Sorry I sound so irritable right now.
But I have as much ownership to that essay as my sister does, and I feel that required page numbers are arbitrary. If the point is clearly stated and duly supported with specific examples, as well as a host of critiques on existing views, then the essay would be sound and at least offer some interesting insights. Why the heck should page numbers matter?
Society has gone batty. I mean that in the most serious way. Blogs - well, aside from the usual celebrity gossipmonger sites - are slowly becoming extinct. I'm sure everyone's heard of Twitter, an entire website dedicated solely to one-liners frequently updated (every 10 seconds or so for some people) based on the question, "What are you doing?"
But who really cares? What's the point of these so-called status updates? Aren't we limiting our capacity for self-expression by sticking to word-limited one-liners?
Okay... so maybe they're meant as conversation starters. But how far can these conversations go? About how your butt really itches right now, or how the eerily perfect Edward Cullen rocks your world (when he's really just a figment of imagination), or how you just ate a sandwich, or how you just got totally wasted at some random party and are retching miserably in your sleep... Unless you and your fellow conversationalists have somehow rambled on and found something substantial and meaningful to talk about. But my guess is not very far, given such topics of no consequence.
It's like society has attention-deficit disorder. Are we running out of patience? Out of creativity? Out of individuality? All because of the desire for instant gratification - here, now, within the span of a finger snap, just like that.
Well, let me tell you something. I refuse to let word limits and page limits define who I am. Screw that. I'm not going to go on ranting madly in the style of "Grrr, I am Woman, hear me ROAR!" But words... they're powerful instruments. I just wish people used them a bit more wisely and sought something deeper than the superficial.
Anyway, I should really get back to studying. More later.
On one hand, I understand why teachers give maximum page limits for papers. They want to make sure that students know how to be concise, and that they aren't just going to ramble on and on and never get to their point. But if someone has a really strong argument and has made lots of good points in their writing, but the paper is slightly over the limit of what the teacher wants, I don't see why they should have to cut back. Obviously if they write fifteen pages for a paper where a teacher only wants a maximum of three, the student might want to reevaluate what they're doing, but if you need one extra page to get your point across, why should you be penalized for that? I don't think it's fair.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you on the status/Twitter updates. I mean, I understand that you have random thoughts sometimes that you want to express, but I feel like people spend so much less time expressing their thoughts and having discussions about things and way too much time saying things like "I'm knitting now!" or "I ate toast for breakfast!" I mean, if you want to share those things from time to time, it's fine...but is it really that hard to come up with something to say that has a little more substance? It's like you said here: "I just wish people used them a bit more wisely and sought something deeper than the superficial." I feel the same way. Meh. I guess we just have to try and connect with the people who do value meaningful thoughts and insights (like each other! :D) so that no matter how superficial the majority of society may seem sometimes, we'll still know that there are people we can communicate with who feel the same way as we do.
Good luck on your stats test! I hope it goes/went (depending on whether you read this before or after taking it) well! ^^
I completely agree with Tegan's point of page limits. It's a good way of teaching students to be concise but with some assignments you need to expand a little more to really make a clear argument. There should be a little breathing room for these page limits; I'm sure any sane teacher wouldn't deduct points if someone had one more paragraph to write over the limit.
ReplyDeleteThe whole idea of Twitter has irritated me from the moment it became the "it" thing to do. How much do I really care that Ashton Kutcher had eggs for breakfast? I really do not. Which reminds me: Do you watch Bravo's "Kell on Earth"? It's my new guilty pleasure lol. Anyway there was a girl who went in for an interview for this Public Relations company the show revolves around and she got hired. The guy who interviewed her checks out her Twitter and she was tweeting about how she was going to be on Bravo and how she totally "nailed" the interview. Her updates were about 2 minutes apart and they had just finished interviewing her. What she was doing was illegal; she was under confidentiality to not speak about the show since they were still filming and it hadn't aired... So they called her and fired her before she even started working there!
I guess the blame really isn't on Twitter but the people who use it to update about their lives every 30 seconds. Seriously out of control. And at times downright stupid. Where is this world coming to? Can't wait until the next new "thing" rolls around.
You guys are right about the page numbers. I just wish some teachers weren't so... what's the word? Persnickety.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that story about the girl tweeting right after her job interview was really alarming. I guess overexcitement or hubris, or even a combination of both compelled her to do what she did. But that's the thing. She didn't think carefully about the weight of her words and what they would cost her.
You know what else is really messed up? People finding out that their significant other just broke off their relationship via Facebook or Twitter statuses. How sad is it that technology is the new instrument of underhandedness? If only these people realized how petty they're really being.
I just hope that the next "thing" that comes out won't have such debilitating side effects... but I guess that's hoping for too much. The more things change, the more things stay the same.