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/lit/ - Literature

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6483993 No.6483993 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/, a friend of mine asked me to edit and critique a big essay of his, I did this, but now he is strictly against one of my recommendations.

"This paper explores the plausibility of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s account of being-in-the-world as a theory of perception. We are interested in establishing a connection between Merleau-Ponty’s account and more analytic theories of perception..."

He won't cut the "We" thing.

"Our intention is neither to offer a systematic analysis of..."
"Instead, we aim to show how the notion of..."
"...which we hope will facilitate discussion between..."

Am I wrong? He says he really likes it aesthetically and that this is more a preference thing. I told him that it is just weird and confusing for the reader since he assumes the reader is part of this "we", sometimes, sort of.

Anyway am I wrong?

>> No.6483997

>>6483993
It is entirely a preference matter. It generally looks pompous.

>> No.6484000

It's only confusing if the reader is an idiot.

>> No.6484013
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6484013

>>6484000
Not when the pronoun is not specified and used to refer to multiple groups or persons.

We are having a conversation in this thread.

Besides me posting this, you have no idea if I am referring to everyone who reads this, every poster, or just the person I am replying to.

Now do that for 16 pages.

>> No.6484017

In academic writing, people usually prefer the passive voice - but this changes from university to university, and from one grader to the next. Sometimes it's OK, sometimes it's not (my British supervisor always makes me change all my active voices to passive).

I still often see "we" used in publications. It's still weird that your friend uses "we" even though he's the only one writing it (Prof Jack Hetherington once used his cat as a co-author on a paper he wrote alone so he could use the "we").

>We are interested in establishing a connection between Merleau-Ponty’s account and more analytic theories of perception

would be turned into something like

>By doing XXX a connection is established between Merleau-Ponty's account blablabla

>> No.6484044
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6484044

>>6484017
The main problem I have with him using 'we' is that he doesn't specify who this group is ever.

For example.

"We are interested in establishing a connection between Merleau-Ponty’s account and more analytic theories of perception..."

So is this we? The reader? No, there may be some readers who are interested in this, but not all necessarily. Someone might be interested in reading this paper because they want to disprove the very thing he is trying to prove.

The writer? No, he is one person.

But just let this slide, and assume this means the writer and his audience who is interested in this (so all readers are necessarily interested in what he is saying, which like
>>6483997
said, is pompous)

"Our intention is neither to offer a systematic analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy nor to develop a comprehensive theory of our own."

Now it's even worst. Before we gave it to him that we were interested, but now he assumes to know our intentions. This is just in the intro.

"Before exploring Merleau-Ponty’s account of perception, we will begin by discussing John Searle’s notion of Intentionality."

Now we are back to a we which actually encompasses everyone just by the act of reading this paper. It just keeps changing.

I really think this needs to go.

>> No.6484140
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6484140

>>6484044
Anyone?

I'm still not sure if I'm right in my advice.

>> No.6484301

>>6484140

we'd help if you weren't so obnoxious

>> No.6484369

>>6484140
How am I being obnoxious?

Another question, how would you fix this sentence

"Furthermore, perception is not a passive event, the ‘success’ of which is determined by a ‘world-to-mind’ causation."

>> No.6484375

>>6484369
>>6484044
>>6483993

holy shit just shut the fuck up

>> No.6484392

>>6483993
Lol is this a 200 level paper? That's not a particular difficult topic of Ponty's theories to engage with.

>> No.6484397

>>6484375
Calm down

>>6484392
Yeah 290. He's just a junior.

>> No.6484407

>>6484397

>calm down

maybe you should stop being so annoying, your criticisms are pointless

>> No.6484412

>>6484407
Stop being petty. If you don't care about grammar then go to another thread.

>> No.6485562

I hate how you can't escape that soul rain thing. It's worse than throwing knife kills.

>> No.6485598

Why does buffing a weapon just give a flat rate based on the weapon's current damage? All it does is encourage meeting base requirements to cast it, I haven't met a person all day that doesn't buff at least once.

>> No.6485719

>>6484369
Adjunct here. The "we" thing is not ideal, but it's better than "I". "This paper" is another option, which I see he's also using.

All of that "we aim to" "we hope to" is waffling, and it's best to excise it: you're making your argument, so go ahead and commit to it. The main problem is that he's being coy, and that's a bad habit: what are the conclusions you have reached about this plausibility? Does your paper indeed establish a connection? If so, state it clearly at the start, and proceed to prove it to me.

>"Furthermore, perception is not a passive event, the ‘success’ of which is determined by a ‘world-to-mind’ causation."

It's a comma splice, and poor construction.
"Furthermore, perception is not a passive event, and its ‘success’ is not determined by a ‘world-to-mind’ causation."