The lesson I learnt from this session was that there is no correct or wrong style of writing. Basically for every culture, written discourse is simply different and would be appreciated differently by different readers. Written discourse has many influences. These include religion, mother tongue, other dialects commonly used in the community, etcetera. For example, in the middle east, written discourse is very much influenced by the Quran text. Hence, the rhythmical balance.
Someone in my group pointed out something interesting. He wondered if the marker of our general paper (GP) mattered a lot, when it comes to grading our scripts. Since the marker of our general paper is probably some old scholar from a desolated part of England, he may not necessary appreciate our style of writing.
This made me wondered if my lousy GP grade in A levels was a case of differing style of writing, bad grammer, an unfamiliar topic or an essay that simply went out of point. I can't recall scoring less than a B for GP throughout my junior college years. However, to my dismay, I only got a C6 for A levels. I kept trying to justify this unsightly grade in my certificate. Now, I have one more justification of differing written discourse :P Whatever the case, it wouldn't change anything. Next time, at least in NUS, i know it'll be much beneficial to find out the preferred written discourse among tutors.
I personally feel that we shouldn't be too caught up in the style of writing as compared to what the writer is trying to express. As long as I get the main gist of the essay, any discourse would just be a universal one to me.
3 comments:
I suppose the grumpy old scholars marking your A level paper has been exposed enough to the Singaporean written discourse to know that you are possibly out of point? :p Much alike the professor that Dr Deng mentioned who could immediately identify an Arabic writer when he reads an anonymous article.
And I would disagree with you on the take that "As long as I get the main gist of the essay, any discourse would just be a universal one to me." I think written discourse is pretty important to understand the gist of an essay in the first place. Without it, I would honestly have thought that Chinese article we read in class was LITERALLY talking about flowers and regarded the author as being too free and lame. Haha!
Writing tests can be tough as there is always the human subjectivity of the markers involved, though I know there are procedures to minimize such subjectivity. One test alone may not be able to tell the competence of one's overall writing ability. Fortunately, you do not seem to have been hampered by your A level writing score.
You are only encountering this problem because you are not DEEP enough. HAHA
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