Yeah, my point was that there's a difference between a trade press book that might use excellent scholarly methodology to build its case (Chang) vs. an academic press book that's clearly aimed for an academic audience. As Faux points out, that's not to say the book can't get used in the classroom (which of course, it does and should) but it's not trying to pass itself off like a more conventional college press book (i.e. Rose, Perry, Forman, Neal).
Brian's book isn't remotely academic in that respect either though it remains one of the essential reads for anyone hoping to understand the evolution of the LA hip-hop scene in the 1980s.
"The concept of postliterate orality merges orally influenced traditions that are created and embedded in a postliterate, technologically sophistocated cultural context."
Translation: Rap lyrics are like griots in an age of electronic media. But yeah, academic writing is the bane of my existence as both writer and reader.
I'm writing from home right now vs. the office (where all my books are at) but I think Joe would have acknowledged all the shortcomings you just noted. In any case, the purpose of ethnography isn't to create a meta-theory but rather, is to look at the production of culture in a specific space and then extrapolate - CAREFULLY and with full recognition of limitations - what we might learn from this. Like I said, though, I'd have to pull the book off the shelf and see if this acknowledgment is actually in there or not but knowing Joe and how he behaves as a scholar, I'm pretty sure it would be.
Well, like I said, I don't view the inquiry as invalid--just as not properly contextualized. I know what the purpose of ethnography is, but the work is, in fact, presented as being something much broader than what it turns out to be. Perhaps the acknowledgment is present in the published form--I've only ever read it as a dissertation--but I think it would have to be much more than a paragraph upfront; it would have to be a pretty comprehensive rewrite.
Moreover, the fact that people might see comments once made in the late '90s as silly now is just indicative of how culture isn't static. That's why I think almost any book on hip-hop that isn't a straight history is doomed to potential irrelevance as time goes by but that's ok. The problem is more that academic publishing takes so damn long that even after you've written a manuscript (itself probably based on field work that's at least a year or more old), you can expect it to take another 1-3 years for the text to actually come out. Case in point, I was solicited to write an essay on for an anthology that literally just came out on Duke Univ. Press. The date of that solicitation was almost exactly five years ago and I had finished the essay no later than 2003. In essence, I knew full well what I was writing was probably going to irrelevant on some levels even as I was writing it but so long as you don't pretend like what you're writing is Truth???, then you just hope it contributes meaningfully to a larger, continuous conversation even if the ideas in it maybe become anachronistic very quickly as the landscape shifts.
I hear that, but the issue isn't merely that those comments appear silly given the benefit of ten years' hindsight--a lot of them were pretty silly at the time and can be attributed to the speakers' youthful closemindedness or isolation, rather than to having preceded some sort of cultural shift.
Shifting gears a bit: What do people think of Brian Coleman's "Rakim Told Me"? I've been reading the new, beefed up version of that book, "Check the Technique" and was curious how other readers perceive it.
Love it--one of the best books about rap ever written. So the new book is an expansion rather than a sequel?
Brian's book isn't remotely academic in that respect either though it remains one of the essential reads for anyone hoping to understand the evolution of the LA hip-hop scene in the 1980s.
Didn't he come from an academic background, though (AWOL grad student, maybe)?
Coleman's "Check the Technique" is a little of both (expansion/sequel). It does republish some of the pieces from "Rakim Told Me" but is also longer by 15 more entries and I think there are probably more than that since I don't think he included all the original 21 entries from RTM.
Yeah, my point was that there's a difference between a trade press book that might use excellent scholarly methodology to build its case (Chang) vs. an academic press book that's clearly aimed for an academic audience. As Faux points out, that's not to say the book can't get used in the classroom (which of course, it does and should) but it's not trying to pass itself off like a more conventional college press book (i.e. Rose, Perry, Forman, Neal).
Brian's book isn't remotely academic in that respect either though it remains one of the essential reads for anyone hoping to understand the evolution of the LA hip-hop scene in the 1980s.
"The concept of postliterate orality merges orally influenced traditions that are created and embedded in a postliterate, technologically sophistocated cultural context."
Translation: Rap lyrics are like griots in an age of electronic media. But yeah, academic writing is the bane of my existence as both writer and reader.
Ok. Still, I don't buy into the idea that a book must be geared for "an academic audience" to be considered "academic." Must something be convoluted and in need of translation to be used in the college classroom or to be considered by scholars? I would've left my program long ago if I thought that was the case.
I think there's a reason why people adore things like history, music, and literature but can't stand historians, musicologists, and literary theorists. Academic writing is too often bad writing. But it doesn't have to be.
My point is actually pretty narrow. To me, when one talks about an "academic book" - I think of something being produced within the culture and organization of academia, i.e. a book whose main purposes include: bolstering a scholar's RTP file, boosting the profile of her/his dept/university, adding to a conversation on similar topics with other scholars.
In those respects, neither Jeff nor Brian's books are part of that world. It doesn't mean they aren't useful within the academia and I'd assign essays out of either book before I'd consider 99% of what else is out there but they are not academic books in any formal sense, not the least of which is because neither Jeff nor Brian are professors. The context of the conversation was Faux's point that academic books on hip-hop, writ large, are wacktacular. I don't think he meant to include something like CSWS as part of that criticism nor did I understand him to mean a book like that either.
My point is actually pretty narrow. To me, when one talks about an "academic book" - I think of something being produced within the culture and organization of academia, i.e. a book whose main purposes include: bolstering a scholar's RTP file, boosting the profile of her/his dept/university, adding to a conversation on similar topics with other scholars.
In those respects, neither Jeff nor Brian's books are part of that world. It doesn't mean they aren't useful within the academia and I'd assign essays out of either book before I'd consider 99% of what else is out there but they are not academic books in any formal sense, not the least of which is because neither Jeff nor Brian are professors. The context of the conversation was Faux's point that academic books on hip-hop, writ large, are wacktacular. I don't think he meant to include something like CSWS as part of that criticism nor did I understand him to mean a book like that either.
I see we're essentially on the same page.
I should say that my sensitivity to this issue is coming straight from my recent work with undergrads. I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work. They've been trained to write like this, they tell me. They've been rewarded for sounding smart, yet they can't tell me what they're really trying to say. Clarity seems so undervalued, and, from my perspective, it's a real shame.
I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
I totally hear what you're saying. It's like the spectrum of student writing is stuck between your students - who think they need to write obtusely in order to seem "smart" and my students - who just can't write in terms of understanding the basic rules of grammar, spelling and organization.
That said, if I were training grad students and wanted them to get a sense for what good writing would look like, it'd probably behoove them to read academic press books since, ultimately, that will the audience they have to initially write for. The challenge is finding scholars whose writing doesn't sound like every other tortured piece of academic writing out there.
I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
They just weren't ready to puff the lyrical blunt that was your confounding prose.
I should say that my sensitivity to this issue is coming straight from my recent work with undergrads. I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work. They've been trained to write like this, they tell me. They've been rewarded for sounding smart, yet they can't tell me what they're really trying to say. Clarity seems so undervalued, and, from my perspective, it's a real shame.
But I see I'm off on a tangent.
Just go in one day and write on the board:
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
Then let them look at it for an hour. That might help. Oh, and explain to them that trying to "sound smart" makes one look awfully stupid to those who are actually smart.
I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
They just weren't ready to puff the lyrical blunt that was your confounding prose.
I myself recall suffering from nausea, fatigue and disorientation induced by my lyrical sherm stick.
I totally hear what you're saying. It's like the spectrum of student writing is stuck between your students - who think they need to write obtusely in order to seem "smart" and my students - who just can't write in terms of understanding the basic rules of grammar, spelling and organization.
I have both, and plenty in between. Some of those that have real trouble with vocab and organization are the ones who are the most insightful and who show the most conviction in their writing. But they don't seem to know how smart they are.
Faux, you would've intimidated the hell out of me in college. File that under thinking-and-rethinking-everything-in-my-brain-before- I-say-it-in-class-cuz-D****l-might-clown-me-for-being-wacktackular.
I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
Shit, I remember writing papers for my Philosophy of Language class and thinking, "I'm not sure what the hell I'm trying to say here, but I'm pretty sure I'll get an A on this." But trying to write about language theories--already kind of whacky and abstract--pretty much invites confounding prose.
I feel like gratuitously flashy writing is often a byproduct of being a decent writer already and then learning a whole bunch of new ideas, modes of thought, etc. You start writing with a kitchen sink approach, throwing in every shiny trick you can think of. Yikes. Then you learn that clarity is much more important than being all highfalutin'.
For me, becoming an editor as well as a writer helped a lot. After spending lots of time trying to hone other people's writing, it was only natural to eventually start doing the same thing to my own stuff.
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
What does active mean in this context? Not using the passive voice, I think. Saying "I made a mistake" instead of the politician-preferred "Mistakes were made."
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
What does active mean in this context?
Not using the passive voice, I think. Saying "I made a mistake" instead of the politician-preferred "Mistakes were made." Exactly. But given the question, I guess that means that my previous phrasing was not clear.
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
What does active mean in this context?
Not using the passive voice, I think. Saying "I made a mistake" instead of the politician-preferred "Mistakes were made."
Exactly. But given the question, I guess that means that my previous phrasing was not clear. I think "Good writing is clear and concise", Would have been clearer and more concise. Grammatically correct, accurate, in the active voice, well ordered.... you can deal with later.
My sister is a counselor in a university setting and works with psychology majors. She could not get a student to understand why they had to use 'mother' not 'mommy' when writing (or talking) about a clients mother. The student said "I would never call my mommy "mother". A simple case of a student needing to make their writing more academic. Her friend requires her psychology students to never end a sentence with a preposition. They aint into that.
My sister is a counselor in a university setting and works with psychology majors. She could not get a student to understand why they had to use 'mother' not 'mommy' when writing (or talking) about a clients mother. The student said "I would never call my mommy "mother". A simple case of a student needing to make their writing more academic. Her friend requires her psychology students to never end a sentence with a preposition. They aint into that.
Let me be clear, I teach my students to write formally. Your sister and her friend seem to be requiring the same.
A few tips I give my students:
???Do not get lazy: no ???and/or??? or any other kinds of slashes in an essay. Pick one of the two words and stick to it. Keep your language formal: instead of ???like,??? use ???such as,??? and words such as ???bad,??? ???good,??? or ???sad??? are too simplistic and usually need to be expanded upon.
???Do not use expressions such as ???more and more,??? ???better and better,??? etc. They sound too juvenile, and besides, this is word repetition. Avoid the term ???even??? as a form of emphasis (ex. ???They were even more frustrated,??? or ???Indians were even desperate,???) for the same reason; it tends to sound unsophisticated when employed in an essay.
???Do not employ ???Another thing that African Americans did was?????? This is a very awkward sentence construction. Also avoid: ???As I explained on page 3?????? or ???As previously mentioned??????
???Avoid empty terms such as ???additionally,??? ???furthermore,??? ???in conclusion,??? ???moreover.??? There are better and more eloquent ways to make your argument without having to utilize these words.
My sister is a counselor in a university setting and works with psychology majors. She could not get a student to understand why they had to use 'mother' not 'mommy' when writing (or talking) about a clients mother. The student said "I would never call my mommy "mother". A simple case of a student needing to make their writing more academic. Her friend requires her psychology students to never end a sentence with a preposition. They aint into that.
Let me be clear, I teach my students to write formally. Your sister and her friend seem to be requiring the same.
A few tips I give my students:
???Do not get lazy: no ???and/or??? or any other kinds of slashes in an essay. Pick one of the two words and stick to it. Keep your language formal: instead of ???like,??? use ???such as,??? and words such as ???bad,??? ???good,??? or ???sad??? are too simplistic and usually need to be expanded upon.
???Do not use expressions such as ???more and more,??? ???better and better,??? etc. They sound too juvenile, and besides, this is word repetition. Avoid the term ???even??? as a form of emphasis (ex. ???They were even more frustrated,??? or ???Indians were even desperate,???) for the same reason; it tends to sound unsophisticated when employed in an essay.
???Do not employ ???Another thing that African Americans did was?????? This is a very awkward sentence construction. Also avoid: ???As I explained on page 3?????? or ???As previously mentioned??????
???Avoid empty terms such as ???additionally,??? ???furthermore,??? ???in conclusion,??? ???moreover.??? There are better and more eloquent ways to make your argument without having to utilize these words.
Also: Adverbs are lazy words. Eliminate them whenever possible. (I had that one drilled into my head by several teachers.)
Comments
I'm waiting for the paperback release. I'll let you know in June. NON-
Brian's book isn't remotely academic in that respect either though it remains one of the essential reads for anyone hoping to understand the evolution of the LA hip-hop scene in the 1980s.
Translation: Rap lyrics are like griots in an age of electronic media. But yeah, academic writing is the bane of my existence as both writer and reader.
Well, like I said, I don't view the inquiry as invalid--just as not properly contextualized. I know what the purpose of ethnography is, but the work is, in fact, presented as being something much broader than what it turns out to be. Perhaps the acknowledgment is present in the published form--I've only ever read it as a dissertation--but I think it would have to be much more than a paragraph upfront; it would have to be a pretty comprehensive rewrite.
I hear that, but the issue isn't merely that those comments appear silly given the benefit of ten years' hindsight--a lot of them were pretty silly at the time and can be attributed to the speakers' youthful closemindedness or isolation, rather than to having preceded some sort of cultural shift.
Love it--one of the best books about rap ever written. So the new book is an expansion rather than a sequel?
Didn't he come from an academic background, though (AWOL grad student, maybe)?
TOC is here: http://waxfacts.com/about_ctt.htm
I know Brian's working on a "real" sequel that will be all new profiles that will expand his focus beyond the proverbial golden era albums.
faux, I am glad that, despite our differences on this board, you still hold me in such high regard. thank you.
You listen to rap?
Is it supposed to be "desiring"? Grammar-czech?
"desirous of" I would think...
that would also mean saying "desirous of riding for" no?
Regardless, it's not a "location good" typo.
saying.
Ok. Still, I don't buy into the idea that a book must be geared for "an academic audience" to be considered "academic." Must something be convoluted and in need of translation to be used in the college classroom or to be considered by scholars? I would've left my program long ago if I thought that was the case.
I think there's a reason why people adore things like history, music, and literature but can't stand historians, musicologists, and literary theorists. Academic writing is too often bad writing. But it doesn't have to be.
My point is actually pretty narrow. To me, when one talks about an "academic book" - I think of something being produced within the culture and organization of academia, i.e. a book whose main purposes include: bolstering a scholar's RTP file, boosting the profile of her/his dept/university, adding to a conversation on similar topics with other scholars.
In those respects, neither Jeff nor Brian's books are part of that world. It doesn't mean they aren't useful within the academia and I'd assign essays out of either book before I'd consider 99% of what else is out there but they are not academic books in any formal sense, not the least of which is because neither Jeff nor Brian are professors. The context of the conversation was Faux's point that academic books on hip-hop, writ large, are wacktacular. I don't think he meant to include something like CSWS as part of that criticism nor did I understand him to mean a book like that either.
I see we're essentially on the same page.
I should say that my sensitivity to this issue is coming straight from my recent work with undergrads. I've had so many students who, in their writing, feel they need to sort of confound the reader, but ultimately they end up frustrating themselves, unable to express their ideas, and bored with the work. They've been trained to write like this, they tell me. They've been rewarded for sounding smart, yet they can't tell me what they're really trying to say. Clarity seems so undervalued, and, from my perspective, it's a real shame.
But I see I'm off on a tangent.
Haha... I think I spent most of my five year undergraduate career using my writing to confound everybody, including myself.
I totally hear what you're saying. It's like the spectrum of student writing is stuck between your students - who think they need to write obtusely in order to seem "smart" and my students - who just can't write in terms of understanding the basic rules of grammar, spelling and organization.
That said, if I were training grad students and wanted them to get a sense for what good writing would look like, it'd probably behoove them to read academic press books since, ultimately, that will the audience they have to initially write for. The challenge is finding scholars whose writing doesn't sound like every other tortured piece of academic writing out there.
/////[/b]
TALKIN' LOUD, AIN'T SAYIN' NOTHIN'.
They just weren't ready to puff the lyrical blunt that was your confounding prose.
Just go in one day and write on the board:
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
Then let them look at it for an hour. That might help. Oh, and explain to them that trying to "sound smart" makes one look awfully stupid to those who are actually smart.
I myself recall suffering from nausea, fatigue and disorientation induced by my lyrical sherm stick.
I have both, and plenty in between. Some of those that have real trouble with vocab and organization are the ones who are the most insightful and who show the most conviction in their writing. But they don't seem to know how smart they are.
Faux, you would've intimidated the hell out of me in college. File that under thinking-and-rethinking-everything-in-my-brain-before-
I-say-it-in-class-cuz-D****l-might-clown-me-for-being-wacktackular.
Shit, I remember writing papers for my Philosophy of Language class and thinking, "I'm not sure what the hell I'm trying to say here, but I'm pretty sure I'll get an A on this." But trying to write about language theories--already kind of whacky and abstract--pretty much invites confounding prose.
I feel like gratuitously flashy writing is often a byproduct of being a decent writer already and then learning a whole bunch of new ideas, modes of thought, etc. You start writing with a kitchen sink approach, throwing in every shiny trick you can think of. Yikes. Then you learn that clarity is much more important than being all highfalutin'.
For me, becoming an editor as well as a writer helped a lot. After spending lots of time trying to hone other people's writing, it was only natural to eventually start doing the same thing to my own stuff.
Good writing is clear, concise, accurate and active.[/b]
What does active mean in this context?
What does active mean in this context?
Not using the passive voice, I think. Saying "I made a mistake" instead of the politician-preferred "Mistakes were made."
Not using the passive voice, I think. Saying "I made a mistake" instead of the politician-preferred "Mistakes were made."
Exactly. But given the question, I guess that means that my previous phrasing was not clear.
"I phrased it unclearly"
Exactly. But given the question, I guess that means that my previous phrasing was not clear.
I think "Good writing is clear and concise", Would have been clearer and more concise. Grammatically correct, accurate, in the active voice, well ordered.... you can deal with later.
My sister is a counselor in a university setting and works with psychology majors. She could not get a student to understand why they had to use 'mother' not 'mommy' when writing (or talking) about a clients mother. The student said "I would never call my mommy "mother". A simple case of a student needing to make their writing more academic. Her friend requires her psychology students to never end a sentence with a preposition. They aint into that.
Let me be clear, I teach my students to write formally. Your sister and her friend seem to be requiring the same.
A few tips I give my students:
???Do not get lazy: no ???and/or??? or any other kinds of slashes in an essay. Pick one of the two words and stick to it. Keep your language formal: instead of ???like,??? use ???such as,??? and words such as ???bad,??? ???good,??? or ???sad??? are too simplistic and usually need to be expanded upon.
???Do not use expressions such as ???more and more,??? ???better and better,??? etc. They sound too juvenile, and besides, this is word repetition. Avoid the term ???even??? as a form of emphasis (ex. ???They were even more frustrated,??? or ???Indians were even desperate,???) for the same reason; it tends to sound unsophisticated when employed in an essay.
???Do not employ ???Another thing that African Americans did was?????? This is a very awkward sentence construction. Also avoid: ???As I explained on page 3?????? or ???As previously mentioned??????
???Avoid empty terms such as ???additionally,??? ???furthermore,??? ???in conclusion,??? ???moreover.??? There are better and more eloquent ways to make your argument without having to utilize these words.
Also: Adverbs are lazy words. Eliminate them whenever possible. (I had that one drilled into my head by several teachers.)