The English Miscellany

Logic of Failure - Metaphysics of Success Many universities are concerned about failure rates. It is not uncommon for 25% of students to fail to complete their first year successfully.  Academics are mildy irritated that they are constantly under pressure from the management to improve success rates. Rather cruel responses might run like this: " I'm sorry, it is really beyond my control if you break up with your girlfriend in week 3 and stop attending classes." [But depression is a REAL problem for some students. Check out this article: Yes, you can crawl out of your first-year depression at university  | Nell Frizzell ] "Am I responsible if you lose the power of motion because you've been living on nothing but porridge oats for the last term before the exams, having spent your parents' money on beer." "I can recommend counselling services. Remember ... you are now deemed to be an adult; you will be expected to take responsibi...

Are you still sharpening your use of academic language, or are you loosening the reins? The title of this blog points to the tensions involved in professional educational writing. In one sense the purely personal, original, pre-academic voice is a fiction. By joining the ranks of academe your voice has already begun to switch from a personal to a public voice. Taking the micky becomes parody or satire , for instance. Academic writing loses colloquial speech-like qualities and takes on the jargon of professional authenticity. And speech also tends to lose the accent and dialect of your class roots. Sadly, standard academic English is a rather middle-class business proposition. There is a gain but there is also a loss. But academic voice in the arts and the social sciences need not be the bleak accent of dry neutrality and emotionless abstraction. Surely there's an error in losing the individual idiosyncrasy of the human pulse in this domain of work? While it is true that ...