Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Tuesday 15 June, 02004

Essays need words

by Tim @ 2:56 pm

A good way to make exams and essays easier on one’s constitution, is to write with the aim of including a certain word or phrase regardless of it’s suitability. Example: I once challenged myself to include the phrase, ‘women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them’, in a Classics essay. I succeeded. For single words, pretentiousness is the key. Perhaps people could offer suggestions to help students with upcoming assessments.

9 responses to “Essays need words”

  1. Sternum says:

    I’ll get the ball rolling by suggesting ‘qua’.

  2. John says:

    I also like the use of “You can’t make a blanket rule about x, you have to take it on an x by x basis” a la the Simpsons “Marge, I’ve told you that you can’t make a blanket rule about drifters, you have to take it on a drifter by drifter basis”

  3. Sternum says:

    Ha. Yes. Do you reckon it would be possible to squeeze in “knifey spooney” into a uni essay? I’m sure it must be a metaphor for something deep.

  4. i take issue with this post right from the get-go. ‘Essays need words’. What about photo-essays?

    (hidden within this post is a suggestion of a word to use)

  5. Sternum says:

    Sorry, my bad.

  6. ben says:

    My personal challenge for this semester is to write that Freud’s rabid atheism was merely a product of his own infantile-narcissistic rebellion against the father-figure of God, rendering any of his views on religion highly suspect in light of his own analytical theory.

    True or not.

  7. John says:

    Ben, I don’t think that you can make a blanket statement about all of Freuds views on religion, but you have to assess it on a religious view by religious view basis.

  8. ben says:

    Why? He trashed all religions at the same time, irrespective of their differences.

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