"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper." - English prof

>"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper." - English prof.
That doesn't make any sense, does it user?

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>>"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper." - English prof.
>That doesn't make any sense, does it user?
Shitty diction that allows for massive permutation? That makes perfect sense for an English professor. The way the phrase was written makes it a potential critique of the reader - not the writer.

Why write a paper if not for the audience? Here is one I wrote about my self-reflection on my writing and how I try to improve my speech and communication

pastebin.com/GMUgi3bG

this
kys
"english prof"machine world,beep boop literature

>A little too creative
what do you my boy?

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The way in which something is written ought not make its message harder to understand.

Like how the English of most posts here needs to be deciphered before any sense is revealed.

>Socrates once said
You started the essay with an appeal to authority.

>"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper."
>The way in which something is written ought not make its message harder to understand.
There is a large deviation between these two statements. They do not convey the same message. I am giving the OP the benefit of the doubt that the professor is as illiterate as he portrays. I agree with your message, but not with the original text that you are defending with far superior erudition than it deserves.

I thought this, but then what would be the point of writing any paper, if the point were not to make the reader think?

I would say that the teacher was trying, badly, to say that a paper's English or structure should not be laborious for a reader.

>I would say that the teacher was trying, badly, to say that a paper's English or structure should not be laborious for a reader.
>"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper."
I think we have reached the apex of this conversation when the irony of the situation comes into view. The professor was obfuscating his own message - making us work harder to understand it. Pottery.

What? I was just writing....

What? How so?

Your prof was too nice to tell you to fix that pretentious gibberish.

I was referencing an earlier paper I wrote for another class. I was making references like how one time I thought I was going to get in trouble and "readied my blindfold and cigarette", in reference to Tom and Jerry, but my teacher said not to use references/cliches like that because people wouldn't get them

You shouldn't have to make the reader GUESS when reading your paper.

>What? How so?
This:
>Socrates once said
Show me. Do not tell me.
>information forthcoming
>prepare to receive data
>beep beep beep beep boop boop beep beep
>data stream concluded
>end message
>resume polling ports for next transmission
When you begin a paragraph with "Someone smarter than all of us once said" it poisons everything that follows, regardless of what wisdom the original text may convey. It screams, "Pseud approaching! Make way!" You began the PAPER with this phraseology, thus tainting the entire work.

>have to make the reader
I am unsure if this is bait. If it is, then 8/10 for subtlety. If you are being unironic then 0/10 for construction.

it's neither, it's directly quoting OP's English teacher, dummy

He means "The reader shouldn't have any trouble understanding your point." He just phrased it poorly.

>dummy
This is obvious bait but I will illustrate the delta between the adaptation and the original text and the failures of both for the plebs:
>You shouldn't have to make the reader GUESS when reading your paper.
>"You shouldn't have to make the reader think when reading your paper."
Firstly it is not a direct quote because the original text used the word "think" and the adaption used the word "GUESS". Secondly, both versions rely on the concept of whether or not the writer has an obligation to make the reader think - not whether or not the writer has a responsibility to properly convey the message. I believe the professor intended to say:
>"You shouldn't make the reader have to think when reading your paper."
This is, however, only conjecture on my part.

>"The reader shouldn't have any trouble understanding your point."
Even your restatement allows permutation, user. It could be interpreted as:
>It looks like the reader will understand the text.

This is pedantic, it has nothing to do with the quote, it’s a lack of engagement with it’s meaning. If you star a sentence with “Socratese once said” then continued to pull socrateses argument apart and show why it’s bankrupt, it is not an appeal to auhority. Same with offering critical support. The real psude mark here is saying “Socratese one said” instead of “Plato once wrote”.

You should of course inspire the reader to think more about what you wrote. And there is delight in putting in the mental effort to discover deeper meanings.

That's not what the professor was saying.

You shouldn't force the reader to stop reading and try to figure out what the heck you were trying to say in the first place. You shouldn't make the reader HAVE to think, to guess at what a better-written sentence would have said.

If your audience cannot readily understand you, you are not communicating.

/thread

OP here,
This makes more sense, it was total mind fuck when I heard a person with masters in English saying (see op). Maybe she should take her own advise when speaking.

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Can you address: Did you misquote? Did he misspeak? Is my conjecture about what he meant to convey correct?

thinking for berry picker

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>The real psude mark here is saying “Socratese one said” instead of “Plato once wrote”.
Kek. I do not disagree with this, friend. Frankly, I barely skimmed the paper after taking the time to plug the URL and load it, having seen that first line. It completely turned me from wanting to read it. Is it worth revisiting?

>/thread
Given no better account of the events, I had no recourse but to take OP at his word that the professor spoke in such a disjunctive manner.

OP here,
The bit about not having to make the reader guess is what I am betting she meant. I did not misquote.

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>I did not misquote.
Begin spergnation:
I catch these all of the time. I am the sperg that holds their feet to the fire and answers their questions as they were worded - to the disgust and dismay of all who witness. My personal viewpoint is that if you are lazy in the use of the language then you are shifting the burden of labor to those with whom you are communicating. I will have no qualms in mirroring that rudeness. I wrote a paper entitled "On Writing Poorly". My instructor left a big, bold, red message scrawled at the top: "I'm Sorry". Most people tell me that I am too uptight about the language. I usually retort by rambling slang gibberish at them until they get the message.
End spergnation.

you could take it like this: distract stupid readers in the first place.

you dont know how i spergingly understand you.


>until they get the message.
you dont post the hard it is. some people refuse to understand the real words they said is what they really said. they refuse to change the original sentence or dont get the error in not doing it. spergingly hard world we live.

but it does

That's what she meant OP. This sounds like a low level English course and so many >tfw to smart faggots come in with flowery prose and filler words that dilute their papers. Most of the time there's hardly any substance behind what they're trying to say anyways.

It is kind of ironic that she gave her advice in a misleading aphorism

>It is kind of ironic that she gave her advice in a misleading aphorism
That's what made it so funny, user.

this is a joke though right? if not i'm glad you're on the path to improving