VCE Stuff > AN’s Language Analysis Club

2018 AA Club - Week 10

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Anonymous:

--- Quote from: Anonymous on March 09, 2018, 10:31:15 pm ---I feel as if I'm reading too deeply into this and making connections out of thin air. I also didn't know how to go about structuring my piece, as the prompt was really subtle and toned done in the way that it was persuasive, so I waited for someone else to write first (btw thanks kat01). Also, I kept reading Ladyman as Layman, so when I read the last paragraph and thought to myself, "couldn't he have written this in layman's terms?", I'd thought I'd made a connection. Need to brush up on both my writing and reading skills.

Thanks in advance for critiquing this piece. I am also a high school student and I'm by no means an expert.. but i thought i would try to help you while you wait for someone to correct it! :)

Debates have sparked in response to the rising concern about the disparity between income for university staff and heads of department as well as unreasonably high student tuition fees. In response to an editorial in the Observer regarding this topic, Professor James Ladyman from the Department of philosophy in the University of Bristol has written an opinion piece in an a decisive and controlled tone to contend that the income inequality experienced by university staff and the rising tuition fees are unjustifiable and undeserved, thereby aiming his piece to students as well as his fellow staff.

Ladyman begins by asserting is a measured tone that highly paid university staff members don't contribute to the university, sometimes having not "[taugh]t students nor [carried] out academic research" "in years". Try be more specific about the argument he uses.. include the rest of the problem (they haven't taught in years yet are highly paid?") As Layman himself holds a position within a university, this attack holds more credibility, as he may have seen this firsthand. This would work to rile teaching staff who would've otherwise been ignorant of the inconsistency in their teaching responsibilities. (what is the impact? How are readers left feeling?)

Maybe try starting your paragraph with the argument, not the technique he uses.
Ladyman also points out how "deans, heads of department and promotion committees" are now appointed instead of being elected, and thus implies that they've changed the rules so that they could potentially remain in a high paying position, which would elicit fury in the readers, as they realise that they've no way of breaking this cycle through traditional means of electing an incorrupt staff member to make changes. This is further exemplified by the claim that decision making is non-inclusive of university staff who are in direct contact with students.

Ladyman builds on his previous argument by juxtaposing the highly paid staff who contribute little to the school with teachers who are often "hourly paid" despite interacting with students on a regular basis, which would prompt readers to reach the conclusion that this is an unfair system and thereby protest against the income inequality. Maybe include this in one of your paragraphs instead of basing a whole paragraph on this?

As for the students, Layman states that the rise in tuition fees are wasted on "consultations and surveys", which should be the univeristy's responsibility, especially when it has no effect on the students. This would therefore be very upsetting for students, who've realised the money they've paid in school fees is of no benefit to them. Include how this aims to position the readers to agree with him

Ladyman ends his piece on a more philosophical note, by claiming that all is for naught, or at least nothing good, although not in such layman's terms, in order to cement his assertion that there is an unfair use and distribution of money around universities. I really like this :)


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Anonymous:
I tried changing the colour of the font, but clearly it didn't work.. lol so sorry!! ^^

Anonymous:
Hello! Sorry this is my first one of the year. I'm sorry if its not great. Thanks in advance for marking this :)

There had been much recent debate about the inequality between university students and teaching staff, and department heads in Britain. Professor James Ladyman, who is a direct stakeholder in this issue, being a Department Head himself, writes in a letter to the editor, a reply to a previous article. In keeping with his position at a University, he writes is a formal style. While writing in a predominantly authoritative and calm tone, it does shift to have a more mocking edge towards the end. Ladyman is contending that the high wages of certain non -teaching staff is underserved and doesn’t reflect a significant contribution to the University’s standing. He is addressing readers of The Observer as well as anyone who is following the debate.

Ladyman intends to make his contention clear and memorable by having a clear structure that places the contention, that ‘universities are not run by those who teach them’ and they should be, at the very beginning of the letter. This ensures that the reader is not confused about the direction of the piece, and thus enables Ladyman’s subsequent persuasive endeavours to be effective at positioning the reader to agree with Ladyman’s position.

Ladyman argues that the ‘deans and pro-vice-chancellors’ aren’t an essential part of the University’s role. He does so by juxtaposing their lack of ‘tutorial’ and ‘academic research’ against the commonly held, assumed knowledge that University is a placing of teaching and learning. This thus makes the deans and pro-vice-chancellors appear dispensable to the reader, and thus undeserving of the high wage. This is continued by an overt appeal to democracy, noting that they were once ‘elected’, which positions the readers to consider that there are alternative options that are fairer. The alliterative phrase ‘appointed from above’ is attempting to play on anti-authoritarian values, to encourage the reader to reject the current controlling process.

Layman argues that the contribution of the deans and pro-vice-chancellors is overrated and underperforms. He does so by juxtaposing the highly respected role of teaching against his claims of inefficiency, disruption and waste caused by the non teaching staff. This is emphasised by Layman noting that teaching is paid by the hour, which infantilises it and associates it with youth jobs that carry little important. This positions the reader to change the standard of payment, to match their expectations of teaching. Here, Ladyman becomes somewhat mocking, using the general dislike of bureaucracy to encourage the reader to reject the assumed importance of the deans’ and colleagues work, with a cliche that we are becoming a ‘generation of benchmarks and targets’.

The hyperbolic ‘countless’ exaggerates to the reader the oxymoronic nature of the ‘vision’ statements of the universities, that contain no vision worth ‘immortali[sing]’. This intends to highlight the absurdity of this, which would make the role carried out by these people seem moronic to the reader. Ladyman concludes with a metaphor, of ‘our cathedrals of learning’,that hopes to create a strong, emotional tether for the religious, and generally strong imagery for all, that would make the contention reverberate with the reader, as to improve the likelihood that the reader will agree with the contention that the inequality between the wages of teachers and administrative staff needs to be resolved.

scout:

--- Quote from: Anonymous on March 09, 2018, 10:31:15 pm ---I feel as if I'm reading too deeply into this and making connections out of thin air. I also didn't know how to go about structuring my piece, as the prompt was really subtle and toned done in the way that it was persuasive, so I waited for someone else to write first (btw thanks kat01). Also, I kept reading Ladyman as Layman, so when I read the last paragraph and thought to myself, "couldn't he have written this in layman's terms?", I'd thought I'd made a connection. Need to brush up on both my writing and reading skills.

Thanks in advance for critiquing this piece.

Debates have sparked in response to the rising concern about the disparity between income for university staff and heads of department as well as unreasonably high student tuition fees. In response to an editorial in the Observer regarding this topic, Professor James Ladyman from the Department of philosophy in the University of Bristol has written an opinion piece to express in an a decisive and controlled tone that the income inequality experienced by university staff and the rising tuition fees are is (in reference to 'the income inequality')unjustifiable and undeserved, thereby aiming his piece to at students as well as his fellow staff.

Ladyman begins by asserting is a measured tone that highly paid university staff members don't contribute to the university be careful with very conclusive statements like this. It would be more accurate to say that they don't contribute as much as their pay would suggest, sometimes having not "[taugh]t students nor [carried] out academic research" "in years". As Layman himself holds a position within a university, this attack holds more credibility, as he may have seen this firsthand, although this isn't explicitly stated in his piece except for his use of inclusive language. This would work to rile teaching staff who would've otherwise been ignorant of the inconsistency in their teaching responsibilities. might it also elicit guilt in these teaching staff? for the fact that they're essentially earning 'free money' to some extent?

Ladyman also points out how "deans, heads of department and promotion committees" are now appointed instead of being elected, and thus implies that they've changed the rules so that they could potentially remain in a high paying position, which would elicit fury in the readers, as they realise that they've no way of breaking this cycle through traditional means of electing an incorrupt staff member to make changes. I know what point you're trying to make; it's a very important point and you kind of got there in the end. But try to make your explanation clearer - try to think of single words that could best describe what's happening here. Do you sense a kind of bureaucracy being established in universities, perhaps?This is further exemplified by the claim that decision making is non-inclusive of university staff who are in direct contact with students.

Ladyman builds on his previous argument by juxtaposing the highly paid staff who contribute little to the school with teachers who are often "hourly paid" despite interacting with students on a regular basis beyond their designated teaching periods (sometimes additional, seemingly minor comments like this can add clarity to your reasoning), which would prompt readers to reach the conclusion that this is an unfair system and thereby protest against the income inequality.

As for the students, Layman states that the rise in tuition fees are wasted on "consultations and surveys", which should be the univeristy's responsibility, especially when it has no direct effect on the students learning (which is what tuition fees should be invested in!). This would therefore be very upsetting for students, who've realised the money they've paid in school fees is of no immediate benefit to them (since it's arguable that money spent in "surveys" etc. may prove useful to students in the long-term (if the results are used to guide program design or planning). Whether these long-term benefits will occur is, as you rightly point out, questionable  :) .

Ladyman ends his piece on a more philosophical note you seem to be alluding to the phrase "our cathedrals of learning" -
you could definitely squeeze out a juicy analysis out of that! ;) "cathedral" is a heavily connoted word. What implications does it hold and what do they say about the inherent responsibilities or purpose of universities?, by claiming that all is for naught, or at least nothing good, although not in such layman's terms, in order to cement his assertion that there is an unfair use and distribution of money around universities.


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scout:

--- Quote from: Anonymous on March 11, 2018, 05:55:11 pm ---Hello! Sorry this is my first one of the year. I'm sorry if its not great. Thanks in advance for marking this :)

There had been much recent debate about the inequality in income between university students and teaching staff, and department heads in Britain. Professor James Ladyman, who is a direct stakeholder in this issue, being a Department Head himself, writes in a letter to the editor, a reply to a previous article. In keeping with his position at a University, he writes is a formal style. While writing in a predominantly authoritative and calm tone, it does shift to have a more mocking edge towards the end clear up your expression a bit. Ladyman is contending that the high wages of certain non -teaching staff is underserved and doesn’t reflect a significant contribution to the University’s standing. He is addressing readers of The Observer as well as anyone who is following the debate.

Ladyman intends to make his contention clear and memorable by having a clear structure that places the contention, that ‘universities are not run by those who teach them’ and they should be, at the very beginning of the letter. This ensures that the reader is not confused about the direction of the piece, and thus enables Ladyman’s subsequent persuasive endeavours to be effective at positioning the reader to agree with Ladyman’s position. this paragraph does demonstrate your understanding of Ladyman's structural tactics, which is good! But it isn't the most important part of AA so you can afford to be much more succinct here.

Ladyman argues that the ‘deans and pro-vice-chancellors’ aren’t an essential part of the University’s role. He does so by juxtaposing their lack of ‘tutorial’ and ‘academic research’ against the commonly held, assumed knowledge 'preconception' or 'belief' would be more accurate that University is a placing of teaching and learning. This thus makes the deans and pro-vice-chancellors appear dispensable to the reader, and thus undeserving of the high wage. This is continued by an overt appeal to democracy democratic values, noting that they were once ‘elected’, which positions the readers to consider that there are alternative options that are fairer. <-- good --> The alliterative phrase ‘appointed from above’ is attempting to play on anti-authoritarian values, to encourage the reader to reject the current controlling process.

Layman argues that the contribution of the deans and pro-vice-chancellors is overrated, since they and underperform. He does so by juxtaposing the highly respected role of teaching against his claims of inefficiency, disruption and waste avoid using the direct wording of the article itself when analysing caused by the non teaching staff. This is emphasised by Layman noting that teaching is paid by the hour, which infantilises it and associates it with youth jobs that carry little important <-- be careful here.
 I thought you were contradicting Ladyman's contention for a sec, until I read your next sentence. Streamline the two sentences to avoid this confusion. This positions the reader to want to change the standard of payment, to match their expectations of teaching. Here, Ladyman becomes somewhat mocking, using the general dislike of bureaucracy to encourage the reader to reject the assumed importance of the deans’ and colleagues work, with a cliche that we are becoming a ‘generation of benchmarks and targets’. not sure what this line is for

The hyperbolic ‘countless’ exaggerates to the reader the oxymoronic nature of the ‘vision’ statements of the universities, that contain no vision worth ‘immortali[sing]’. This intends to highlight the absurdity of this, which would make the role carried out by these people seem moronic informal language to the reader. Ladyman concludes with a metaphor, of ‘our cathedrals of learning’,that hopes to create a strong, emotional tether for the religious, and generally strong imagery for all yes... keep going with your analysis! You flagged a key opportunity for an awesome analysis but you didn't use that method of detailed analysis that you used all along! Why the reference to cathedrals specifically?, that would make the contention reverberate with the reader, as to improve the likelihood that the reader will agree with the contention that the inequality between the wages of teachers and administrative staff needs to be resolved.

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