This post originally appeared on Peachleaves blog. A friend sent me this link to an article about a psychologist’s study of pronoun use: The Secret Language Code In brief, the study notes the frequency with which speakers or writers use different pronouns (first person singular words like I, me, my vs. first person plural words… Continue reading “An I-word Salad”
Author: Sara Davis
Whoa whoa whoa!
This post was previously published at Peachleaves blog. Slow day at work, so I finished reading Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas. In the final chapter, my leisurely read-while-at-work pace was jarred when I reached this paragraph: What the surveys suggest is that if doctoral education in English were a cartoon character, then about thirty… Continue reading Whoa whoa whoa!
Found Object: Heat
This post was originally published at Peachleaves blog. So it’s hot and gritty in Philadelphia, the kind of summer in which I seem to be swimming to work, because I arrive slightly damp and tired as though all of my limbs have been resisting warm water. (I still eat lunch outside though. It’s preferable to… Continue reading Found Object: Heat
Maybe we teach it to them
This post was originally published at Peachleaves blog This article has been making the rounds of my Facebook peer group. It’s a thoughtful piece that puts a lot of effort into describing the conditions and causes of the current graduate school dilemma. I don’t think I agree with his conclusions (though I certainly haven’t any… Continue reading Maybe we teach it to them
Intellect Does Not Exclude Empathy
This post was originally published on Peachleaves. One of my jobs is to read papers written by senior English majors for their capstone seminars, and apply to them a rigorous rubric intended to judge how well (or if) these seniors have received the kind of training our department would like to give them. The papers are… Continue reading Intellect Does Not Exclude Empathy
Why I Don’t Participate in Book Surveys on Facebook
This post was first published on Peachleaves. They leave a lot of books out. When I see one of these, I don't ask myself how many books on the list I've read. I do ask: who put this list together? Why? How did they choose book for this list? What is having read them supposed… Continue reading Why I Don’t Participate in Book Surveys on Facebook
Sara Davis 