Example of college essay in the US

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eggy32

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Nov 19, 2009
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Yup, that's pretty awful. I'm more struck by the fact that the handwriting is almost identical to mine. I've never seen anyone write so similarly to me.
 

Sightless Wisdom

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Jul 24, 2009
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That's disgusting. Truly, that's is one of the worst written papers I have ever read. It's not hard to see where people are coming from when they talk about the U.S education system being far behind that of other countries.(Don't worry, I'm not ignorant enough to think that every U.S student writes like this, it's just a good example of the problem)
 

Zaik

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Jul 20, 2009
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Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
 

WorldCritic

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Due to having a minor in English and how writing is one of my main hobbies, reading this nearly made me cry.
 

thylasos

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Zaik said:
Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
No apparent reason.

Apart from readability, analytical skills, the ability to collect and present peer-reviewed ands credible evidence, express an argument properly, and (in terms of formatting) allow for the marking of your work in order to improve the aforementioned skills further?
 

Zaik

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thylasos said:
Zaik said:
Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
No apparent reason.

Apart from readability, analytical skills, the ability to collect and present peer-reviewed ands credible evidence, express an argument properly, and (in terms of formatting) allow for the marking of your work in order to improve the aforementioned skills further?

Which is useful in exactly how many professions? Two? No, three.

As a general education requirement, it's just another easy dollar for the college.
 

emeraldrafael

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Jul 17, 2010
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well, some kids get in for more then their brains. If that kid was anything other then white its a fair assumption he had some major help.

Or he was rich and is paying his way through. Or maybe english isnt his best subject.

I'm wondering if I have my paper on in game economics affecting real world economics for my freshman fall semester Though its something like five pages or so.

Also, This type of Americans is wrong, so that teacher/professor needs a recombing of that essay.
 

Ladette

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Feb 4, 2011
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Although college English/Compostion classes do tend to be rather pointless for most people, same with college Algebra and many other "core classes".

I still can't understand why they beat me over the head with the MLA format. I've never once used it since getting out.
 

DudeistBelieve

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Sep 9, 2010
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Zaik said:
thylasos said:
Zaik said:
Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
No apparent reason.

Apart from readability, analytical skills, the ability to collect and present peer-reviewed ands credible evidence, express an argument properly, and (in terms of formatting) allow for the marking of your work in order to improve the aforementioned skills further?

Which is useful in exactly how many professions? Two? No, three.

As a general education requirement, it's just another easy dollar for the college.
Useful in fiction writing. But you'd get just amount decent education for that off TV tropes, but you won't get a degree.

I'm an English major, and I'm in agreement with Zaik here. Writing should be a sandbox art form, but I understand the reason they have any rules at all is because then there'd be no way to grade it.

I wouldn't call them hipsters, but the whole college English scene is incredibly pretentious.

But perhaps this is just the griping of a mediocre skilled writer who likes his writing to be fun and entertaining, not dry and scholarly.
 

SirDoom

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Sep 8, 2009
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Not surprising. I remember in my Freshman Comp class, all my essays were written at the last second, and were terrible by my standards. Of the 6 A's given out on papers in that class throughout the semester, I got 4 of them.

...I mean, it IS an engineering school, but I beat out the other engineers AND the fine arts majors, so there's something wrong there.

(The problem with that class was that it was basically all grammar and meeting a few criteria listed on an assignment sheet. No creativity allowed. The whole class could be summed up as "You compare and contrast these 4 articles in MLA format without giving any personal opinion.")
 

Lord Beautiful

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Aug 13, 2008
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Oh my. That was terrible.

I assure you that there are American college kids who can write. I'm not sure I should count myself among them, but they do exist.

While I'm not certain if the one who gave us this little gem [http://static.scribd.com/FlashPaperS3_6.swf?guid=iyf3q21g5duht&document_id=91&INITIAL_VIEW=width] was American, it is possible.
 

TWRule

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Dec 3, 2010
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Zaik said:
thylasos said:
Zaik said:
Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
No apparent reason.

Apart from readability, analytical skills, the ability to collect and present peer-reviewed ands credible evidence, express an argument properly, and (in terms of formatting) allow for the marking of your work in order to improve the aforementioned skills further?
Which is useful in exactly how many professions? Two? No, three.

As a general education requirement, it's just another easy dollar for the college.
Writing is important because the ability to express one's ideas is important. There's a very close link between one's ability to write clearly/concisely, and one's abilities to think or speak that way. Writing is one of the most common exercises in critical thinking and communication skills, which are used in nearly every aspect of human life.
 

Zaik

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Jul 20, 2009
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TWRule said:
Zaik said:
thylasos said:
Zaik said:
Really, who cares? "Writing", as defined by colleges, is entirely pointless outside college, with the exception of a very small number of professions. We're not talking about being able to put language on paper, you learn that proficiently by like 5th grade.

It's just a collection of rules that only exist for their own sake. They serve no ultimate purpose other than testing to see if a person can follow a set of arbitrary rules imposed for no apparent reason.

College "English" is run by a collection of hipsters that think they have some authority over an entire language. At best it's silly, realistically it's pathetic.
No apparent reason.

Apart from readability, analytical skills, the ability to collect and present peer-reviewed ands credible evidence, express an argument properly, and (in terms of formatting) allow for the marking of your work in order to improve the aforementioned skills further?
Which is useful in exactly how many professions? Two? No, three.

As a general education requirement, it's just another easy dollar for the college.
Writing is important because the ability to express one's ideas is important. There's a very close link between one's ability to write clearly/concisely, and one's abilities to think or speak that way. Writing is one of the most common exercises in critical thinking and communication skills, which are used in nearly every aspect of human life.
Don't forget that writing prevents cancer and cures colds.

What you are trying to say is that people who communicate better will communicate better than people who don't. Correlation =/= causation.