We must pay attention to the finer details, so that when we come to the page our ideas are most accurately and individually portrayed.
Writing Sins
Judgmental Words: you do want to provide your audience with what you think, but don't tell them how to feel about a subject. Have confidence that your audience will see the "bad" in a person who, for instance, thinks it is funny to go around kicking random people in the back of the knee!
- Example Bad words: bad, good, great, amazing, rude, mean, dumb, super, wonderful, sloppy, intimidating, cool...
- Exceptions: of course, writing would be hard if we weren't allowed to use these words at all, but the goal is to rely more on the describing what about subject gives you the feeling.
- To Combat: focus on details from text that provide you the feeling. Provide the detail, and then expand on WHY that particular detail is important, as you understand. How do you see that detail operating in the text?
General Store Language: an over-reliance on abstract adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs that have innumerable meaning. There is nothing more boring than reading an essay that is filled with flat, voiceless, faceless characters and unknown, under-painted landscapes. There is nothing more frustrating than when an author replies on the common associations and assumptions that go with a concept like "freedom" or "love," and won't provide their own subject-cultures definitions of these concepts. (As Foreigner sings, "I want to know what love is, I want you to show me.")
- Example Abstractions: love, freedom (!), happy, people, animals, thing, everything, everyone, no one, nothing ...
- To Combat: As I said, defining generic terms is one thing. Another combat move would be to, in the revision process, seek out weaker phrases from sentence to sentence. When you see yourself using all-inclusive language like "everyone, no one, everything, people, etc." you need to stop and rewrite that phrase to the specific person or to be less all-inclusive. (I know you don't really mean "They love everyone" so why would you use this weak phrase?)
Pronoun High: we, us, they, them, he, she, it, this, that. Uggggggggggggh. Really? From the first two sins, the reasons these words are worth avoiding should be obvious. The constant use of pronouns to replace the noun is easy to do for any writer, but easy does not mean that using pronouns makes for the best writing.
Using pronouns can cause you to miss opportunities in your writing to re-define/develop your subject more thoroughly. Yes, constantly referring to your subject as "The Outsider Graffiti Gang" might get tedious, or tiresome. However, instead of using a generic pronoun like "They," use a noun-phrase that helps build their character of that noun. For instance, you might replace "The Outsider Graffiti Gang" with "The lawbreakers..." or "The subversive artists...." What are some other ways you can describe your subject that can replace pronouns? Try using the phrases when appropriate...
It, this, that are three words used at the beginning of sentences that are highly frustrating. Avoid these words if you can! Again, you can build sentence-to-sentence coherence by using the specific reference instead of the vague pronoun "this" is replacing. One thing that
Writing Activity (to be handed in!)
- With the three writing sins fresh in your brain, go through your essay and find examples of where you committed one or more sins.
- Re-write at least two of your sinful sentences, trying to eradicate the weakness of the former language. Include in your re-write the sentence (or two) that come prior, so that we can see how you worked out your sentence for better clarity and cohesion.
What is humor?
Analysis includes the use of specific ideology (often found in guiding principles used) to better understand the complex construction of a text, and to better articulate our view of that text.
Analyzing humor, for example, allows us to better understand our humanity! At least, we hope that it does. Furthermore, analyzing one's humor is a great topic because humor is a great example of how individual our ideologies may seem on the surface while united underneath.
Huh? Well, let's look at three large theories of humor, as described on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Superiority:
Incongruity
- Thomas Hobbes’ “Superiority Theory” à “The passion of laughter is nothing else than sudden glory arising from some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”
- Eminency – having a higher status (for some reason)
- Infirmity – lack of strength, character flaw
- “Arthur Schopenhauer agreed in 1844, when he explained in The World as Will and Idea that laughter is a way of acknowledging an incongruity between the conceptions that listeners or viewers hold in their minds and what happens to upset their expectations.”
Relief: see definition on IEP link
No comments:
Post a Comment