That passage has null content for normal human beings, which appellation describes both thee and me, I believe. When you see stuff like this you have our permission to gently close the book or magazine and scream silently at the author, "What were you thinking?" I would also give you permission to use the offending material as toilet paper, but it's probably pretty scratchy.
How lovely to be granted permission by thee. I've read a lot of bad writing, some of it postmodern, some modern, and other paleolithic. As eta said elsewhere in this thread, part of the immediate problem with specialist writing is an assumed context and a jargon. I am currently reading a book (E O Wilson, Insect Societies) and I must constantly stop and reread sentences, look at earlier definitions of words, etc. Zero content, I doubt it. Not my field of study? More likely. A lot of academic writing is turgid and unreadable: some of it has content and some of it does not. Part of being educated, whether in institutions or by one's self, is learning how to read and trying to determine if an author is being authentic or merely a con artist. And as we can see from the folks in DC, non-content bullshit is not merely the province of academic dudes writing something about Kraftwerk in their latest paper. It depends what kind of audience the proposed paper has: Rolling Stone articles might not satisfy your instructor. Which in turn might not get you the grade you desire. (Think of this as a life lesson: when you get to the real world, you'll often have tedious tasks to complete and be judged by incompetent managers.) If you think it's all bullshit, write a critique (or deconstruction) of the paper itself, but be prepared for an argument. Should be fun. If you don't find it fun, perhaps you've chosen the wrong class or field of study. Just my US$0.02.
[Edit: fixed book title]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 04/09/06 04:00 PM.
Ugh. Postmodern, academic writing
