All writing is about communication including academic writing. In order to convey your knowledge and ideas to your reader, you need to write simple and precise. But some writers are deliberately writing complicated. One of them is Judith Butler, whose writing is known for being complicated and overly academic. So much so that she in 1998 won the Bad Writing Contest by the journal Philosophy and Literature. This lead to her writing a defence in The New York Times called “A Bad Writer Bites Back”. But not everyone agrees with her: philosopher Matthias Brinkmann wrote a blog post in 2016 discussing Butler’s arguments called “Judith Butler on Complicated Writing". So, what are the reasons for and against deliberately complicated writing according to Butler and Brinkmann? …show more content…
Brinkmann does not agree. According to him, language simply does not have that much influence on thoughts. Language can shape an idea to some degree, but never to the extend Butler claims. In my opinion the capability of writing simple is an expression of intelligence and understanding of the topic. It is possible that a topic can have a lot of special terms and complicated theory that makes it difficult to write simple, but that does not mean that it is impossible. Butler’s second argument is that since the radical writers’ target is to challenge the mainstream, they do so not only with content but also with the language. Thus, the complicated writing is meant to shock readers out of their habitual way of thinking of society. Brinkmann does not believe this. If the intention is to shock, the writing of the radical writers is quite tame. You would have thought the writers would be a bit more creative with form and
In this article written by David Bartholomae, the author discusses problems basic writers make and about how they must use the discourse (communication style) of the academic community they are writing to, to be an effective writer. Bartholomae believes that “Inventing the University," is being able to assemble and mimic the universities language(5). Which means, if a student wants to be an efficient writer, he or she must be able to speak the language of his or her audience. Bartholomae writes that a common mistake of basic writers is that they don’t use an authoritative voice, and tend to switch into a more passive voice. This could be due to the fact that students have difficulty establishing their mindset or attitude for an audience
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
This article is very helpful when writing an essay for college. I realize that I tend to do the majority of the things he had mentioned. For example, he said that writer
In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid’s use of repetitive syntax and intense diction help to underscore the harsh confines within which women are expected to exist. The entire essay is told from the point of view of a mother lecturing her daughter about how to be a proper lady. The speaker shifts seamlessly between domestic chores—”This is how you sweep a house”—and larger lessons: “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all…” (Kincaid 1). The way in which the speaker bombards the girl overwhelms the reader, too. Every aspect of her life is managed, to the point where all of the lessons she receives throughout her girlhood blur together as one run-on sentence.
Kate the Great Literary Analysis In Kate the Great by Meg Cabot, Jenny realizes that she cannot let anyone bring her down no matter what. When Kate comes around Jenny feels as if Kate is her master and she has to listen to whatever she is told to do. Jenny did not want to hurt Kate’s feeling by not letting her in, this is exactly what Kate told Jenny, “Don’t be such a baby,” (Cabot, 33).
All he could see was red, pure anger seeping through every one of his actions. He kicked and kicked in a brutal rhythm, not thinking about anything other than the fact that he hadn't been there when it happened. What if Amaimon had found out, said something and then been hurt because the other him lashed out in anger. He would hate himself forever. What if Amaimon had been killed? What if he'd come home to that? He couldn't stand the thought. In the end he may have been hitting the other him for touching his brother, for being here and convincing him he was his mate. But really it was his anger at himself that drove most of his actions. He could understand the other trying to cover things up to try and avoid any time line mishaps, deep down
Frahm holds a similar point of view encouraging clear, straightforward writing not one with a “Confusing introduction. Lack of content. Bad transitions. (and) Excessive grammatical errors.” (Frahm 271).
Alice Walker's Literature “Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence” -Alice Walker (Lewis n.pag) Walker is considered to be an African American novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and activist. Most of her literature is mostly from her personal experiences and is moral to a number of African Americans all over the world. Walker defines herself as a “womanist” which means “the prophetic voice concerned about the well-being of the entire African American community, male and female, adults and children.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, is a novel about an African American woman named Dana (born in 1950) who lives in 1976 California. She experiences weird headaches and dizziness one day and gets teleported to a river in the woods. She sees a boy drowning and rushes into the river to save him. The boy’s mother comes out yelling at Dana and then the father comes out with a shotgun just as Dana is sent back to her house. Dana kinda sees it as a hallucination and goes on shocked. Later she experiences the dizziness again and is sent back to a house this time. Then she finds out she is being sent to the past to help her relative Rufus from dying. Every time Rufus gets in trouble to the point of dying Dana is flung back in time to save him. But she is sent to the 1800s
Coming of Age is when a character in a story goes through a life-changing event they learn a life lesson from. There are many types of books and short stories that are based on Coming of Age, "The Flowers" by Alice Walker is one of them. In the story the main character, Myop, is wandering through the woods. However, she later decides to shorten her walk, after she starts to feel uncomfortable and fearful, of her surroundings. Soon she decides later to find her way back home until she stumbles across something... a dead body. At first Myop was astonished of what she had uncovered . It was something she had never encountered before. After examining the body she began to realize that it was actually something very interesting. Seeing the lifeless
What do you think of when you think of complex writing? Many people would think of something that they couldn’t read because it was to hard to read. That issue is exactly what is being addressed in the world of academics today. Academics today are writing to a level that is very hard to understand, sometimes even to fellow academics. To the advantage of those who hate reading complex writing, other writers and researchers are starting to speak out on the topic. A newer style of writing is becoming more popular through the controversy. That style of writing is clear and concise writing. It is still controversial as to what is the “best” or what should be used as the common writing style, but there could be a time in the near future that writing by academics and less scholarly people, alike, are writing in the same way.
In William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, the butler is directly related to the traditional values in the older generation. Because of his status and race the butler is not allowed to openly express his ideals like Emily is allowed to. The butler’s role is to display the traditions of the older southern generation. The butler serves his role thorough this story by being excessively loyal and protective of Emily, by fulfilling his duty as a servant, and by being racial discriminated against from people in the town.
My English 1310 course was taught by Professor Daniel Stuart. He taught us the concept of academic writing and why it is important. Academic writing is the process of down ideas, using a formal tone, deductive reasoning and third person. Writing done to carry out the requirements of a college or university on a research based level. It requires a starting point or introduction, followed by a thesis on the preferred topic, then comes proving and disproving of the evidence based arguments. Learning academic writing is important because it is a way to communicate our thoughts clearly and originality. It helps us think and see what evidence we can come up to contribute to that thinking. This course approached this idea of academic writing by
A BRIEF CONVERSATION WITH OCTAVIA E. BUTLER http://www.plcmc.lib.nc.us/novello/1999/listen/obutler.htm ESSAY ON OCTAVIA BUTLER http://www.towanda.com/sela/essay.htm Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy: A Biologist’s Response by Joan Slonczewski, presented at SFRA, Cleveland, June 30, 2000 http://www2.kenyon.edu/depts/biology/slonc/books/butler1.html Xenogeneis Patterns of Octavia Butler http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/butler/butler_octavia0.html Voices from the Gaps Woman Writers of Color http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/OctaviaButler.html Octavia E Butler works and more. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Octavia_E_Butler.htm Online Literary Criticism Collection Octavia E. Butler http://ipl.sils.umich.edu/cgi-bin/ref/litcrit/litcrit.out.pl?au=but-616
Any craftsman knows that you need the right tools to complete a project successfully. Similarly, people need the right language and usage to communicate in a positive way. How people write is often a problem because they don’t have the right tools, but a bigger problem occurs when a writer “is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything at all” (592). If a writer carries this mentality, why try to communicate in the first place? People need...