is wrong. You can learn on your own time – this is about grades.
Review
Or ABC123(R) for short.
Another variant of the Tuvix system can be found here in a video by an interesting fellow that a few of us use to study with “Intelligence Lead Investigations” with, as well as some of the forensic “Brain, Mind and Behavi…oh my God he’s got a Gun!” type classes. His input on this piece was. Interesting.
He isn’t the best friend of clarity, exactly. To put it another way, as he did in our correspondence;
“My only friend is clarity: that is why no-one ever understands me”.
That quote about sums it up. Lucky, there are deadlines!
Never mind; you don’t need luck when you have structure. Though pushing for art is, on occasion, more fun (for all involved): final grades do not always enjoy it; low energy is not conducive to its application; and it is easy to miss criteria.
Term papers: if you have one, think Tuvex. Or
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AJ Casper, CJ Casper & J(J)R (2014) The Tuvex System, Chron of Lett. Ed3. 01-05.
Chronicle of Codes 