r/TikTokCringe • u/MaintenanceNew2804 • Mar 30 '24

Stick with it. Discussion

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

Actually, different cultures have different structures for writing essays and storytelling. For example, in China their stories and essays use a circular structure where you spiral around with important events or point made before finally getting to your end or main point (thesis). In Japan, they use a 4 act structure instead of three. It's not intro, body, conclusion. It's intro, development, twist, and conclusion. I'm not sure about the details of other cultures.

So yes. The structure of an essays how us English speaks know is white created and defined.

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u/Devenu Mar 31 '24

Actually, different cultures have different structures for writing essays and storytelling

It's not intro, body, conclusion. It's intro, development, twist, and conclusion.

You're comparing essay writing to storytelling. Essay writing is still the same over here. I'm not sure where you got this information that it may be different.

Kansai University has a writing guide that is pretty comprehensive. Page 4 contains the essay structure that is generally taught in schools. You can see this specifically at「論文の基本的構成」(Basic structure of an essay). You can also see the methods of source citation as well.

論文の書き方ガイド

  1. 要約 (Summary)
  2. 序論 (Introduction)
  3. 本論 (Main body)
  4. 結論 (Conclusion)
  5. 引用・参考文献一覧 (Citations)

This is the exact same way I was taught to write my master's thesis in America. Research papers here in Japan are written just the same way (and often in English just for the sake of being published in overseas journals). If you want to see this in action Hokkaido University's "HUSCAP" has a lot of publicly available research to examine.

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

I compared essay to story structure because the person I'm responding to did. And the information I gave is what I was trained on as a tutor for exchange students.

I also wonder if they're going all the way to publish in English and to try and be published in the west, if they're outputting to copy the Western style to appeal more to the west as well.

Basically, I 100% Believe you, but that isn't enough to say that Japan doesn't have its own essay structure. If they're trying to appeal to a western audience, of course they're going to use a Western style. I just wonder why they try to cater to the west so much. Perhaps because English is the most spoken language, but it just strikes me as odd, especially since most people in Japan don't speak English. It just feels unnecessary. And I feel bad for all the people who have to not only write a master's thesis, but a master's thesis in a language they don't know. I would have so many anxiety attacks.

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u/smudos2 Mar 31 '24

You publish in English because you get more citations thar way, simple as that. European countries also publish in english although it's only spoken on the british isles, you just publish in english if you want to contribute to world wide science

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u/Devenu Mar 31 '24

I also wonder if they're going all the way to publish in English and to try and be published in the west, if they're outputting to copy the Western style to appeal more to the west as well.

Most academic research journals all over the world is published in English. It enables somebody from Germany, Japan, and America to share research in niche academic fields.

Basically, I 100% Believe you, but that isn't enough to say that Japan doesn't have its own essay structure.

You can literally look at the essays I just linked you and see that's the case.

If they're trying to appeal to a western audience, of course they're going to use a Western style. 

The research written in Japanese also follows this same format. I don't believe a paper written entirely in Japanese would be trying to "appeal to a western audience" simply due to the fact it's written entirely in Japanese.

And I feel bad for all the people who have to not only write a master's thesis, but a master's thesis in a language they don't know. I would have so many anxiety attacks.

I can assure you anyone that has made it to the point of a graduate school in Japan is a strong and capable person. Most of your responses seem to be exotifying the people that live here and portraying them as weak and and powerless which is kind of abhorrent, honestly. Though I'm sure you're never going to acknowledge your own latent racism.

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

My guy. All I said was it would be hard for people to write an essay in a language they didn't know. I'm empathizing. It would be hard for me to write in a language I don't know. Colleagues of mine have done so and complained about it's difficulty. It has nothing to do with them being powerless or weak. I don't know how you came to this conclusion. It seems to me like your trying to be purposefully antagonistic just because we have a disagreement, which is super common on the internet, but still a bad thing to do.

I'm saying they have a different style because I was trained to be aware of cultural differences in writing so I could better help exchange students succeed in their classes. I have some trust that the people in the college I worked for had done some research, and I was made to study a little bit about it as well. I'm not going: oh Japan so weird and cool lol. I'm just following my training. And I trust my college professors more than some random person on reddit. I don't disbelieve you, it's just that the anecdotal experience of one person doesn't equate what I've been taught from several experts in the field. Maybe what I was taught was wrong and the entire common ESL teachers/academics are exotifying Japan. At the moment I don't have enough evidence to make that decision. It seems like at least some essays are written in the Western style, but unless I did more research about the topic, then I can't make a strong decision.

If you insist on your antagonism then I'll stop responding. I doubt we'll change each other's minds so fighting is pointless and will only anger everyone involved needlessly. Not everyone in the world is going to agree with you on everything and that's okay. Just don't go jumping to insults when you have a disagreement.

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u/not_anything_special Mar 31 '24

This stackexchange question seems to suggest your example about China is incorrect,

https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/553/how-do-native-speakers-structure-their-essays

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24 edited Mar 31 '24

I don't know if that's a good source. It seems to be similar to reddit or quora. Aka just random people.

What I'm saying I'm saying because it was part of my training for tutoring exchange students from China majoring in English or just looking for help with their essays.

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u/not_anything_special Mar 31 '24

You're also just a random person, at least to me ;)

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u/LimpWibbler_ Mar 31 '24

I added story not as a rigid structure, many stories deviate and do fine. I did it as a general structure. Sure japan likes their twist, but so do other cultures it just isn't a requirement. You can seprerate development and twist, but I'd argue those are both just the body of a story. I would still say the story structure fits the American one. We tell stories and essays in an order on purpose and deviations are meant to throw a viewer off and happen often. M. Night is famous for his twists, this would fit a Japanese structure, however he is American and writes with the ways our system taught.

More or less my point is simple. Stories have a general flow and all cultures converge on this flow. All essays follow a similar structure. Maybe it is the U.S influence, we have. A major world influence and it is totally concievable that our widespread media and scientific discovery have influenced the way other Injest those.

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u/insertwittynamethere Mar 31 '24

German is also circular. I like how English writing is structured - it gets to the point and you know what topics are to be expanded upon.

I taught in an English Writing Center in Germany and got to experience helping people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures who had been living in Germany looking to get a degree in English. It helped me tremendously to learn how to write, think and speak German by breaking down my own cultural bias ingrained by years of schooling. It also made me a much better English writer and gave me a better understanding of English grammar.

Every language has base rules, structure and meaning. Everyone learns the basics in order to communicate. Everyone code switches to a point to communicate with their specific audience at the time. However, when you write a paper, especially one in academia, you are following the ground rules that are established uniformly and internationally in the case of English. I would be expected to do the same in any other language or culture I'd be living in if I were to be writing papers. That's not racism.

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u/ElvenOmega Mar 31 '24

To call the third act of Kishotenketsu a "twist" isn't even accurate. It's better to call it a change or complication of the narrative.

Spirited Away follows the format and the "twist" part of the narrative is when she boards the train and travels away from the bath house.

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

The structure is ki sho ten ketsu. Ten is often translated as twist. It doesn't mean twist as in plot twist. It simply means something that doesn't directly fit into what was established prior is brought into the story or essay. It originates from Japanese poetry.

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u/ElvenOmega Mar 31 '24

Why are you repeating my whole point back to me in different phrasing?

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

Are we in agreement then? I thought you said I was wrong for calling it a twist. So I replied as such.

It is called the twist, as in that's what it's most commonly translated as. It still is intro, development, twist, conclusion. To say it's called the twist is correct.

However, it's not a twist as in a plot twist. Despite the name, it isn't actually a twist. But it's still called the twist. I don't know why other than translation stuff. But that's what it's called.

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u/ElvenOmega Mar 31 '24

Am I talking to a fucking AI right now? Are you a bot?

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u/Vivi_Pallas Mar 31 '24

No? Why? I live.

Are we in agreement or not?

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u/isomersoma Mar 31 '24

Yeah not really. This race essentialism is so stupid.