Assignment emailed

[ailbhe]

Well, I padded it out to 1300 words, which is more than I usually manage. I must be missing something here; I had actually said all I had to say in 700 words, the supporting quotes took me up to 1000, and supporting examples and unnecessary verbiage took me up to 1300. I tried to lengthen my conclusion and couldn't, and I tried to write an introductory paragraph (this is what I'm going ot say, this is what I'm saying, this is what I said) and ti was so clear to me that it was unnecessary waffle that I couldn't write it convincingly.

Rob has read it and can't find any logical holes or inconsistencies, which is something.

However, now I am free.

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

you know, i was taught to write concisely too, and it's been a problem for me, because then i feel like i'm paddding.

however, this year, i've been reading a lot of Landscape Architecture and Architecture Theory, and i realized something: it's not padding.

i mean, when i write, i think the padding is freaking obvious stuff. it's *obvious* what i'm seeing in whatever i'm writing about -- but it's not. not to everyone else, that's why no one else is writing a paper on what i'm seeing. even though i think it's obvious, and maybe even a little bit stupid to write a paper on it.

frex: the paper i'm working on now about landscape and comics. i tried to find some precedents for it. nothing. and i mean *nothing*. it's actually kind of weird to me. no one has ever thought of writing about this before? but i guess not, which means that what i'm seeing -- even though it's Glaringly Obvious to me, isn't Obvious to Everybody, otherwise there would be a full section in the library on it.

so it's exciting, but i have to remember that explaining the "obvious" isn't padding. it's explaining it to people who have never noticed it before.

n.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I suppose a lot of exam/essay technique lies in stating the obvious. A text that contains more than a certain percentage of new material gets unintelligible pretty fast.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Freedom! Yay!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

Now, for some reason, I'm thinking of that old joke, "The teacher wanted to know what two and two were, so I told her."