Uncovering a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?

Post by **_Tom** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:47 pm

The latest from Herr Dokter Peterson: http://www.fairlds.org/Reviews/Rvw200702.html.

Post by **_Blixa** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:58 pm

"So we decided to examine the book for ourselves...So we decided to write our own review, documenting our own findings..."

Really? You mean the very text I'm actually reading now?

Way to state the obvious/pad things out/self congratulate/provide a bad model for Freshman Comp students everywhere (i.e. going to The Dictionary as your first "critical" move)....

Post by **_Dr. Shades** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:18 pm

Uhh, Tom, can you be more specific?

What point are you trying to make here?

Post by **_LifeOnaPlate** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:22 pm

Come on, B, I wanna see a free book review from you, ya?

Post by **_Bond...James Bond** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:23 pm

Blixa wrote:"So we decided to examine the book for ourselves...So we decided to write our own review, documenting our own findings..."

Really? You mean the very text I'm actually reading now?

Way to state the obvious/pad things out/self congratulate/provide a bad model for Freshman Comp students everywhere (I.e. going to The Dictionary as your first "critical" move)....

Quite. Dang. I'm an idiot and I know that writing papers in the 1st person is a no-no.

Post by **_silentkid** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:29 pm

I couldn't get past the first two "so we decided" declarations. Terrible. Get a ghost-writer.

Edited to add:

7th grader's writing sample wrote:Because the evidence we uncovered makes it questionable as to whether Bergera's book really qualifies as a "compendium" according to Webster's definition, perhaps a new title would be appropriate. It seems reasonable to suggest that a more fitting title might be "Selected Parts of First Presidency Statements Along with Certain Omissions to Fit an Agenda."

Bolded part = pure hilarity. High fives all around, guys. I guess I got past those first two "so we decided" declarations. I skimmed. I skipped.

Post by **_Blixa** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:10 pm

LifeOnaPlate wrote:Come on, B, I wanna see a free book review from you, ya?

If you look through back issues of the Daily Utah Chronicle from the late 70's you'll find a few, including one on The Monkey Wrench Gang. Let me know if you find it---I'm going to be teaching that book next semester in my Nature Lit course...

Post by **_silentkid** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:14 pm

Blixa wrote:If you look through back issues of the Daily Utah Chronicle from the late 70's you'll find a few, including one on The Monkey Wrench Gang. Let me know if you find it---I'm going to be teaching that book next semester in my Nature Lit course...

Blixa, this probably wouldn't qualify. After all, you read the entire book before submitting your review. The FAIR reviewers only read a couple of sections...;)

Post by **_charity** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:29 pm

You guys really ought to pick your battles. You can't win this one the merits of the case.

As soon as I saw the handy dandy little use of ellipses to alter the meaning of a text, that guy was a gone goose. When someone engages in that little trick, their have lost the game. It really is such an obvious error, you wonder why anyone of any intelligence or sophistication would chose to use it.

Post by **_Blixa** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:46 pm

charity wrote:You guys really ought to pick your battles. You can't win this one the merits of the case.

As soon as I saw the handy dandy little use of ellipses to alter the meaning of a text, that guy was a gone goose. When someone engages in that little trick, their have lost the game. It really is such an obvious error, you wonder why anyone of any intelligence or sophistication would chose to use it.

This "guy" knows what ellipses are. You don't, apparently. They are not an "error" but merely a tool of punctuation useful for highlighting pertinent sections of a quoted text. I could have done the same with bolding. Look! I'm doing it now!

Though nearly convinced, we were bothered. It is often said that if something looks too good to be true it usually is. So we decided to examine the book for ourselves, and found that the book was, indeed, too good to be true. So we decided to write our own review, documenting our own findings.

And what has changed? Have I left out some important, valuable information in a sneaky fashion? Has the excised portion proved my point (that the review spent time describing itself) false?

No.

P.S. I am not a guy. Nor is this a "game" with winners and losers.