In the few days before 2012 ends and 2013 begins, we’ll be looking back at some of our top posts from the past year, starting with number five and counting down to number one. If you missed these articles the first time around, now’s your time to see why we’ve found these particular pieces so compelling.
#1
The Best Advice I Ever Got For Writing in English: “Treat the Professors Like Idiots”
By Sunny Peng
Our top post for 2012 was also one of best revelations we’ve ever had on the blog. It was Sunny’s recounting of a piece of advice she got during her freshman year: “… to treat the professors like idiots …”
Read it: “The Best Advice I Ever Got For Writing in English: ‘Treat the Professors Like Idiots’“
“In my first semester,” Sunny explained, “I would always receive comments on my papers like, ‘Try to be more clear (explicit),’ no matter how clear and explicit I thought my papers were.”
A savvy teaching assistant eventually helped her figure out the problem:
My high school Chinese teacher always reminded us to not tell readers everything, but rather to leave space for their “reconstruction” of our words. This does not work in the U.S., where you are expected to be very explicit in making your arguments and not make assumptions without fully explaining them.
Or, as her TA put it, in what Sunny described as a “very blunt and funny way,” she needed “to treat the professors like idiots, and explain everything very clearly to them in my essays.”
This idea generated a lot of discussion among our readers. Some commenters suggested that Americans may be trying to avoid critical thinking, but Sunny countered that “critical thinking is one of the most important things I have been learning from Americans.”
Commenter Dana eventually explained, “It is precisely because they *do* apply critical thinking skills to what they read that most Americans tend to prefer that writing be more direct.”