A grammatical interlude
Fri Apr 03, 2009 18:57 EST (UTC -5)Today in one of my classes, we did something I haven't done since high school: we peer-reviewed each other's research papers. And no, I'm not talking about fact checking; I mean basic stuff like proofreading. We split into groups of three, and each person proofread the others' essays and offered comments. I bet I was the only one in the class to use proofreader's marks, which I'd been taught in sixth or seventh or eighth grade.
But anyway, I'm not a big fan of peer review in classrooms. The process is fundamentally broken; it assumes that each person knows more about writing than someone else, which is just not true. For example: a classmate marked my use of the Latin phrases per se and status quo as clichés and said not to use them because they weakened my argument. De facto just seemed to confuse the hell out of her. Maybe I won't italicize my Latin phrases in the final draft.
But the biggie came when I saw her scrawling a note in the margin saying not to start a sentence with "because." What the heck, guys.
Schoolteachers tell schoolchildren not to start a sentence with "because" to prevent them from writing incomplete sentences:
Because I like cookies.
This sentence has no main idea; "Because I like cookies" is a subordinate clause and must have a main clause or whatever it's called to go with it. (Excuse me; it's been a while. I hope this doesn't, ahem, weaken my argument.) Now let's consider another sentence with the word "because":
I bought extra milk because I like cookies.
No one can deny that that is a grammatically correct sentence. But if all our sentences looked like that, the world would be a boring place to read stuff, and we'd probably just watch more TV. So what do good writers do? They shake up their sentence structure by reversing clauses!
Because I like cookies, I bought extra milk.
"Oh noes! It starts with 'because'!" Chill. It's okay. There's a whole idea in there, see? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sentence (except that liking cookies too much might make you fat). It's just like the last sentence. There's a main idea ("I bought extra milk") with a supporting idea ("because I like cookies") backing it up.
To be fair, my classmate made valid criticisms of my 3 A.M. writing. I can't really blame her for not realizing her mistake. Not everyone is a grammar whiz, after all.
No, I think the problem ultimately comes down to English teachers. They tell kids not to start sentences with "because," a sweeping and inappropriate generalization. To make matters worse, they hardly ever seem to "unteach" it later on by saying that starting a sentence with "because" is okay if you do it right. So this "rule" remains in students' heads, standing as an artificial impediment to their self-expression.
So, English teachers, can you please stop saying that a sentence can never begin with "because"? You'd be doing your students a favor, and the rest of us would really appreciate it too.
(And yes, I realize that I've started a sentence with a coordinating conjunction seven times. Oops. Make that eight.)
I thought it was obvious, but there's a long Wikipedia article about it: the evenness of zero.
The Pac-Man Dossier consists of everything you ever wanted to know about Pac-Man, all on one page. (Via The Presurfer)
The price of a first-class stamp is going up so often that by the time I remember what it is, it's changed again. So I guess I'm not the only person who had this idea for a simple web site: priceofastamp.com. (Via The Presurfer)
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5 comments
#1 by Keith: Sat Apr 04, 2009 22:41 EST (UTC -5)
Isn't that called peer editing? That's what it was called when I was in English 099 and English 101 anyway.
I think the reasoning behind it is to get a second opinion.
I'm visual proof of that.
They also tell us not to end a sentence with a preposition. What do they do that for? Seriously, as long as you use the object correctly ("Whom am I hiding from" to quote Star Trek II), it's valid English (it's my understanding the the preposition limitation is based on a limitation of Latin and isn't a valid criticism of an English sentence; ditto with split infinitives).
If it's good enough for the Bible, it should be good enough for at least 80% of us :)
Not that it makes that much difference.
People still use mail? It reminds me of the part of that episode of Seinfeld:
Kramer: I want to stop getting mail.
Newman: But how are you going to contact people?
Kramer: Telephone, telegrams, email
Newman: How are you going to pay your bills?
Kramer: I'll let the bank take care of it.
Newman: The bank. It's true, no one needs the mail. You think you're so smart for figuring that out?
#2 by TJ: Sun Apr 05, 2009 08:50 EST (UTC -5)
yeah... i hated peer review BS... i hated having to turn in a rough draft for that matter. my teacher would make us turn in a rough draft (not for a grade, but would affect our final grade) and exchange copies of our rough draft with people in the class. it was such a waste of time. i never really got constructive feedback. and other times i would just feel really bad, cause some of the essays i read felt like they were written by a 5 year old.
#3 by Jordon Kalilich: Sun Apr 05, 2009 13:27 EST (UTC -5)
It really is peer editing, if you could call it editing. I'd call it kind of a waste of time.
#4 by kristen: Sun Apr 05, 2009 18:33 EST (UTC -5)
dr. shipe was all about that peer review shit. he said we'd be bombarded with it in college and... i can only recall doing it in one class (a gordon rule class, but of course).
i'm all about freedom from crippling sentence structure! and i'm all about using latin phrases. if there was a "like" button on this page, a la facebook, i'd be all up on it.
#5 by Luke: Sun Apr 05, 2009 23:39 EST (UTC -5)
Because you shouldn't write fragments;;;