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Cocteau
1) On the poll in the previous entry:
My god, it's full of Canadians! *flrrd*
Also find it interesting that the number of people who voted/will vote is precisely equal to the number of people who claimed ineligibility, when there's no-one who answered who *I* don't consider eminently qualified. Stupid non-universal suffrage. q:
2) On the bizarre Islington/Heurtebise (+Door/Richard) fanfic I'm trying to plot for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide, since I'm working without a copy of Neverwhere:
Can anybody tell me if Paris Below is ever mentioned? Specifically, did Hunter kill anything there? And what became of the key which Door used to send Islington through?
3) My first writing assignment in 393 is due, and as expected, we were given a bunch of stupid 'rules for good writing.' One of them is no passive voice, because that is always bad, *of course*. In fact, we are not to use any forms of 'to be' at all, which only eliminates about half of the most interesting verb tenses and constructions in English. Except there are apparently some poorly-defined exceptions to the policy. It seems to me that if you're going to include exceptions, you might as well just say, "Read the chapter in your style manual about proper use of passive voice, and use careful judgement." But then, that would require the professor using *her* judgement, too, and I'm not sure I trust it. The examples she's given us which she wrote are uniformly technically okay but stylistically clunky, boring, and lacking in flow, and she averages more typographical errors than I have in an lj entry. *sigh* English teachers.
Also, the assignment is to write a definition of a technical term, one version for specialists and one version for lay people. I could really enjoy this-- except she specified formal language and structure. Me, if I'm writing for a general audience, particularly on something scientific, I'd say informal is good, isn't it? Tell a story, ask questions, use natural language, use puns and anecdotes whenever possible-- make it *interesting* and *accessible*. But no. She's banned contractions and informal language, she's given us stupid requirements like 'each paragraph must be at least three sentences, including a topic sentence.' Bleah, bleah, bleah. What happened to writing toward your audience? Even my textbooks are more interestingly written than that!
Next up: MARS!
My god, it's full of Canadians! *flrrd*
Also find it interesting that the number of people who voted/will vote is precisely equal to the number of people who claimed ineligibility, when there's no-one who answered who *I* don't consider eminently qualified. Stupid non-universal suffrage. q:
2) On the bizarre Islington/Heurtebise (+Door/Richard) fanfic I'm trying to plot for
yuletide, since I'm working without a copy of Neverwhere:Can anybody tell me if Paris Below is ever mentioned? Specifically, did Hunter kill anything there? And what became of the key which Door used to send Islington through?
3) My first writing assignment in 393 is due, and as expected, we were given a bunch of stupid 'rules for good writing.' One of them is no passive voice, because that is always bad, *of course*. In fact, we are not to use any forms of 'to be' at all, which only eliminates about half of the most interesting verb tenses and constructions in English. Except there are apparently some poorly-defined exceptions to the policy. It seems to me that if you're going to include exceptions, you might as well just say, "Read the chapter in your style manual about proper use of passive voice, and use careful judgement." But then, that would require the professor using *her* judgement, too, and I'm not sure I trust it. The examples she's given us which she wrote are uniformly technically okay but stylistically clunky, boring, and lacking in flow, and she averages more typographical errors than I have in an lj entry. *sigh* English teachers.
Also, the assignment is to write a definition of a technical term, one version for specialists and one version for lay people. I could really enjoy this-- except she specified formal language and structure. Me, if I'm writing for a general audience, particularly on something scientific, I'd say informal is good, isn't it? Tell a story, ask questions, use natural language, use puns and anecdotes whenever possible-- make it *interesting* and *accessible*. But no. She's banned contractions and informal language, she's given us stupid requirements like 'each paragraph must be at least three sentences, including a topic sentence.' Bleah, bleah, bleah. What happened to writing toward your audience? Even my textbooks are more interestingly written than that!
Next up: MARS!
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BTW, my extended def. of a Kort nozzle for that class is probably up on my website, if you care. We only had to write one version of it. d-: Wow, that takes me back to my submarine/torpedo building days at SSL. Heh.
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I don't recall it being mentioned, but I could be wrong. I'll bring it to campus tomorrow if you want to to borrow it (the book, that is, not Paris Below.)
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I tink its' shameful for a Englishh professot ti not awtch what she is wrtiing. I cuold be wrong, thouhg...
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