Hysterical Thursday

I have ranted on the subject of university essays before and I am about to do it again. Let me ask a question first: is it more important to show you have an understanding of the subject or to have an excellent grasp of the english language?

I am back on exemplar work. Yes, my friends it is essay time again and I have been handed another this morning. There is yet another despicable example of writing, again flagged as an exemplar. And I am completely hysterical today, as well as nauseous and panic stricken. OH GOD I'm gonna RANT.

Examples:
1. How can someone write , "This is important." as a start of a paragraph? Of course "This" is the subject matter in which I will not divulge for fear of my examiner finding this blog before I sit my exam. Anyway, on "this", well congratulations, you have made a grand statement. May as well have said it was nice. Actually I like the word nice so I shouldn't use it as an example of pathetic English words - well, I am not really - you can substitute any word into the sentence and make it completely dull. This is great. This is significant (another example from the exemplar). This is a big pile of shit that I am writing and I do not know how to communicate ideas.
2. How can people get away with saying that abstract things can 'do' stuff? Information controls government spending? um..sure. I thought the people in Government were making the decisions about spending.
3. AGAIN with the mix spellings. Decide whether or not you are American orAustralian!!
4. Do conclusions not exist in 1000 word assignments?

I would be a horrible teacher wouldn't I? Lucky I didn't study it this year. Although I think that high school children are allowed to be learning this kind of information. I will say it again though - Masters level students should be able to write properly.

I must be doing something wrong. Perhaps the ideas are more important than how they are written. Many of these people would have done a thesis as part of their honours degree. Perhaps it is quite acceptable to write "this is good" and I didn't know because I never did honours. This essay is an exemplar after all.

Just wait until I am a lecturer - or even a Professor.

ps. not a very hard core rant huh? Lost the puff I did - started thinking about chocolate and whether there would be an almond bread receipe on the internet.