Pull the Lever, Kronk!

 

Oh, Kronk, such a great character. Ha. I think we have all taken Kronk’s great repetition of syntax in our essays throughout the years. Especially high school essays. Oy. Speaking of high school…. remember when teachers would tell us that the college professors were going to be such a-holes and not bestow mercy upon us? Riiiggghhhhtttttt. *Kronk voice*.

I was in AP English classes for the last two years of high school, and we were taught MLA. No other form. No APA, or other fancy abbreviation styles. We were told again and again that we had to sound like the dudes who wrote the U.S Constitution, or else we’d fail in life. Of course, the university expectations are the same, however, there is so much more freedom to writing–a term I didn’t think I’d use when writing “formal” essays.

In most of my classes, the ones that aren’t English classes, the use of MLA is most common. In my Latin American Studies class last year, I wrote the most basic paper ever, and I got an A. My point is that those types of classes are much easier to hinder the formality of your writing. The professors don’t expect the hard words to be expressed on the paper, which I believe is less rigorous than that of high school. I mean, of course, I had classes where I was like “Well, I have to write about race and gender…how the fuck do I write that?” Oh yeah. And one more thing that kinda blew me away from the differentialities of high school and college writing was research papers.

Research papers. Dear. Lord. The most difficult thing about research papers is looking up the shit. Do I want to spend my precious time researching about the Guatemalan peninsula and the Tikal architect? Yeah, I was interested in that only because of my heritage. Ha. But…I wasn’t interested in putting up with the research. Those papers are the most popular form of essays from the “common” classes.

I was blessed to have been in Kelly Candelaria’s class because while she had to go through MLA, she made me realize that the point I want to make across to the reader is something I control. I control what I say, and I have the freedom to incorporate the evidence that attains the knowledge of my point. I know it’s the principle of basic research papers, but that class was a big epiphany.

And lately, I’ve been pissed at journalists because sometimes I don’t understand what they’re saying. It makes me feel like I can’t read, and that they have to dumb down the information for me, but in all honestly, the media needs to wipe that “smartass rhetoric”.I’m like, “No, that big word doesn’t belong there, stop flaunting! get through with the message!” Sigh. Not like I can change it….yet…

 

Anyways, that’s a big transition I think, is the research papers. And I think that it’s ok to not be so formal–well not messy either–but at least have a voice. Because then we’ll be sounding like Kronks for the rest of our lives.

 

We are all Kronks. I totally don’t/will never deny it