Please provide freedback on/proofread my essay before submitting - by hedonicflux~~
hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 15:10
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
I am one of those strange people who wanted more. I wouldnt change a word! :)
That's because you're my target audience, Goldmoon Dawn :) and a c00l guy.
Thirith on 28/9/2016 at 15:27
Probably won't make a huge difference, but your long retorts in this thread have made it clear to me that I'll never respond to your requests for feedback, hedonicflux~~. It's absolutely fair not to incorporate every single suggestion made by others, but asking for feedback and then saying, at great length, why you reject it comes across as more than a little masturbatory. It suggests you're looking less for feedback and more for attention and praise.
hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 15:46
Quote Posted by Thirith
Probably won't make a huge difference, but your long retorts in this thread have made it clear to me that I'll never respond to your requests for feedback, hedonicflux~~. It's absolutely fair not to incorporate every single suggestion made by others, but asking for feedback and then saying, at great length, why you reject it comes across as more than a little masturbatory. It suggests you're looking less for feedback and more for attention and praise.
Or perhaps I'm trying to come to an understanding with the person providing the feedback as to my intent. Just because I don't act on the feedback the first time doesn't mean I might not when we've come to an understanding of my intentions.
Vivian on 28/9/2016 at 15:54
Hedonicflux, you are going to hate peer review. So, your goal here is to communicate something, right? So if a sample audience says 'this bit is too dense', or 'this bit just sounds flowery for the sake of it', that's advice you have to take on board. I'm sure you are very happy with it as it is, but the point is it has to make sense to everyone else, or it has no value to anyone else other than you. Make sense?
If you have to to have a separate conversation with your readers to explain your intent, as you are doing here, then the original manuscript is flawed. Your intent should be plainly obvious to your target audience just from reading the manuscript. Otherwise it needs work.
hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 16:23
Quote Posted by Vivian
Hedonicflux, you are going to hate peer review. So, your goal here is to communicate something, right? So if a sample audience says 'this bit is too dense', or 'this bit just sounds flowery for the sake of it', that's advice you have to take on board. I'm sure you are very happy with it as it is, but the point is it has to make sense to everyone else, or it has no value to anyone else other than you. Make sense?
If you have to to have a separate conversation with your readers to explain your intent, as you are doing here, then the original manuscript is flawed. Your intent should be plainly obvious to your target audience just from reading the manuscript. Otherwise it needs work.
Okay, so if there are parts you or Nicker find too dense/too flowery, I'd like for you/Nicker to point them out specifically, so we can discuss it.
Vivian on 28/9/2016 at 16:29
Ok, for starters, give me your take-home. Sum your point up in one sentence. What should I think having read your article?
hedonicflux~~ on 28/9/2016 at 16:35
The age of postmodernism has (hopefully) reached its heyday and in the interest of our species, we'd best pave a way that leaves it behind for good.
Sulphur on 28/9/2016 at 18:43
Okay, a few observations. Standard rules apply. The first paragraph alone is too long, and reads almost like stream-of-consciousness in an essay format. If that's what you're going for, fair enough. As a reader, however, I'd expect the first paragraph to outline the issue at hand in a concise and organised manner; the paragraph's ideas are far too dispersed for that. There may be common threads, but the links between them are oblique at best. But first things first.
* '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.' In an essay, the first sentence is usually your leading or thesis statement, and if it's a declaration, it is naturally read as a statement of intent. As such, it colours everything that comes after. In this instance, the scene is set for the reader: this is going to be a diatribe on free market economies. This works against the essay, for if I'm someone who's opposed to your sort of viewpoint, I'm almost certainly convinced that I don't want to read any further.
*'Philosopher Leo Strauss [...] Randian political philosophers like him are happy to tout concepts of the "obligations" or "sacred duty" of power, but never had the faintest grasp on conscience, moral obligation, or for that matter, reality. Alan Greenspan [...] head filled with as may (sic) delusions as with greed. [...] Largely responsible for the structuring of financial institutions as they are today, "the Undertaker" (Greenspan) has his name inscribed in every Wall Street casino that bets in blood.' If there's a through-line that connects Leo Strauss and Alan Greenspan, it's not made very clear apart from the assertion of your introductory statement, leading the reader to assume he shouldn't like them because the writer feels that both of them are dicks. As a reader, I'm not convinced because there's very little evidence provided to illuminate that assertion; the context is either missing or inadequate.
I'd say the way forward lies not in adding more detail, but in explaining your outlook as clearly as you can with fewer words. An example would be narrating an incident that happened to you/someone else, and how it sparked the topic to life in your head. The litmus test for a well-written essay is whether the reader wants to continue reading past the introductory paragraph to the end, even if the theme/topic doesn't normally interest them.
If, however, the intent is to have this read by people who already subscribe to your views and are assumed to be aware of everything you cite, then much of the above doesn't really matter.
Apart from that: check your punctuation, spelling, comma use. Minor stuff like 'coup d'état' -- the e has an acute accent, not a grave. 'Controversial', not 'controvertial', etc.
qolelis on 28/9/2016 at 20:48
Quote Posted by hedonicflux~~
I also need to be sure there are no spelling/grammar errors.
"Alan Greenspan is the old classic—the capitalist economist on-duty, banality defined, his head filled with as may delusions as with greed."
Firstly, there is a typographical error: "may" -> "many". Secondly, the end of the sentence lacks symmetry, so I would rewrite that part: it might even suffice to simply, and explicitly, call said economist delusional and greedy, but sure, then you'll miss the notion of someone or something else, whoever or whatever that is, making him so -- if that was in fact (partly) your point -- and the rhythm might also be suffering, so maybe "his head as filled with delusions as it is with greed" works better, but it's still a little heavy-handed and feels more like a work of prose than a text meant for the academia(?). Would the shorter "banality defined, delusional, and greedy." still get your (full) point across (ignoring the change in rhythm)?
***
"Largely responsible for the structuring of financial institutions as they are today"
You might want to make it clearer who "they" are referring to.
***
"have been liberated from any obligtion to answer to reality"
Typographical error: "obligtion" -> "obligation"
***
"egregeously" -> "egregiously"
***
"postmodernism is of no value to human discourse. But humor me if you will. Recall the state of the world a decade ago"
I know this has probably changed and is possibly a question of preference or style (or even a method of emphasis), but I am a firm confessor of the belief that words like "but" can never stand on their own: the sentence "But humor me if you will." doesn't make sense, because "but" refers to something that doesn't exist (except outside the local world, as known by the
butt "but").
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"controvertial"
Do you mean "controvertible" or "controversial"? I think both make sense in the current context, but you have to choose just one (not a mix of both).
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"kind of bacterial scum exemplified by and Dick Cheney, Rudi Guliani, and Tony Blair,"
There is an extra "and" here.
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"neoconservative foreign policies of America which are nothing"
I admit it it is more or less established that "America", in the current context, means the USA, but the term is still ambiguous, so you might want to specify which "America" you mean -- unless you actually mean "The New World" as a whole (which doesn't seem to be the case).
***
"the unrestraint (liberation) of definitions and uses of power"
I honestly don't know what you are trying to say here.
"the unrestraint of definitions" suggests that you are talking about a lack of restraining definitions, or, rather, freedom from restraining definitions, but it could also mean "unrestrained definitions", as in there do exist definitions, but they are (allowed to be) too loose (and therefore useless), which suggests a typographical error. Then we have the parenthesis to further confuse the matter, because the sentence "the unrestraint liberation of definitions" suggests that "unrestraint" is meant to be an adjective, which it isn't -- which furthermore suggests a lack of symmetry.
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"clandestined"
If this was a piece of poetry I wouldn't object to the word "clandestined", because, you know, poetic license, but that word doesn't really exist, does it? As interesting or useful made-up words can be, academic, peer-reviewed essays might not be the correct forum for such, so prepare to defend the use of it again. With that said, I take it to mean "destined to do something in secret"!?
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"punch line" -> "punchline"
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"A mass of high inertia and low conductivity, it is a poor conductor of the political, of the social, of meaning in general."
What are you trying to say here? While it is undeniably true that something of low conductivity is a poor conductor, you might want to rewrite that -- unless you meant something completely other.
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"firey" -> "fiery"
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"Such climatic paroxysms"
I think you meant to say "climactic"!?
The word "Such" starts a new paragraph, but is referring back to the previous paragraph, which makes the new one not able to stand on its own. I'm sometimes guilty of this too, and I do, generally speaking, appreciate the division into paragraphs, because it gives me room to breath every once in a while -- and think about what I've just read.
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"Trump is among many occurences of the past few years that has torn down walls to impose a definitive transparency upon society at large —in Trump's case, as an effective reality litmus test."
Another heavy-handed construction: a suggestion is to instead write it as "Trump, as many others in the past few years, is someone who has torn down" (or similar), because that is what I think you mean -- although I am not entirely happy with the symmetry.
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"We see the delusional underpinnings of American imperialism and "free market" ideology finally being stripped of their veils and their embarassing bodies being publicly exposed."
I feel like there is something wrong with the rhythm here, so in its stead I suggest 'We see the delusional underpinnings of American imperialism and "free market" ideology finally being stripped of their veils, and thus left standing there with their embarassing bodies publicly exposed.', although the word "embarassing" feels wrong!?
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"kindgom" -> "kingdom"
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"un-self-aware"
Yeah, that is kind of the best I can come up with too, unless you want to make the sentence longer.
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"money cannot buy someone the out of the humiliation of being known by mainstream society as a selfish person"
There is an extra "the" here.
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"society as a selfish person. But while transparency"
Nitpicking again...
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"disasterous" -> "disastrous"
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"If we can manage to expose to ordinary people what an embarassment our socioeconomic order is, and show them what a real humanity is capable of, our victory is certain."
Honest question: Will your essay "manage to expose to ordinary people what an embarassment our socioeconomic order is"? If very few people read it -- and, more importantly, understand it -- then I doubt it. Will very few people read it? I don't know. How many of those who do read it will also understand it? How many of those who read it, but didn't understand it will read it again until they do understand it?
Did
I read it? Yes, exactly once (or rather maybe 1.0001 times ;) ). Did I understand it? No, not fully. Do I want to understand it better? Yes (just as I want to understand anything better). Will I read it again until I do understand it better? Maybe not. I did kind of enjoy reading it, just like I can enjoy the works of Marcel Proust when in the right mood, but I don't know if I want to, or am going to, ever read the works of Marcel Proust again, once I'm done with it (that's for future me to decide).
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"How do we do this?"
How do we do
what? Again you are referring back to a previous paragraph, which makes the word "this" lose its intended meaning.
