Fanfiction.net is the legally gray slum of literature, overpopulated with mostly bad Alternate Universe versions of popular novels. Unexpectedly, it hosts a few stories capable of truly impacting a person’s life.
Too abrupt. You need another sentence:
Fanfiction.net is the legally gray slum of literature, overpopulated with mostly bad Alternate Universe versions of popular novels. As would be expected, it hosts few stories capable of truly impacting a person’s life. Nevertheless, the site does contain a small number of works in this elite category [or replace with better sentence meaning the same thing].
or at the very least another word:
Fanfiction.net is the legally gray slum of literature, overpopulated with mostly bad Alternate Universe versions of popular novels. Unexpectedly, however, it hosts a few stories capable of truly impacting a person’s life.
A general comment: while this isn’t necessarily your fault (since you are quite possibly doing exactly what is expected of you), the whole style of these things makes me cringe. Yours is unfortunately no different, despite being about MoR. It just screams “admissions essay”.
Instead of making students write an inevitably insincere-sounding essay in response to some contrived prompt, colleges ought to either simply ask applicants straightforward questions (and expect straightforward answers), or have them submit writing samples of the applicant’s own choice, the way it works in the grownup world.
A general comment: while this isn’t necessarily your fault (since you are quite possibly doing exactly what is expected of you), the whole style of these things makes me cringe. Yours is unfortunately no different, despite being about MoR. It just screams “admissions essay”.
Instead of making students write an inevitably insincere-sounding essay in response to some contrived prompt, colleges ought to either simply ask applicants straightforward questions (and expect straightforward answers), or have them submit writing samples of the applicant’s own choice, the way it works in the grownup world.
This! I’m applying to college this year, and I hate admissions essays. They’re designed to reward signaling at the expense of substance even more than most things are. The admissions officers have no reason to believe that what I say is coming from my real personality, whether it is or not. I cringed while writing my own essays, and I know that my writing is worse quality when I don’t feel like I can communicate anything.
I’ve never heard of this “admissions essay” ritual before. Having just Googled for some sample essays, I agree that cringeworthiness is pretty much unavoidable and this essay does as well as can be hoped for on that score.
I wonder if there’s some way of making the ambition of the last section seem less crazy to a non-transhumanist by quoting Carl Sagan: “The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars”.
I cringed while writing my own essays, and I know that my writing is worse quality when I don’t feel like I can communicate anything.
This, this, a thousand times this. Admissions essays were the most nail-bitingly painful thing I have ever written, and they always came out poorly written in addition to being substanceless drivel. Eventually I just gritted my teeth, wrote them, and then sent them off without worrying as much about quality as I normally would. I’m very happy the process is over.
In any case, best of luck with your admissions essays, Normal_Anomaly.
I’ve heard complaints for years about using “impact” as a verb, but this is the first time seeing it has bothered me. Perhaps this is because the essay is heading into a picky environment.
Really? That’s a new one on me. On the other hand, I’ve frequently heard (and made) complaints about using “impactful” as an adjective—where ‘that event had a big emotional impact on me’ becomes ‘that event was very impactful’.
The use of impact as a verb meaning “to have an effect” often has a big impact on readers. In our 2001 survey, 85 percent of the Usage Panel disapproved of the construction to impact on, as in the sentence These policies are impacting on our ability to achieve success; fully 80 percent disapproved of the use of impact as a transitive verb in the sentence The court ruling will impact the education of minority students. · It is unclear why this usage provokes such a strong response, but it cannot be because of novelty. Impact has been used as a verb since 1601, when it meant “to fix or pack in,” and its modern, figurative use dates from 1935. It may be that its frequent appearance in the jargon-riddled remarks of politicians, military officials, and financial analysts continues to make people suspicious. Nevertheless, the verbal use of impact has become so common in the working language of corporations and institutions that many speakers have begun to regard it as standard. It seems likely, then, that the verb will eventually become as unobjectionable as contact is now, since it will no longer betray any particular pretentiousness on the part of those who use it.
Apparently the problem lies in using “impact” without the “on”. As in “it really impacted me”. Dictionary.com says that, though new, this usage is allowed in formal writing.
(By the way, you never responded to my comment about astrophysics. I was hoping for either a “sorry, kid but that’s not how it works” or an “oh ok, that makes sense”.)
Oh, that was just a terminology confusion—to me, what ‘astrophysics’ brings immediately to mind is ‘something kids think is cool’ + ‘writing obscure theoretical math and wrangling for telescope time all day’. I mean, if obscure theoretical math is your thing then more power to ya, but it seems likely that the set ‘people who think astrophysics sounds awesome’ is much larger than the set ‘people who think astrophysics is actually awesome’. But you went on to clarify you meant something like aerospace engineering, which—while it actually is rocket science—is perhaps ironically a lot less pie-in-the-sky than I was fearing.
TL;DR : Oh ok, that makes sense.
(And I am nowhere near old enough to call you ‘kid’.)
It’s pretty depressing to hear this is cringe-worthy but thanks :). Do you think the addition of “however” is enough? I think you’re right about the abruptness and it seems to me like that really helps.
Too abrupt. You need another sentence:
or at the very least another word:
A general comment: while this isn’t necessarily your fault (since you are quite possibly doing exactly what is expected of you), the whole style of these things makes me cringe. Yours is unfortunately no different, despite being about MoR. It just screams “admissions essay”.
Instead of making students write an inevitably insincere-sounding essay in response to some contrived prompt, colleges ought to either simply ask applicants straightforward questions (and expect straightforward answers), or have them submit writing samples of the applicant’s own choice, the way it works in the grownup world.
This! I’m applying to college this year, and I hate admissions essays. They’re designed to reward signaling at the expense of substance even more than most things are. The admissions officers have no reason to believe that what I say is coming from my real personality, whether it is or not. I cringed while writing my own essays, and I know that my writing is worse quality when I don’t feel like I can communicate anything.
I’ve never heard of this “admissions essay” ritual before. Having just Googled for some sample essays, I agree that cringeworthiness is pretty much unavoidable and this essay does as well as can be hoped for on that score.
I wonder if there’s some way of making the ambition of the last section seem less crazy to a non-transhumanist by quoting Carl Sagan: “The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars”.
This, this, a thousand times this. Admissions essays were the most nail-bitingly painful thing I have ever written, and they always came out poorly written in addition to being substanceless drivel. Eventually I just gritted my teeth, wrote them, and then sent them off without worrying as much about quality as I normally would. I’m very happy the process is over.
In any case, best of luck with your admissions essays, Normal_Anomaly.
I’ve heard complaints for years about using “impact” as a verb, but this is the first time seeing it has bothered me. Perhaps this is because the essay is heading into a picky environment.
Really? That’s a new one on me. On the other hand, I’ve frequently heard (and made) complaints about using “impactful” as an adjective—where ‘that event had a big emotional impact on me’ becomes ‘that event was very impactful’.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impact
I suspect that there was never anything wrong with using impact as a verb, but a rule appeared out of nowhere as a matter of status enforcement.
Apparently the problem lies in using “impact” without the “on”. As in “it really impacted me”. Dictionary.com says that, though new, this usage is allowed in formal writing.
Huh. Today I learned something new!
(By the way, you never responded to my comment about astrophysics. I was hoping for either a “sorry, kid but that’s not how it works” or an “oh ok, that makes sense”.)
Oh, that was just a terminology confusion—to me, what ‘astrophysics’ brings immediately to mind is ‘something kids think is cool’ + ‘writing obscure theoretical math and wrangling for telescope time all day’. I mean, if obscure theoretical math is your thing then more power to ya, but it seems likely that the set ‘people who think astrophysics sounds awesome’ is much larger than the set ‘people who think astrophysics is actually awesome’. But you went on to clarify you meant something like aerospace engineering, which—while it actually is rocket science—is perhaps ironically a lot less pie-in-the-sky than I was fearing.
TL;DR : Oh ok, that makes sense.
(And I am nowhere near old enough to call you ‘kid’.)
Is this really a problem? I can keep it as “affecting” but I liked it much better before.
Probably not really a problem, since no one has voted my comment up.
It’s pretty depressing to hear this is cringe-worthy but thanks :). Do you think the addition of “however” is enough? I think you’re right about the abruptness and it seems to me like that really helps.
As a piece of writing, it fulfills the purpose for which it was intended. However, that purpose is a necessary evil. Please don’t take it personally.