Please provide freedback on/proofread my essay before submitting

hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 00:42

(https://justpaste.it/yrx7) The Ultimate Postmodern Joke has Finally Been Realized, by M. J. Emminger

I will first be submitting this to (http://www.truthdig.com/) Truthdig, then depending on how that goes, consider submitting to (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/vsoc20/current) The Journal of Social Psychology and/or (https://philosophynow.org/) Philosophy Now.

I've already gotten ample feedback from the person who's feedback I value most, and altered the essay accordingly. I'd like more than one voice though. So, if you find yourself interested in any of the topics covered therein, I would greatly appreciate any feedback. I also need to be sure there are no spelling/grammar errors.

Jason Moyer on 28/9/2016 at 01:27

tl;dr

Renzatic on 28/9/2016 at 02:46

I wanted to make fun of you, but...well, it's not terrible. For both good and ill, it's very academic. There's an interesting point in there about the subjective realities of postmodernist thought coming around to bite us in the ass in the political sphere, but it's buried underneath such overwrought, masturbatory prose, and incessant namedropping for the simple sake of incessant namedropping, it diffuses whatever point you're trying to go for, and makes it hard to take seriously.

You come across as a smart person who's a little too much in love with the sound of his own voice, Flux. Remember, brevity and conciseness is the soul of wit.

Nicker on 28/9/2016 at 04:32

Structurally, it depends on who you are addressing. If you are trying to impress wordy academics, it might be a winner.

If you want to enlighten people already dazzled by the "weaponized proliferation of disinformation"... more paragraphs and fewer words (at least 20 to 25 percent fewer).

You might want to start with an actual introductory paragraph. Offer a reason to wade into the morass. This... The free world (as often referred) has for a century been lured down a path of perversion, regression, and decay by a handful of utopian idealists and the abundance of political leadership unscrupulous enough to bite their bait. ...is not very motivating.

I don't know where you learned your coma rules from but here they often make your sentences more opaque.

Postmodern theory, as it was called, was meant as a social critique, but a somewhat self-skeptical, and in a sense even nihilistic, one.

Postmodern theory was meant as a social critique (if somewhat self-skeptical, even nihilistic).

Like Renz said, less is more.

And there's a lot of stuff that sounds like filler or stating the obvious. This makes me wonder if you have really thought about who you are talking to. Is it the cognoscenti or the commoners?

It's not uncommon today to hear someone say that a decade ago they could never have imagined that the world would change in the dramatic ways it has.

It's not uncommon to hear that said from any one generation to the next. Gosh! Who'd have imagined what horseless carriages would do to society?!

The super-rich class are aliens to us.

When were they NOT?

The question is, why is it different now? IS it different now? Why is this time really special, unlike every other special time in our past? Is this even relevant to your thesis?

Hope that helps.

hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 05:16

Okay, I appreciate the feedback guys.

Nicker: My intended audience is academics of no field in particular--anyone who is either well-read or curious and has a conscience and a drive to carry humanity beyond the crises of the day. I'm certainly not trying to reach the likes of Trump supporters--they're a lost cause.

I personally think the introduction is quite motivating... are you saying this because it's too negative, or what?

I like your rephrasing of that sentence and will made that change.

My point about people having never imagines a decade ago that the world would be as it is today was meant to point out how corrupt and rotten things have gotten. Perhaps I should make that more clear. And the difference now is that if we don't dix it this time, it will be terminal. Species extinction (or worse, a kind of mal-eugenic kill-off). The other difference is that it's all known now. The shenanigans of the ruling class are now totally transparent, thanks to the internet. I thought I made that pretty clear in the essay, but tell me if I need to further articulate it.

Edit: btw, citations have been added.

faetal on 28/9/2016 at 07:57

I always find it helps to blurt out what's in your head and then pain-stakingly remove anything where I can't answer the basic question "who cares?". Avoid saying anything which you just think sounds cool or you like the phrasing of. Consider if the information is going to be assimilated or if it can be trimmed. When it comes to political discourse, polemics etc... pithy is good. Don't hammer something home unless repetition of a point is either functional or stylistic.

One last point - the shenanigans of the ruling class have always been clear, it's why history is pretty consistently filled with revolutions. It's why we have things like representative government etc...

Vivian on 28/9/2016 at 09:29

As an academic in a non-related field (like a few here) I guess I'm as good an audience proxy as any. I'll echo the call for simplification - it's definitely a bit breathless at present, too much purple prose (which isn't bad, you can definitely write well, but such baroque 'clever' writing generally gets in the way of understanding. General rule of 'functional' writing, such as for academia, never use a long sentence or a long word when a shorter one will do). I read the first paragraph and didn't understand what the purpose of the piece was, which is bad structure. By the end of the introduction I should know what the issue is and (in brief) what you are proposing to add to it. Also, your paragraphs in general are too long, and you stray too often into colloquialisms. If you honestly intend to submit this to a peer-reviewed journal keep it formal - which isn't to say you must write in a dry, stiff way, but you definitely shouldn't have phrases like 'moral-less coked-up monkey' in there. Plus shitloads of people who work in finance and/or do a lot of cocaine will have read Baudrillard. There are some very, very, very smart and educated people who work in economic modelling.

All in all, it's good, but it's too indulgent at present, and it takes too long to tell you what the point in it is. It's more of a blog entry than a serious essay. You have a nice style though.

Nicker on 28/9/2016 at 13:26

If your audience is academics then you definitely don't want to lecture on the obvious, especially about the disconnected aristos, how fucked things generally are and what's that noise kids call music these days. People know this. Again, why is it different NOW. Is it different now?

The sentence I trimmed. That needs to be done, top to toe.

Standardise your punctuation. If you insist on asides don't use comas, use brackets or single dashes--not these airless, double-dash monsters. That way you can easily locate your asides and remove 90% of them.

"I personally think the introduction is quite motivating... are you saying this because it's too negative, or what?"

It's because every day, millions of new words are added to the internet. Deciding to read yours is a matter of cutting through the smoke. Your opening paragraph is over 400 words, in eleven sentences, one of which is over 100 words long and reads like a corn-maze. Your intro should be one or two concise statements about what the problem is and what can be done about it.

"And the difference now is that if we don't fix it this time, it will be terminal. Species extinction (or worse, a kind of mal-eugenic kill-off)."

Yes. More like that. Plus your message of hope, if you have one.

"The shenanigans of the ruling class are now totally transparent, thanks to the internet. I thought I made that pretty clear in the essay, but tell me if I need to further articulate it."

Not so much transparent as presented in agonising and irrelevant detail. The plebs have always known the aristos are shits, even as they aspire to join them. So people obsess over their public conduct while speculating on their part in the vast conspiracy of the Reptilian overlords blah blah blah...

I don't think there is a difference between the past and now, other than the sheer volume, detail and speed at which information is collected, processed and distributed. And that's the point, our smarts are outstripping our wisdom. They always have.

hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 15:06

Quote Posted by faetal

Avoid saying anything which you just think sounds cool or you like the phrasing of. Consider if the information is going to be assimilated or if it can be trimmed. When it comes to political discourse, polemics etc... pithy is good. Don't hammer something home unless repetition of a point is either functional or stylistic.

I don't think I've said anything in the essay that I just think sounds cool. Not many people are literate on the topic of postmodern theory, so reading about it might come across to the average educated reader as masturbatory, but everything about postmodernism I stated in the essay is relevant to the message. Further reading will no doubt be necessary to clarify my points for those who haven't read Baudrillard.

Quote Posted by Vivian

General rule of 'functional' writing, such as for academia, never use a long sentence or a long word when a shorter one will do

I respect the advice, but my style is rather inflexible. The postmodernists wrote in this kind of style, and it gave the statements a rhythm that added flare to the message. I'm striving for functional wiriting, unlike many of the postmodernists, but I consider style part of that function. It's the excitement that got me interested in postmodernism, and my goal is to excite with the way I present my ideas.

Quote:

I read the first paragraph and didn't understand what the purpose of the piece was, which is bad structure. By the end of the introduction I should know what the issue is and (in brief) what you are proposing to add to it.

Hmm... the someone who is my most valuable feedback said the same thing after my first draft, after which I added two paragraphs to the beginning to attempt to explain the purpose of the essay. He was satisfied with this draft. You people are hard to please.

Quote:

Also, your paragraphs in general are too long, and you stray too often into colloquialisms. If you honestly intend to submit this to a peer-reviewed journal keep it formal - which isn't to say you must write in a dry, stiff way, but you definitely shouldn't have phrases like 'moral-less coked-up monkey' in there.

Lol. Again, in direct contradiction to what my most valuable feedback said of it. He thinks the dry humor is a welcome addition and helps further entice the reader. Again, I'm not trying to be as academic and pedantic as humanly possible... I want the reader to have some fun reading it. That what I think will drive the essay's function along.

Quote:

Plus shitloads of people who work in finance and/or do a lot of cocaine will have read Baudrillard. There are some very, very, very smart and educated people who work in economic modelling.

Right, but I wasn't referring to them. I'm strictly referring to the Wall Street traders who spend all day every day looking at charts and clicking buy/sell.

Quote Posted by Nicker

The difference, I believe, is that we've reached an epoch of capitalism, and something must take its place. No one is *quite sure* what system will take its place, but something will. If it doesn't, we all die of heat stroke in 50 years. So no, things aren't any different, things have reached a climax. I'm addressing that climax in this essay.

Quote:

Thank you but my puncuation is standardized :) It's my personal standard. I know it's unusual, but as I said above, it gives a certain rhythm to the piece.

Quote:

It's because every day, millions of new words are added to the internet. Deciding to read yours is a matter of cutting through the smoke. Your opening paragraph is over 400 words, in eleven sentences, one of which is over 100 words long and reads like a corn-maze. Your intro should be one or two concise statements about what the problem is and what can be done about it.

This depends on my target audience. People who read Truthdig avidly are willing to sit down and sink into a maze of statements for a while. I don't want to shut anyone out of my audience, but I can't make compromses on depth just so some people I'm not even particularly interested in targetting won't lose patience with it.

Quote:

I don't think there is a difference between the past and now, other than the sheer volume, detail and speed at which information is collected, processed and distributed. And that's the point, our smarts are outstripping our wisdom. They always have.

Right, and I think I sort of make this point in the essay.

Goldmoon Dawn on 28/9/2016 at 15:07

I am one of those strange people who wanted more. I wouldnt change a word! :)