Friday, June 13, 2008

My Point, And I Do Have One (As I Rip Off A Lesbian)

In this little thread over at Marshall Art's blog, I make the following comment:
[I]f a journal has the word Thinker in its title, and the presentation of these thoughts is sloppy, confusing, illogical, contradictory, and error-prone, this isn't so much "attacking the messenger" as it is pointing out a big old glaring inconsistency.

To which the host replied:
Why do I get the feeling you haven't read nearly enough at AT to pass such judgements. In addition, you aren't likely to be able to truly debate the points made in most, if not all, of the articles successfully. I take this position due to the fact that you spend all your time attacking the grammar or sentence construction, as if any of that truly confounds the sentiment and/or point of any piece within. Frankly, when I read some lib nonsense, sentence structure is the last thing that concerns me.

First of all, my criticism was addressed to the specific article in question. I have not, nor do I ever intend to, read all the articles in American Thinker. Marshall asked, rhetorically, if the original piece to which he linked "wasn't Thinking". I said that, in fact, it wasn't. One of my criticisms was its poor presentation. I address why that is important, to me, in my comments. I thought I was clear enough, so I do not think I shall repeat myself.

Marshall says that he doesn't worry about sentence structure. He should, though. One of the first things I was taught in college was that, no matter how great one's ideas, how original one's insight, how thoroughly researched one's paper, if one cannot string together a grammatically correct sentence, then structure these sentences in to paragraphs, etc., then all that other stuff means nothing. Furthermore, to repeat myself, if a journal has the word "Thinker" in it, and a glaring lack of thought is strikes the reader in bad writing and illogical argumentation, there is a bit of a discrepancy.

My point here is simple - I was criticizing the structure of the article to which Marshall Art linked. I find it quite funny that my point, as simple as it should be obvious, is lost on him.

Virtual Tin Cup

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