Academic WTF

"You haven't picked up your obligatory assignment. One thing you should
note from that is that you tend to produce a lot of sentences which
aren't really complete sentences (with subjects and verbs at the very
least). In English as in Norwegian complete sentences are expected
between two full stops. Otherwise it's better to put a comma, or
sometimes a colon."

Direct copypaste from a mail from the Varieties of English Texts lecturer. My fragments are coming back to haunt me. I can't help it, I love fragments. I cannot do without them in writing. And he obviously thinks I'm an imbecile, lecturing me not only on complete sentences, but commas and colons! Colons, commas; this coming from the man that speaks with the glorious accent of 'wtf, is it supposed to resemble RP?' Gods, he thinks I'm daft. I need to drag myself by the scruff of the neck, kicking and screaming, into the land of complete sentences. At least when I write essays.

Part of the problem is that I read authors that favour the same style. Bolano is horrid: he ignores all rules of conventional grammar for the sake of it; his sentences are known to span pages. Then there's Woolf, and Joyce. And Stein (Tender Buttons, in particular), T.S. Elliot, Coetzee (fragments are less frequent with him, but he does not conform to academic essay standard). Even Lessing does it. I'm not made for academic writing.

Maybe I should write a post-postmodern manifesto? There is no such thing as complete sentences, there can never be too many commas. Or semicolons. Free indirect style is the only way to narrate anything.

But I tricked him into letting me sit the exam. Who cares about obligatory attendance? All I did was write a mail with my 'teacher's pet, I'm so sorry'-persona, and all was well.

Academic WTF

"You haven't picked up your obligatory assignment. One thing you should
note from that is that you tend to produce a lot of sentences which
aren't really complete sentences (with subjects and verbs at the very
least). In English as in Norwegian complete sentences are expected
between two full stops. Otherwise it's better to put a comma, or
sometimes a colon."

Direct copypaste from a mail from the Varieties of English Texts lecturer. My fragments are coming back to haunt me. I can't help it, I love fragments. I cannot do without them in writing. And he obviously thinks I'm an imbecile, lecturing me not only on complete sentences, but commas and colons! Colons, commas; this coming from the man that speaks with the glorious accent of 'wtf, is it supposed to resemble RP?' Gods, he thinks I'm daft. I need to drag myself by the scruff of the neck, kicking and screaming, into the land of complete sentences. At least when I write essays.

Part of the problem is that I read authors that favour the same style. Bolano is horrid: he ignores all rules of conventional grammar for the sake of it; his sentences are known to span pages. Then there's Woolf, and Joyce. And Stein (Tender Buttons, in particular), T.S. Elliot, Coetzee (fragments are less frequent with him, but he does not conform to academic essay standard). Even Lessing does it. I'm not made for academic writing.

Maybe I should write a post-postmodern manifesto? There is no such thing as complete sentences, there can never be too many commas. Or semicolons. Free indirect style is the only way to narrate anything.

But I tricked him into letting me sit the exam. Who cares about obligatory attendance? All I did was write a mail with my 'teacher's pet, I'm so sorry'-persona, and all was well.