Best Paper I've Ever Seen

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by GePap

The guy's laguage is good, but the substance is ****, and a big fat failure.

Why is it, despite your protestations otherwise, that it appears that your arguements around substance are merely arguments around viewpoint.

[DinoDoc]

Why is it the debate about the crap paper has lasted longer than the crap paper did?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Because its an environmental thing. Something that won't biodegrade.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Why is it, despite your protestations otherwise, that it appears that your arguements around substance are merely arguments around viewpoint.

What arguements? He makes many statements. The only halfway arguement he ever makes deals with the nature of natural selection, and there I don't think he did enough to back his view that somehow human logging is part of the process. One would simply ask, if the Spotted Owl is so poor a creature, why it lasted in it's natural environment (as opposed to e new artifical one developed in a very short time by man) long enough to meet loggers. But our brilliant wrter fails to answer that one.

The only reason anyone defended this paper was becuase of the views presented.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by GePap
For example, one person used the word "filmic" FILMIC! Its CINEMATIC for god's sake!

'Filmic' is in the dictionary. It might not be the best word, but you can't blame someone for using it.

Before you all get infuriated, take into account that 'filmic' exists in many other languages, and that it might just have intoxicated English.

[BeBMan]

I think a better start for this paper would have been:

"Spotted owls are stupid. Throw rocks at them."

[Agathon]

Well, I've marked thousands of university papers and I would have loved to have had this as an example of a bad paper. Really bad papers are worse than this one, which redeems itself by being hilarious.

The whole topic is stupid anyway. I mean, people complain about philosophy assignments, but writing about the foundations of morality or abortion rights is infinitely more interesting than writing about some butt**** owl that no one gives a stuff about. About the only thing worse are the papers that biology students have to write about diverse types of goo or that psych students have to write about torturing mice.

What would I do? Laugh, and tell him to write it again.

[Agathon]

I just remembered, about six or seven years ago a student in one of my classes submitted a philosophy test which was a bit like this. I think the student just hated the course. Anyway, he submitted a five page rant that had nothing to do with the questions. It said things like:

"Socrates is basically an ugly, annoying old ****."

"Who does he think he is? Surely the citizens of Athens have better things to do than be annoyed by this geriatric arsehole. Good on them for putting him to death, the boring bastard."

"All the Greeks were child molesters. How the hell can we take Socrates' morality serious when he's taking it out on little boys."

"Who gives a **** about arguments?"

I actually sympathised with some of these views.

[Tingkai]

As an academic paper, give it an F for lack of logic, knowledge and substantiation. As a rant, maybe worth a B. I've seen better here.

[Chemical Ollie]

I like the paper. I wrote some stuff in the same spritit when I was at university.

I had a German teacher who was both green-freak and feminazi and embedded her political views in her education. We had to translate sentences like these to German:

It is right to protest against nuclear power.
Men should change diapers on their children

So when we was asked to write an essay about environmentalism, I wrote about how to achieve a cleaner environment by building more nuclear power stations. I passed.

In another class I attended out of curiosity but did not need for my M.Sc degree or the career I planned, I decided to make an attempt on the exam anyway. It was my last exam of the year, the sun was shining outside, and the party weekend of the year was awaiting. One exam question was to briefly draw a solid waste incineration plant for a large city, in such a way that it would fulfil the EU environmental laws. I took out my coloured highlighter pens and drew a large bonfire, then drew arrows to the smoke stack and described the chemical components of the smoke (POM, PAH etc). I also pointed out that if the wind is right, the pollution fallout would end up in Russia, thus outside EU. I did not pass.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Why is it, despite your protestations otherwise, that it appears that your arguements around substance are merely arguments around viewpoint.

GePap,

Your arguements that thepaper is crap and that is deserves to fail in no way addresses the intention of the OP. Which was to say it was humorous. Your attempt to diss the paper on academic grounds belies IMO your attempt to discredit it on terms of viewpoint over 'substance'.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Where did I write formal debate, numbnuts?

You said:

What if it's a persuasive speech for Speech class?

If its for a university level speech class then its formal debate. That paper is not a good example of formal debate.

[Kropotkin]

Ollie: But that you didn't pass is just because you're a victim of the communist conspiracy that rules the educational system.

[Chemical Ollie]

Not really. I passed the German class because I stayed on the topic and wrote in decent German (despite letting the commie teacher taste her own medicine). I failed the Environmental Technology exam because I didn't study enough and didn't care (because I didn't need that class for my degree or planned career). Only lamers blame their own failures on some conspiracy.

[Solomwi]

That's a pretty broad definition of debate.