Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music and books.

23 comments:

finsof72 said...

'IH8RSRCH'
My future license plate expressing my preference for writing subjectively.

finsof72 said...

I saw that today on a way to a job interview at the local high school and found it coincidental.

Also, some really famous comic book writer is making a Batman comic. Morrison? Heard something like that, probably very very old news.

Björninn said...

I'm going to be in London over the weekend, touristing and stuff. Does anyone know of an awesome comic-y thing I should do/see/drink while there?

Anonymous said...

Fins,

1. Sorry for subjecting you to the research paper.

2. Ha! You have know idea how old that news is as Morrison just wrapped a two year Batman run a couple of months backt hat Geoff had been following and posting on every month; what you saw, was probably the announcement of his NEXT Batman project with Frank Quitely, this is much newer news... but, yeah, we already knew about that.

Anonymous said...

I'm compiling a list of words that are red flags for when a student has either a. plagiarized or b. neglected to properly identify a direct quote. There are just certain words that freshman don't use in casual conversation.

The list so far:

Attest
Singularity

Also, I'm going to finally finish up with another "From The Box" soon; this one will be on McFarlane's Spider-Man number 1, so dig it out if you got it!

Anonymous said...

most freshmen

I use the word "afforementioned" a lot

Anonymous said...

Yes, Fins... but you're 'special'

I would also like to add:

Implicit
Compensatory

Anonymous said...

Oh, and Fins,

You know what the only thing worse than writing a research paper for a Freshman comp. class is?

Geoff Klock said...

any student using "cf." is a good clue. Or "e.g." and "i.e" (correctly).

btw scott neglecting to cite properly is plagiarism, in my classroom.

ba said...

Fins, that license plate is inscrutable.

Anonymous said...

Geoff,

It is in mine too, but I try to differentiate between 'honest mistake' citation errors (as a big part of this class is to teach them to cite properly) and people who are blatantly passing off someone else's words as their own.

So, for example, just because a student changed a couple of unimportant words, they don't realize that this is not really a paraphrase and they should be using quotation marks but, at least, the source was properly cited at the end of the sentence. While it's still technically plagarism, I generally just show them what they have done wrong and give them a stern warning and ensure that the mistake is corrected by the final draft.

sara d. reiss said...

today i found myself in my first midterm since 1999 and it occurred to me, midsentence, that i was writing the exact crap profs always complain about.

"what is interesting about caravaggio's "amor" and what makes it a striking and important work of art is... yadda yadda yadda obvious point a, obvious point b, obvious point a repeated... in conclusion: obvious and repetitious ending.

Anonymous said...

Sara -- I once decided to try writing my English essays with as few adjectives as I could possibly manage. The essays were much better! But none of 'em cracked 1500 words, so I had to stop doing it.

I blame society.

Unknown said...

I've been thinking of going back to the (only) chapter I finished of my Phd thesis and rewriting it so that every sentence has only one clause.

To the thread that's going on here, I would offer the telltale sign of the cod-academic, the word "liminal".

Unknown said...

Bjorninn: There aren't any really great shops, but for my money Gosh! Comics is the best store in London (although not perfect). It's opposite the British Museum.

It's also worth a trip to the Forbidden Planet megastore on Shaftesbury Ave. if only for a fleeting but crushing glimpse of the bleakest darkest depths of the human soul and the unavoidable truth that we are all kidding ourselves whenever we try and claim any 'artistic integrity' or 'emotional maturity' for this little scene of ours.

(Man, I'm in a mood. Sorry.)

James said...

Gosh! is great, and Orbital Comics' new premises is very nice too. There's a nook where they display original art; recently they had a Watchmen page or two, not sure if they're still there though.

James said...

Ah, looks like today was the last day, sorry! Still, the store's worth a look if you get a chance.

Anonymous said...

it was on a bumper sticker but I was expressing my desire to put it on a license plate. Not sure what the number of letters allowed is. Or was 'inscrutable' means.

Anonymous said...

Grading the research papers.

Anonymous said...

Fins,

Correct!

So your professors don't make you write research papers because they're sadistic... it is because they are, in fact, masochist and enjoy punishing themselves :)

Anonymous said...

I wasn't that keen on the Quitely Batman previews... then I read this post by Dan McDaid and Ben Birdie... now, imagine that Batman is Dick Grayson and Robin is Damian, and go back and stare at that artwork...

finsof72 said...

There was a South Park on last night that kind of reminded me of what it would be like if Frank Miller made a batman movie.

Anonymous said...

With Lost hurtling toward its ending, it got me thinking: will the x-men franchise(or even superman and batman) ever end? Will it become outdated, when the world changes enough? in the same ways that some pulp heroes from before the golden age lost popularity? or with the way media has changed, will the savvy corporations never let these characters fade away?

Shl