Tuesday 21 October 2008

For your entertainment

For the entertainment of blog readers, and particularly for those of you who have had to put up with working with me closely on any project that required significant attention to detail, I submit an extract of the final comments on my Masters thesis from one of the markers:

Report on G.Cheng Thesis
3 August,2008

[stuff]

His bibliography has been improved in scope and use, but I am still irritated at the number of omissions and inconsistencies, which suggest that the candidate is not good at accurate checking, or does not believe that such matters are important. If the candidate is to go on to doctoral studies, he will have to improve in this regard. There are mistakes in citation of sources, which I have indicated in the margin.

[stuff]


Yeouch! Cop that!

Well, guilty as charged your honour. I admit it. I am lousy at paying attention to typographical and publication details, and probably quite a bit more besides along similar lines.

Only, if I may be allowed the smallest of responses, may I point out that the title of these comments, 'Report on G.Cheng Thesis' does not conform to the usual way of citing such sources. Nor does it provide sufficient information to accurately identify the publication referred to.

In addition, the formatting of these comments is sloppy, noting for instance the absence of a single space after the fullstop in 'G.Cheng'[sic] and the similar absence of a single space after the name of the month in '3 August,2008'[sic].

There, got that off my chest. Now I better stop being a smartmouth, before my marker googles these comments and threatens to challenge the awarding of the degree. As you were, everybody, move along, nothing to see here.

11 comments:

Baddelim said...

Contragulations!

(If you intentional include errors, it helps keep people awake and alert; its for they're own good.)

David McKay said...

I reckon youse guys have been watching Open All Hours.

Anonymous said...

i remember when i did my masters they pulled me down a grade for my bibliography but then another academic said i should have paid someone to do the biography in the format they wanted

Anonymous said...

He he. Good response.

I must say, while I constantly trangress the Lord's commandment on judging whenever I read what I perceive as bad grammar, if that is the worst that can be written about you, I think you are doing well. And I, though I may disagree with your PoV at times, have always thought your writing is clear, intelligent, and readable. God bless.

Sarah B said...

Congratulations Gordo, it's always good to be able to have the last word isn't it!

Lucy C said...

Lucky those dudes at Matthias Media didn't read this before they let you hang around their coffee machine.

Unknown said...

Well done Gordo.

You are in good company. Many great ones have introduced their citations with 'As it is written ...' and leave the reader to figure out where it is from.

Anonymous said...

I thought you had 'editor' somewhere in your job description?

David McKay said...

Tricky editing your own stuff, but.

Anonymous said...

One of the markers of my MTh corrected the following sentence: "The outcome is that Genesis 1 also is indefeasibly androcentric," replacing "indefeasibly" with "indefensibly." Problem was this was a quote from David Clines (I was disagreeing with it) and Clines did use the word "indefeasibly" and not "indefensibly."

Those markers don't always get it right!

Gordon Cheng said...

Thanks folks for all your nice comments. Martin, believe it or not I have a vague memory of that very sentence. And I have heard of the word 'indefeasibly', although even now I am not sure what it means. I might go look it up now!