My grad advisor wants me to show my paper draft to one of the technical writing tutors. Should I be offended?

Don't be a cuck - listen to them and have another set of eyes on your thesis. Let someone else edit and and review it. Take your ego out of it. It makes life easier.

Harambe wrote:

should i be insulted? wrote:

STEM grad student in computational science and engineering (essentially an applied math/science degree). My undergrad was done at a top 10 university and I am in graduate school at a top 5 university.

Ok you certainly need writing help them. Did you take any writing beyond freshman English?

Embrace the fact that you have an advisor who is interested in your education and improvement. You will learn from this. That is the point of school.

Pretty sure they just do a word count on the writing section of the GRE and assign a grade based on that. Not exactly helping your case here.

Okay all, I got back the paper draft from the tutor. The tutor told me that overall, he found the manuscript to be very well written. He mainly made a few edits that would reduce unnecessary words and better help reader comprehension.

It was helpful to think about and it's good to know that I do still have somewhat good writing skills.

Your advisor is probably just busy and doesn't have time to read your paper.

should i be insulted? wrote:

First of all I was born and raised in the US and scored very high on the verbal/writing portions of the SAT, have generally done quite well in my writing classes, etc. even though I am a STEM graduate student.

I have a big paper draft my advisor is editing but he suggested I take it to one of the technical writing tutors on campus who would help me edit it. Should I be offended? I know there was a Chinese student in our group who went there but I feel like that's more understandable.

No

There is a big difference in technical writing and standard business writing. And creative writing.

I write for a living and have worked in various industries for the past 15 or so years. Even the best writer can improve.

Those in school or consider themselves to be very smart end to be the worst. They think they're good writers when they're not, and they can't handle feedback.

Writing is just like life. A difference POV can make a big difference.

should i be insulted? wrote:

First of all I was born and raised in the US and scored very high on the verbal/writing portions of the SAT, have generally done quite well in my writing classes, etc. even though I am a STEM graduate student.

I have a big paper draft my advisor is editing but he suggested I take it to one of the technical writing tutors on campus who would help me edit it. Should I be offended? I know there was a Chinese student in our group who went there but I feel like that's more understandable.

OP: How would you assess your own writing in this thread? Please do not make any excuses in your response. Get better.

When people tell you to do something, you should listen to them. Most of the time, they know better than you. It’s trite, but it’s true.

I think you gave a lot of good advice, but this bit is very context specific. I agree in this instance that there was no need to use "first of all," but the phrase can be a useful signpost in other contexts. So can "so." Neither is inherently unprofessional because what constitutes "professional" writing depends on one's profession. Typically, the more a profession values writing, the more tolerant it is of colloquial style. Science writing tends to be stilted and formal; (good) legal writing is often peppered with slang, contractions, and polysyndeton.

I flagged this bit of advice because I think it exemplifies a larger problem with writing instruction. Most writing educators are, fortunately, pretty decent writers. But they often became good writers through a combination of talent, trial-and-error, and the subconscious internalization of years and years of reading. They don't really know why their writing works, so they teach writing with "rules" that are wrong as often as they are right. I don't mean to suggest that this is you, but I do think this one piece of advice fits the pattern.

There are really only a few ironclad rules of writing: Know your audience, and know your objective. Everything else is subordinate. If you keep these ideas in mind, it's easier to understand why academic writing is often so inscrutable: Its primary purpose is not to communicate a useful idea but to demonstrate that the author is smart. (We have a tendency to think that someone who wrote something we can't understand must be really smart.)

0/10

This is the last place anyone should be going for writing/grammar/editing thoughts and suggestions.

Should read, “…receive feedback on a…”

Recommend: Reject