I remember we'd have reports where we need to write 10 pages and I would finish everything in 4 pages and have no idea what to do after that and then it just becomes a game of bullshitting to draw it out.
Same thing with essays where it needs to be a page long and I'm able to answer on a paragraph.
Maybe in philosophy it's necessary because the standard media is books or long essays so making sure you can play the "game of bullshitting" is a useful vocational skill in that field, to make your text long enough for people to buy your book.
No offense intended to philosophers, I love philosophy. But practical considerations like earning a living from a philosophy degree are perhaps different. It's kind of hard to sum up a new philosophical treatise in four pages since you'd probably take that long just to define your version of what "good" means.
Some profs are subject matter experts who have no actual understanding of Pedagogy. So they pick up whatever rules someone else tells them to use, and then with time figure out what works and doesn't from feedback (which students are always very hesitant to give).
Mine was a whooping 40 pages. Introduction to the subject was two sentences and the fact that if you need an introduction to the matter you should probably not be reading this thesis which deals with a super specialized area.
One of the reviewers refused to read it on the basis of the size. The four others looked relieved not to have to go though the history of physics again.
I hope that things are changing in this age of blogs and concerned information, the French idea of a thesis made of published articles and a few pages of glue is great.
You may notice that the second example is TERRIBLE writing: too many modifiers, uncomfortable sentence structure, repetition of full names instead of pronouns, uses and defines "cost benefit analysis" instead of... not doing that. But it's longer! Easier to fit that length minimum! If you intend to require a depth of argument or a number of pros and cons, say you'll grade on that.
2.) The style of writing in your second example would not get you good grade in writing course. Simple as that, while long enough, it is not good enough.
Depth of argument is not contradictory to good sentence structure. Or to good overall structure. The essay is not actually graded on smartness of argument, but on whether you present them well.
And yes, writing courses focuse on writing elements of text. Just like programming assignement focuses on coding and less on your work being useful.
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What you did there is trying to hack writing assignment. It typically does not work, teachers are typically not that dumb. They would however simply call that "bad writing" or "did not put in effort" rather then flattering "hacking the text".
Why? Because it works and because I'm trying to "hack" the system, in PG's words.
Back to the point, I think some students may very well just write whatever they think the teacher wants to hear and compounded with those extra credit points, you get selection bias in it of itself. The teacher may have a point, but maybe take it with a grain of salt.
As a teen I see a ton of people using their phones constantly and decided to go cold turkey after my junior year (no social media except twitter to stay up to date with ML research and HN for cool articles). Now instead of spending time addicted to whatever everyone else is, I spend a ton more time coding and learning cool stuff.
Cause bias against opinions expressed in writing assignments was a concern I had too.
Demonstrate a sufficient and working understanding of? Yes; which I guess could be considered aping. However I can't recall a time I've been outright penalized for challenging a teacher's take as long as some greater mistake in making my case was not at the same time undertaken. For instance, the misapplication of logical device, or tortured cherrypicking of data/context.
I've never professed to understand why many people view academia as an institution in which the end goal is to agree with the professor for the grade. I've always treated it as an institution for the search for answers to questions where the searching for good questions is arguably more important and more difficult than finding the answers. I can't count the number of times I've felt dejected because I've had an armload of data or observations that are somehow related, and I've not been able to do anything but stew in angst because while there was some meaning to it, I could never figure out how to formulate the question to which the observations were the answer.
Then again, I stuck around long enough for my Bachelor's, then got out. I might not have gotten to the point where there is a much higher stake in tipping the Professor's Sacred Cow.
I didn't believe it either until I experienced it personally.
Depends on the subject really. It's probably not a good idea to try any stunts in history etc.
"Though majoring in Visual and Environmental Studies
And minoring in History of Sci
I had to retake Ethics from my Mennonite professor
For whom my skepticism didn't fly.
"The first time I made mincemeat of the standard propositions
Establishing a so-called moral science
And I declared morality an offshoot of aesthetics
And got a failing C for my defiance."It, honestly, doesn't sound true.
Teachers have ego, yes, but they also can recognise value in student's work, even if it doesn't please them.
Of course the wrong answer is wrong, even if the student put a lot of effort in it.
Aping the teacher/professor is the fast path, not only for the purposes of being agreeable, but because the argument is well thought out at some level. Part of the educational processes is being able to make an argument that you don’t agree with.
... you probably are a genius!
Students usually talk about things they don't know, understand or can relate to (yet).
Or, as Alan Kay put it
> Socrates didn't charge for "education" because when you are in business, the "customer starts to become right". Whereas in education, the customer is generally "not right"
Edit: At least not on academic level, there I think it looks bit differently.