'The Five-Paragraph Essay Must Die' (psmag.com) 196
In new book Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, John Warner dispenses with arguments that the current moment of compositional crisis is related to screen time, text-speak, Twitter, or the idea that kids have become snowflakes who want participation trophies. An anonymous reader shares a report: There are, however, specific factors that have erected specific challenges to teaching writing in 2018; these include standardized testing, over-reliance on teaching grammar instead of writing, reliance on formulaic structure (i.e. those five-paragraph beasts), classroom surveillance, and college labor conditions. Warner examines the systemic causes in K-12 education that propel students into college without having discovered much about themselves as writers. Having explained the problems, Warner turns to solutions. The second half of the book offers his philosophical approach to teaching writing, honed over 18 years teaching first-year-writing classes at various schools, paired with practical exercises. Warner's next book, The Writer's Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing, a book of exercises, will be coming out next February. Together, they offer his assessment of the problems and plan for transforming how we teach college writing in higher education.
[...] Interviewer: So why isn't the five-paragraph essay a useful starting point? Why isn't it like doing scales before playing music, or practicing free throws before playing basketball?
Warner: The danger is the prescriptive process that the use of the five-paragraph essay privileges. Students are given rules -- not just parts of speech and subject-verb agreement rules -- but [they are told] all paragraphs should have five to seven sentences. The last paragraph should start, "In conclusion," then summarize the previous three paragraphs. In a 500-word essay, the audience hasn't forgotten what you've said! So if there's a specific purpose where a five-paragraph essay is useful, go nuts.
Students need to be given experience wrestling with the full rhetorical purposes of writing. Doing that allows them to develop the kinds of thinking that writers do [and] makes them far more amenable to examining the quality of the sentences. I write bad sentences all the time in my drafts. I write ungrammatical sentences. That's how I believe how most writers work. So that's what I want students doing. A lot of what I talk about in the book a matter of re-orienting our values. The publisher hype calls The Writer's Practice revolutionary. I see it as the opposite. I have an assignment that my third-grade teacher did about the components of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's not a revolution. It's stripping away the apparatus of school and getting back to essence.
[...] Interviewer: So why isn't the five-paragraph essay a useful starting point? Why isn't it like doing scales before playing music, or practicing free throws before playing basketball?
Warner: The danger is the prescriptive process that the use of the five-paragraph essay privileges. Students are given rules -- not just parts of speech and subject-verb agreement rules -- but [they are told] all paragraphs should have five to seven sentences. The last paragraph should start, "In conclusion," then summarize the previous three paragraphs. In a 500-word essay, the audience hasn't forgotten what you've said! So if there's a specific purpose where a five-paragraph essay is useful, go nuts.
Students need to be given experience wrestling with the full rhetorical purposes of writing. Doing that allows them to develop the kinds of thinking that writers do [and] makes them far more amenable to examining the quality of the sentences. I write bad sentences all the time in my drafts. I write ungrammatical sentences. That's how I believe how most writers work. So that's what I want students doing. A lot of what I talk about in the book a matter of re-orienting our values. The publisher hype calls The Writer's Practice revolutionary. I see it as the opposite. I have an assignment that my third-grade teacher did about the components of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's not a revolution. It's stripping away the apparatus of school and getting back to essence.
Er, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
The five-paragraph essay is the English language equivalent of "Hello World" and other elementary programs in a programming language. Once a student has proven (to himself and/or his instructor) that he can write basic functional essays/programs, and therefore write statements in the language he is using that are correct in both syntax and grammar, then he is free to write bad grammar in his drafts as much as he likes, because he has shown, at least in the simplest cases, that he knows how the language *should* be used, and can correct as necessary prior to publication/compilation. But if he has never written compile-able code, then what?
When one writes in a high-level programming language, one is writing so that the program is interpreted correctly by a compiler and that the machine does what one wants. When one writes in a human language, one should write so that the reader can interpret what one has written correctly and, hopefully, with as little effort puzzling over it as possible. This will maximize the probability that the reader will do what one wants.
"The Iron Imperative: Treat the reader's time as more valuable than your own." – Josh Bernoff.
Re:Er, no. (Score:5, Funny)
When one writes in a human language, one should write so that the reader can interpret what one has written correctly and, hopefully, with as little effort puzzling over it as possible.
Well said. I think the long history of people complaining over five-paragraph essays is more a sign of its success than failure. The annoying repetition is exactly what makes well-structured writing second nature for many students. I've taught plenty of college students from foreign countries or even U.S. territories where the five-paragraph essay was not enforced in high school, and this lack causes a significant and difficult learning curve for these students. They typically have trouble communicating in larger research essays because they never learned how to communicate well in five boring paragraphs. "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones" (Luke 16:10a).
How does a five-paragraph essay and rules help? (Score:5, Insightful)
The five-paragraph essay is the English language equivalent of "Hello World" and other elementary programs in a programming language. Once a student has proven (to himself and/or his instructor) that he can write basic functional essays/programs,...one should write so that the reader can interpret what one has written correctly
How does telling someone they MUST write five paragraphs of five to seven sentences help any of that?
Although I have not heard of that particular rule, I have seen the effect of mandates on length and structure - a lot of filler prose, a lot tortured text to fit into an artificial constraint - all of it working against expressed clarity of thought.
I agree it's good to help understand fundamental rules before you start breaking them meaningfully. Rules of grammar and syntax are important fundamentals.
A particular paragraph length is in no way a fundamental rule, instead it is a kind of canvas onto which someone skilled may paint a picture with words when they understand how to work them - forcing kids to write onto this space is like giving them a large canvas and oil paints when they have never even held a brush.
If we forced all kids to write nothing but limericks for several years it would be rightfully considered absurd. Yet the five paragraph essay would seem not to fall far from that tree.
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I agree the 5-7 sentence thing is news to me as well but there are and should be some rules for paragraphing. For example a single sentence would make a poor paragraph Generally paragraphs should have their own sort of introduction, body, and conclusion. What is the basic idea being proffered, supporting details or thoughts, and a summary to cement it. So I would say a paragraph will need at least three or four sentences. If you don't have four sentences chances are good the concept isnt really deservin
Re: How does a five-paragraph essay and rules help (Score:2)
For people such as those who belong to the slashdot crowd, the engineering method of paragraph construction is usually taught. There are other ways to teach paragraph structure, but that method seems to work best with STEM students. Basically, paragraph strategies revolve around devoloping an idea rather than number of sentences.
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How do you define an idea?
Defining sentences is easy and accurate. Just count the full stops.
Bear in mind that most teachers are not smart. My kids stick to the rules, why risk a bad mark?
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In my experience, that format was only used for kids. By the time we were teenagers, that format was long gone.
Unfortunately, that's not true. They still use it on the GRE [kaptest.com] for college graduates looking to go on to grad school. Sure, the GRE is a classist scam that no one with a functioning brain takes seriously (so about half of academia), but that's still how you've got to do it, and depending on the program it might be important to know how to give them their stupid format.
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The point behind the 5-paragraph essay is not to force you to write things in 5 paragraphs. It's to force you to first think about what you want to say, so you will present it in a manner whi
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This is just more teach the test crap.
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The 5 paragraph essay is really for handwritten essays. It's approximately 500 words long, and an average student should be able to compose one in about 45 minutes, including writing it out on paper.
That's the power of the 5 paragraph essay - to be able to show you can communicate an idea in a time limited environment. It shows you can compose an introduction, present your evidence and conclude. It's short enough you can quickly outline your ideas on a piece of scratch paper and write something cohesive in
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How does telling someone they MUST write five paragraphs of five to seven sentences help any of that?
As someone who was writing challenged all through high school, it helped me tremendously when I was introduced to it in college. It broke down this giant overwhelming thing into manageable parts. All I had to do was think of a thesis, think of three supporting points, and the essay was basically written. Thesis sentence, point 1, point 2, point 3, summary. First paragraph done. "Thesis" for point 1, supporting fact, supporting fact, supporting fact, conclusion. Second paragraph done, and so on. Once I was
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"Thesis" for point 1, supporting fact, supporting fact, supporting fact, conclusion
I agree with teaching the basic concept of breaking down ideas into multiple points.
That structure though, regardless of number of points, leads to a really unpleasant read I think.
Maybe just teaching the concept as intro; idea.*; conclusion you were supposed to have led them to and you better re-read what you wrote to make sure you did...
Also that structure encourages you to write the thesis first, when sometimes you are bet
Re:Er, no. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes... whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of learning the rules so you know when to break them? While I'll likely get flamed for this opinion but I don't see much writing (online, at least) that indicates an "over-reliance on teaching grammar". IMHO, it's not being emphasized enough. Running across an online article that's difficult to read due to the awful grammar is pretty much a daily occurrence. One wishes that many people writing today would have spent more time on the basics: proper grammar, correct spelling (hint: a lack of red squigglies does not mean you've nailed all the spelling), proofreading, defining abbreviations/acronyms on first use, etc. That so many fail to see that these are important makes me wonder if the writers really care at all about the ideas they're trying to present.
(Aside) I wonder about author's view on the current trend of online articles with one sentence paragraphs? I understand the need to fill up the screen with more whitespace so the dozen or more ads that litter the margins don't make it so obvious as to the real purpose of the web page ($$$, not conveying information/ideas) but no paragraph ought to be only a single sentence in length unless you're using it for emphasis. Single sentence paragraphs are right near the top of the list of popular-but-really-annoying writing devices---right next to the overuse of exclamation points and "here's three or four words of my own followed by a link to a real article that says what I wish I could figure out how to say without plagiarizing the source".
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whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of learning the rules so you know when to break them?
Noticed this ages ago. Peers in school would try to do odd things. OK, Fred, you're NOT Shakespeare or ee cummings, no matter if you think that you ARE. 1 out of a million can break the rules, and you're NOT Neo, you're in class supposed to be learning them. Neither is 99% of the current singing or rap population, either.
-----
ee cummings: modernist free-form poetry. Yeah, no punctuation, or lines, or much of anything -- I *HATED* that crap. And Emily Dickinson is just too depressing.
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While I'll likely get flamed for this opinion but I don't see much writing (online, at least) that indicates an "over-reliance on teaching grammar". IMHO, it's not being emphasized enough.
I agree with the former, but I believe that it is mostly due to people being unwilling to revisit grammar (and spelling) at an adult age. My approach in any (i.e. primary or secondary) language is to lookup words or grammar rules whenever I am unsure about them. A simple and effective strategy. We all forget things or have simply never learnt them well enough.
Other people seem unwilling to do this, perhaps out of shame of engaging in an activity that seems infantile (as learning grammar and spelling is some
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The five-paragraph essay is the English language equivalent of "Hello World"
No, it appears to be the American language equivalent.
In English we were taught spelling, grammar and poetry. I was never taught a five paragraph essay structure, just a more freeform 'begin, middle, end' that happily extends to other forms of writing too.
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Exactly.
Unfortunately a lot of people who see the greats who break the rules, think they shouldn't follow them as well, and produce crap, because they don't understand the foundation on where to go. And others who are so strict on the rules, they lock themselves into the structure vs what is needed.
This is true for almost any topic, Programming, Music, Ligature, Public Speaking....
Steve Jobs was one of the great public speakers. He went on stage with a turtle neck, not a suite. (He use to wear a suite ear
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Then there's "Turtle Neck" (should be one word, not capitalized) which he apparently put in. Who knows where?
Oh, and I doubt he meant "Ligature", unless we're talking about surgery. GP is an illiterate fucktard who should keep well away from anything about writing.
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"Cash me ouside how bow dah" is barely comprehensible to even American English speakers, right now
You say that but Irvine Welsh achieved fame by phonetically capturing spoken Scottish, so why wouldn't someone do the same for heavily accented American?
I've never even heard of Dr. Phil and don't know the meme to which you refer but it's pretty obvious that you're quoting someone saying, "Catch me outside, how about that?"
"mov yax, beex" cannot be interpreted, it is invalid and wrong
Maybe, but "move yaks beer" would be a fine piece of street art.
Essayâ(TM)s are short free associations (Score:1, Offtopic)
Ivory tower types use structure to assert authority where none exists
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If you want the reader to comprehend what you write, then you should use appropriate structure. If you want to convey appropriate meaning, then structure and length is almost required.
appropriate then reader you structure you you,. the to is, comprehend structure what you should almost use want and appropriate to If meaning If then length convey write want required
Make it easy for the reader (Score:4, Insightful)
The last paragraph should start, "In conclusion," then summarize the previous three paragraphs
So if the final paragraph summaries the preceding stuff, that is all a reader needs to bother with. Just skip to the last few sentences and it will convey the "meat" of the essay. And that means the reader doesn't have to wade through all the redundant stuff above it.
That sounds like a win, to me. A bit like an abstract in an academic paper.
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The last paragraph should start, "In conclusion," then summarize the previous three paragraphs
So if the final paragraph summaries the preceding stuff, that is all a reader needs to bother with. Just skip to the last few sentences and it will convey the "meat" of the essay. And that means the reader doesn't have to wade through all the redundant stuff above it.
That sounds like a win, to me. A bit like an abstract in an academic paper.
And why the Hell is TL;DR supposed to be at the bottom? If I didn't bother to read the article I'm sure as heck not going to see the bottom of it where the synopsis is "supposed" to be. Learned that a decade ago in business writing class my company sponsored.
Put it, and "In conclusion" at the top. If I want your justification or supporting details I'll read on.
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The business terminology is "Executive Summary" but yes, it does go at the start of a document.
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Technically, in journalism, it is called the 'lead' (or 'lede') and it should be the first paragraph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Related and relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Also good form when writing a lengthy email or comment.
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So if the final paragraph summaries the preceding stuff, that is all a reader needs to bother with.
Spoken like a true Slashdotter. TFS is all you need, eh?
In conclusion? (Score:3)
I thought starting a paragraph with "In conclusion" was the most uninspired, lazy, child-level writing habit. There are teachers actually prescribing this?
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That would make sense if you were coming to a conclusion (judgement/determination rather than ending). But it's just a summary. You don't need to find it or if you do it's always at the end.
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If had a stack of essays to mark at the end of a long day would you read them to the end? Or just skip to the conclusion.
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When someone is making a point it is often best to not go out seeking inspiration or creativity in doing so. Using introductions to your paragraph such as the phrase "In conclusion" is nothing more than a literary tool. You need to know when to apply it and when not to.
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Maybe it's also worth adding that a summary in itself is in no way a conclusion (except that it's an ending).
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Well written, engaging essays are not classified under "creative writing.". Teaching writing formulas does not teach general competence.
When did this become a thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm serious. The 5 paragraph essay is something with which I am completely unfamiliar. Is this some kind of gateway to literacy?
Re:When did this become a thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm serious. The 5 paragraph essay is something with which I am completely unfamiliar. Is this some kind of gateway to literacy?
A lot of American schools teach the 5 paragraph essay. 1st paragraph you describe what you are going to "make an argument for"; the next three paragraphs are separate supporting cases for your argument; so basically you backup your argument with three facts in your favour. The last paragraph summarizes the rest of the paper and gives a tidy ending.
There is nothing really wrong for it. For teaching basic concept of how to write something to make an argument for something it isn't bad. It's a format that makes it easy for students to think through what they need to do. It also makes it easier for teachers to grade fairly by having a rubric to go against.
The only problem with the 5 paragraph essay is that perhaps it is overused. As long as students learn other writing techniques and are exposed to a variety of projects there is nothing wrong with them in moderation.
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I wouldn't say I have seen literary genius in a 5-paragraph essay, but the formula and structure are a useful basic guideline for technical writing. I always push junior engineers to focus on one-page reports with Background, Analysis, and Recommendation. It is essentially the same structure, and it is useful for conveying an approach and recommendations for many things.
Of course it doesn't take the place of a full report (or a few quick lines in an email), but it is a nice simple construct for organizing t
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I suppose it's like if you're a mediocre musician you can stick to three chords and it'll sound OK, but a good one can slip the odd different one in and it'll sound more interesting.
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I went to school in two different parts of america, we did 5 paragraph essays starting in late elementary school, all of middle school and probably the first half of high school.
If I had to guess they were borne out of a need for people to be able to summarize some data in to a report that their manager could read. They definitely existed in the 80s and 90s, and probably some decades before that.
For writing emails to upper management, the one thing I did get from that writing style is to pre
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The key to an executive summary is to write it for that one key person that you need to make a decision or change. Understand what's going to be of interest and relevance to them, and include that, and only that.
What you or others think is important is irrelevant. The detail is irrelevant. In an executive summary the core message you need that one person to hear, conveyed in a form they'll understand and want to act on, is the sole thing that matters.
The rest of the document is there for them to copy when t
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Remarkably solid advice, thanks sir/madame
More creative writing? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you don't think non-fiction writing is creative then you may have been overtaught the five paragraph structure.
I can and do write business documents in a range of styles, adapting and adopting styles appropriate to the audience and how I want them to perceive it. A 'how to' for a technician is different to the same material for someone answering a telephone helpdesk and is in turn different to what an end user will best work with. Options papers, business cases, bids, technical reviews, designs and email
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3 Main Bullets (Score:2)
Obviously, having everything limited to three main points is ridiculous. So called "leaders" (bad managers) were usually just making decisions based on whose
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You could try numbering them, but they'll write the answer to 6 but label it as 8. Even if they only go up to 7.
Think "Patterns" (Score:3)
The problem for writing English is the same as for programming; It is based on the assumption that you can "manufacture" people with proper skills. The 5-paragraph essay and other "rules" included in English writing instruction are mostly conventions so that the "quality control" people (read, "teachers") can spot deficiencies without stressing themselves.
C. K. Ogden, co-author of, "The Meaning of Meaning," constructed a form of "Basic English" on the proposition that a person could communicate anything using his 850 words. If I was teaching writing, especially non-fiction, for the first two months I would limit my students to using only Ogden's vocabulary. Then for the next month I would allow them to increase their vocabulary as long as they only used E-Prime. Only then would I allow them to explore the possibility of writing like John McPhee, Charles Petzold, Robert Hutchins, or other exceptional non-fiction writers.
BTW, after learning to communicate precisely, the Random House "Word Menu" is a great tool for creating more interesting writing. https://www.amazon.com/Random-... [amazon.com]
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Do you not see the contradiction?
The point of the 5-paragraph essay.
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Sorry for not responding to this faster, but I had to order the book and read it thoroughly. At the time of my previous response I had only read excerpts.
You seem to think that I'm against the 5-paragraph essay. I'm not. The 5-paragraph essay has its uses and teaching concise communication seems appropriate to me. I'm against the 5-paragraph essay as a writing PRODUCT. The end result of writing (IMO) should be communication; not 5 paragraphs, not 7 sentences, not a concluding paragraph that says, "in conclu
Ridiculous! (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Coward
December 24 2018
Slashdot.com Forums
This article is ridiculous.
This article has no substance to it. Historically, students have written five paragraph essays and have been fine. In addition, it provides a very easy playround to learn new writing processes. Finally, it is an easy mechanism for teachers to grade.
When I was in Highschool, I learned how to write five paragraphs essays. We were instructed to provide an introductory paragraph, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. I turned out just find writing five paragraph essays. While this is obviously anecdotal evidence, it is my conclusion that anyone who cannot write a five paragraph essay is an idiot.
In addition, five paragraph essays provide an excellent sandbox for students to learn mechanisms of good writing. For example, in my eighth grade class, we needed to write an essay which focused on using transitional words, such as: first, second, thus, in addition, therefore, finally, as well as many others. Because of the small size of a five paragraph essay, it was easy to learn these mechanism and incorporate them into our writing. It would not be possible to learn how to use these words in smaller paragraphs. Essays longer than five paragraphs may be too long, and result in extra work without learning the core material.
Finally, five paragraph essays are easy to grade. Because all of the essays come in in a similar format, it can be easy to determine whether the structure of the paragraphs make sense. It becomes easy for thhe teacher to determine whether the student learned the core concepts of what was taught in class. The standardization also makes it easy for the teacher to compare students, as well as how different classes are performing. This would not be possible without the standard five paragraph essay.
In conclusions, the five paragraph essay must be used in classes. As we have learned, it has been used historically and high performance students have graduated learning the five paragraph format. The five paragraph format also provides an excellent playground for students to learn how to assemble their essays, as well as learn different techniques of writing. Lastly the standardization a five paragraph essay provides is useful way to standardize scores not only among students, but also among different classes in the same school. For these reasons, the five paragraph essay must continue to be taught in schools across America.
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I wish I had mod points, best post I've seen in months and months on slashdot.
Something I've found interesting (Score:3)
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Common Core is a list of what children at particular ages should know. It says absolutely nothing about how they should be taught.
Stop repeating what you heard on Fox News.
Who is it this time - lizardmen or the illuminati? (Score:2)
I'm not seeing where it says that.
From the horse's mouth: [corestandards.org]
What is the Common Core?
State education chiefs and governors in 48 states came together to develop the Common Core, a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics.
What guidance do the Common Core State Standards provide to teachers?
T
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Common Core math is just following that pattern. The point is to learn the technique, not get the answer itself, since there are any number of shortcuts
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It was explained poorly (Score:2)
Whether or not the five sentence paragraph or the five paragraph essay are useful, my exposure to it was a poor explanation on how it was to be done. It also only appeared in one grade, never to be used again aside from the infrequent mention of it. It also resulted in text that felt rigid compared to conventional writing.
How it was explained: The five paragraph essay is a composite of five sentence paragraphs. The first paragraph is the intro (which lists the three points covered in the next three sentence
No, they can't write (Score:2)
...because they can't read either.
Never had a "five para essay" when I was in colleg (Score:2)
or in high school On the other hand, my12th grade teacher, every Monday, had a sentence written on the board when we came in, and we had to wrote 500 words on that, or including that. That was what we did that period....
Problems and Solutions. (Score:2)
I can not even figure out what kind of 'writing' the person is trying to save, much less from what. The 5 paragraph essay format is used to teach techniques for making an argument or trying to give an overview of a topic, but the author seems concerned with fication or other storytelling, which the
Over-simplified advice that fails students (Score:2)
Academic writing is the most cognitively challenging thing any human being ever has to do. Learning to write it difficult because it not only requires us to learning a long list of component/constituent skills, but also to coordinate those skills simultaneously in specific ways in order to write well.
In the same way that we don't run full marathons every training session in order to become marathon runners, we shouldn't write whole essays every time we learn to write. Although it should be done in the conte
Elitist Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
I tutor inner city children taught in the Chicago Public Schools. I wish most of them could execute a five-paragraph essay. Quite frankly, I wish I could get single paragraphs with topic sentences, explanatory sentences and summarization at the end. For many 6th graders, single sentences with grammar and spelling is beyond.
For the best students, some of the hangup is indeed getting the first ideas down. These I teach to get it out (the vomit draft) and fix it later. Others can work with a "vomit outline" fix that, and write from there. But for half of them, going by complete formula would be a significant accomplishment.
Alas, teaching 35 kids at a time means those city teachers have to teach at a level that includes most of the class. So our author may be right for some parents improving their children at home, but misses what public school has to do.
Reading (Score:3)
These kids need to be encouraged to read more. Reading can provide a set of templates for an initial draft. The rough analogy is that it's easier to code when you've got examples to build on.
I get it (Score:2)
A Slip of the Keyboard (Score:2)
People need to read more Terry Pratchett, and learn his ideas on what is wrong with schools. Actually, his ideas can be summarized as "Don't trust schools to give you an education".
Has its place (Score:2)
Why isn't it like doing scales before playing music
I think this is a very insightful analogy. It's a starting point, a kind of toy essay that helps with the basics. I also like the analogy give once or twice above with the "Hello, World!" program.
And in the same way, if you can't play something besides scales or program something besides "Hello, world!", then the learning process is seriously off track.
Five paragraph essays are meant for easy grading (Score:2)
Ballmer (Score:2)
What must die is saying "X must die" where X is not, in actual fact, alive.
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Hypocrisy must die!
Two Paragraphs Missing : ) (Score:2)
If you don't train how to (Score:2)
They taught form over content as usual (Score:3)
There is nothing wrong with the five-paragraph essay once you understand that it is a structure which expands to fit the topic as necessary. Trying to impose sentence limits is sort of like demanding that people write their thesis in haiku form.
However, what we are seeing here is teachers dumbing down this formula in order to teach it to people who are congenitally unable to write. We keep dodging this in our egalitarian society, but: some are born to be writers, and some to be ditch diggers. Gosh, that sounds harsh, doesn't it? And yet it's reality.
A better question would be to ask who should be in our English classes, and why we no longer teach English through classical literature, which shows application instead of dry theory alone. Maybe to look into these "reaction essays" which are basically congenial emoting about a topic.
We teach form over content because not everyone can understand the content. As a result, we have generated a flood of nonsense from people who have no business writing.
Starting with constraints is a good thing (Score:3)
First, writing, like most things is rarely done without constraints. So you better get used to it.
Second, having too much freedom when you are inexperienced is overwhelming. Thinking about structure, choice of words, spelling, and the arguments themselves is a lot. Taking away some variables make things a bit more manageable.
The saying is: learn the rules, then learn how to break them. The 5 paragraph essay is the first part.
Re:But keep teaching them to return/tab... (Score:4, Insightful)
It'd be much more reaosnable to teach them how a word processor works.
There is no reason to tab at the start of a paragraph, the first line indent should be set as a paragraph style.
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Re: But keep teaching them to return/tab... (Score:2)
It's not the same at all.
Tab is a character, there's no reason to have a meaningless character at the start of every paragraph. The hard return is the important character that signals a new paragraph, not the tab.
The tab is an anachronism like two spaces after a period from when we used monosoaced fonts.
Tabs are for aligning things, not for paragraph starts. Hard return is for paragraph start.
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First line indent is a paragraph style
Space between paragraphs is a paragraph style.
Neither of these aesthetic choices should be conveyed with characters.
The hard return indicates a paragraph break. When you say newline character I assume that's what you mean, but the newline (soft return) of a word processor is not for paragraph breaks, it's for forcing a newline within a paragraph (probably should not be used in a word processor, but only in a more advanced layout program).
If people learned to separate ae
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It'd be much more reaosnable to teach them how a word processor works.
That's why kids these days waste their time messing with word's settings, rather than learning to let LaTeX do the heavy lifting for them.
Re: But keep teaching them to return/tab... (Score:2)
Getting the format you want for text with word us hardly any harder than latex.
It takes about a minute to go through the paragraph styles and page setup.
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It becomes a nightmare when you have large document with structures hierarchical numbering and mathematical equations. That's why I switched to writing my book in Latex after briefly fighting with word. I use word every day at work and it often makes life difficult one way or the other.
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I've never had a problem with structure if it was done intentionally from the start, but it's a disaster for placing anything aside from text.
Additionally it's lack of ligatures (maybe fixed by now) made it useless for a book.
I still think teaching the typical person how to setup and style a consistent document with word is likely going to have better time to benefit than using Latex, most people won't ever get to that level or use it enough to keep fresh with what to do.
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I used LaTeX for quite some time, because it was the preferred word processor in the engineering department of my University. Everyone used it and you were expected to use it as well. It's a good tool for writing scientific papers and similar things.
But when I moved to writing fiction narratives as a hobby I found other (proprietary) software, like Scrivener, a lot more comfortable to work with. Programs like these have a GUI that is designed to ai
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Scrivener looked nice when I tried it. No one wants to read any fiction that I would write though.
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I get the gripe with the five sentence, five paragraph essay. Had it shoved down my throat in school. But isn't the point to break up ideas into logical blocks?
That's the point of emphasis that's missing. How many sentences you use in a paragraph or how many blocks of ideas you need to argue your point is irrelevant.
There's nothing wrong with the 5 paragraph essay- as long as that isn't the only writing construction taught. Saying the 5 paragraph essay is bad is like saying a Toyota Camry is bad because it can't tow a boat. It is good that students be taught different styles of construction.
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I get the gripe with the five sentence, five paragraph essay. Had it shoved down my throat in school. But isn't the point to break up ideas into logical blocks?
That's the point of emphasis that's missing. How many sentences you use in a paragraph or how many blocks of ideas you need to argue your point is irrelevant.
There's nothing wrong with the 5 paragraph essay- as long as that isn't the only writing construction taught. Saying the 5 paragraph essay is bad is like saying a Toyota Camry is bad because it can't tow a boat. It is good that students be taught different styles of construction.
No it is like saying a go-cart is bad, because it is useless. The challenged raised was: Is there ANYTHING the 5 paragraph essay is good for. So far I haven't heard anything. It is an intermediate step at best before writing something useful.
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The challenged raised was: Is there ANYTHING the 5 paragraph essay is good for. So far I haven't heard anything. It is an intermediate step at best before writing something useful.
It's good for education. Most people will never utilize any real writing skill beyond what is taught in school. For those who are not good at essays, it gives them a good starting point. To me, the whole point of the article, is to have something to complain about. Nothing more.
Readers DO forget the point, even in /. posts (Score:3)
> 500-word essay, the audience hasn't forgotten what you've said!
My experience on Slashdot and elsewhere is that this is bad advance. Readers DO forget the point, or don't get the point, unless it's stated at the beginning and at the end.
The standard form essay is to state your point, support your point, and then close by restating your point. I've found that when I do that on Slashdot, I get far better replies, fewer replies to unimportant supporting sentences and more that go to the point of the discus
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As with all other things, this isn't a fully black-or-white situation. the 5-paragraph rule set is a creativity killer but can make exact science communication better under most circumstances.
Re: Readers DO forget the point, even in /. posts (Score:2)
The five-paragraph format isnâ(TM)t for scientific writing. Scientific writing utilizes the IMRAD format. Interestingly enough, the formulaic structure of the IMRAD format faces its own criticisms. For instance, if you look at the replication crisis in psychology/sociology, one cause thatâ(TM)s been suggested has been journals looking for papers that meet the conventions of the genre rather than providing useful content.
This is a problem with formulaic writing structures. You write for the structu
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Not having used either in the past, I wasn't aware of the IMRAD format.
I'm guessing writing conventions would help those who can't produce meaningful text otherwise.
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I've been karma capped for a decade+. In my experience the shorter the post the better. Sometimes only a 1 liner needs to stated, sometimes two paragraphs, sometimes more.
The problem with bullshit rules like this is that there are ALWAYS exceptions. Things should be made simple but no simpler. Sometimes there are complicated subjects being discussed which requires more detail. Sticking to a mindless rule is missing the point. The point is be clear and precise without a fucking wall of verbose text.
There a
True. And so close to being funny (Score:2)
> In my experience the shorter the post the better. Sometimes only a 1 liner needs to stated ... [goes on for several paragraphs]
That would have been funny had you not also said:
> Sometimes two paragraphs, sometimes more.
> The problem with bullshit rules like this is that there are ALWAYS exceptions.
True
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Did a "wall of text" hurt you when you were young?
Yes. Yes it did.
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That's fine, just replace it with COBOL class. It'll end up teaching them the same basic principles.
I dunno. COBOL is pretty verbose. "Hello World" might take up more than 5 paragraphs.