Essay Dispute Discussion Thread

Essay Dispute
Start date: August 12th
End date: August 17th

This is the discussion thread for the entries of the 6th Gender Wars event. The Essay Dispute. As contestants post their subbmissions, fee free to comment and discuss them here.

Good luck to the comptetators!

Gahh, Power Shot's gonna yell at me for not starting on it already...

What's the essay supposed to be about, anyway?

The Gender Wars. Why are the males better then the girls? That kind of thing. See if you can find Shot's essay from last year, probably the best one.

This year Power Shot discusses how to use psychological warfare against women. And how to manipulate them in amusing ways.

I am going to start working on this today. When are these due?

Originally Posted by linksmolecules

I am going to start working on this today. When are these due?

Originally Posted by Mattocks

Essay Dispute
Start date: August 12th
End date: August 17th

Try looking a bit harder next time. :|

Okay guys, I have my official title for my essay. It will be called "How To Tell That Special Someone She's Gained a Few."

Wow, i'm glad I dropped in today- forgot I was in this ^^; I'm still posting on time, no extentions. But who else is posting for the lassies?

I'm in for the ladies. I'm pretty much done, but I'll post closer to the deadline.

I'm also posting for the lassies, I'm currently about done with it and will have it on time outside any work-related issues.

Reminder for everyone. Essays are due tonight. I hope to see a better turn out than the dares.

I will post mine before midnight.

Loving the entries so far. But I must admit, again this year, Power Shot has done an outstanding job. It's like reading a comedic book on the subject, but shorter, so it can be done during one sitting on the throne (the guys know what I mean). However I'm not the one marking them, so men, you better hope the judges feel the same way I do, it's still anyone's game!

Power Shot is professionally trained for this kind of thing. It's why he's utterly awesome.

I believe my favorite way to describe a large girl is "Land beast."

I read Power Shot's essay from last year. I don't know if it's just me, but your entry this year seems to be way more affable, man.

That is because, over the last year, I have been teaching myself in the art of comedy writing. Plus I started reading The Onion and Cracked.com.

>.> Because this is the essay discussion thread, let’s discuss the essays!

Contributing argument

Ok, this one gave me the lols. Especially the part that says there are more men in he porn industry than women, which may well be true, depending on which side of the industry you’re talking about: consumers, producers, or actors. The arguments are good, just hard to follow sometimes. Train of logic, ride it like a bullfrog over cliché conjunctions. Or maybe it’s my “penis envy” that makes me a critic ^^;.

But seriously, it gave me the giggles, which are always a plus, right? Even if you’re writing a eulogy, a good laugh goes a long way.

Life Is A Churning, Frothy Mess – Who Rides It Better?

Tiare, I love you. You mentioned the plight of the pandas! What on earth was Mother Nature thinking when she made a species that didn’t know how to propagate? Or better yet, why even have a species that’s only fertile 2 days out of the whole year? Or even worse, if by the grace of Providence a panda manages to bear a child, why doesn’t the mother doesn’t know how to take care of it?

As for your piece, nice anecdotal exposition, and your arguments are sound and rational. You have a controlled use of juxtaposition to expand your arguments. I actually disagree with you on every major point (on the basis that regardless of number, in a patriarchal society like ours, women are the minority, and the minority is always lauded with praise of achievement even when the act is common place in the majority), but you made it an interesting and easy to follow read, so I enjoyed it ^_^!

How to tell that special someone she’s gained a few

P.Shots, I tip my hat to you. You are skilled with satirical prose.

This essay made me laugh so much that I thought it was laced with nitrous oxide instead of humor.

By far, the best line in passage was: “But she isn’t trash guys, she’s recycling.” Reading that, I was assailed by a fit of giggles so strong that I had to stop reading for a moment.

I can’t say that I have any problems with your piece. The only thing I noticed was how similes break up your stream of metaphors every now and then, but it’s a trivial matter and doesn’t distract from the piece one bit. I guess only syntactical sleuths like me notice stuff like that.

Since the beginning of time. . .

Mae, ^^ I love how organized your passage is. Every paragraph has a point and expands it. But my only fear is that grammatical errors may be detracting from your piece. A missing comma here and there, verbal and clausal flaws, and the minor misspelled word really add up after a while. . .

But your passage is unique among this year’s entries because it focuses on the versatility of women’s strengths in modality of their niche. The only thing I wish I had seen a little more of in your passage is humor, but otherwise great effort for the lassies!

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As for my own, -_-; it’s riddled with all those little unexpected errors that the ten times revised eyes just can’t catch. I should have sent it off for beta reading by a pair of fresh eyes, ^^; but when you do something the day of, you can only expect so much, right? But I had fun writing, so that’s all that counts.

Heck, if I were more active outside of the EH (speaking of, I should get back to that, haven’t really been there since the start of the Gender Wars), then maybe I would apply to be a judge next year. But I think I like participating and cheering my fellow lassies on more than judging.

Overall, I think the boy’s are focusing more on comedy this year, whereas the lassies are more concerned with hitting them with the cold, hard facts that we’re just better than them ^_-.

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One more thing, whenever the suggestion box for next year opens, I think we should have age slots for the essay contest. Shot’s and I are the same age, so we’re well matched, but if there were three people of Shot’s age (not necessarily his caliber) pitted against three youngsters. . . well, it’d be a slaughter unless one of the young guns happens to be a prodigy. There’s a similar argument for an all old folks (18+ for argument’s sake) or an all young guns competition. We would be missing the variety of input that you get from the perspective of different ages.

Maybe we could have a 13 and under slot, a 14-17 slot, and an 18+ slot? Or a slot system that’s more a reflective of education status, like Elementary and under, Middle/ Junior High, High School and above. Most people at least make it to high school because of mandatory attendance and such institutions, and I would think that if divulging your age is embarrassing, then you could give your school year, or just where you fit in the previous dichotomy. All previous statements aside, the main reason I suggest this is because the Essay Dispute is the only Gender Wars match where you’re judged on qualities that education has a heavy hand in, like grammar, argument, and diction.

As for what to do when the only willing (because willing is usually better than drafted) participants do not fill all the age brackets, or there is an unbalance in the match up (a team has an opponent that is not of his age/education bracket) then the judges can take that into consideration. I would not suggest a handicap or anything that would translate into a direct point adjustment, but a little consideration into the things that a participant may be lacking only because s/he has not been exposed to it (through teaching or just plain experience) would be fitting.

Meh, that’s just little a suggestion.
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Sorry for all the blabber, I only get a limited amount of time online until I get back to campus on Sunday. So I save threads, comment on them at home, and post the on the next chance I have net access. I hope none of this is out of place. It’s just that this is the event that I’ve been looking forward to the most, and I’m so excited to see all of these wonderful entries that I just had to share my thoughts *^_^*.

Good luck in the judging wringer everyone!

[Also, what happened to the boy’s third participant?]

Chibim thanks for the suggestion. It's a possibility, we'd have to wait until discussion of next year start. However the way I see it right now is that it is the job of the captain to chose who they think will do the best job in each battle. If they think a younger member wil do good it's their call. Also I think age groups would make thinks even harder to keep track of. We're having problems as it is. As for the education thing, we did that on purpose last year. We wanted a well rounded selection of skills to compete in including education.

But again thanks for the suggestion I'll keep it in mind for next year!

Chibi: I like your idea with trying to match up the age groups. I think that would be helpful in all the contests. However, I don't think it would work out. For the Essay Contest, only three girls raised their hands and said they wanted to do it. It's very hard to find people (especially on our side) to sign up for contests. So making the requirements more specific would make it much more aggravating to try to fill in all the spots. (For the rap contest, I asked every girl on the site twice, then started asking boys. It's hard to find people.)

As for the essays, I'm a bad captain. I haven't finished reading through them yet.

Originally Posted by Dog Dog 123

(For the rap contest, I asked every girl on the site twice, then started asking boys. It's hard to find people.)

As for the essays, I'm a bad captain. I haven't finished reading through them yet.

I think that's cheating.
And just be glad you didn't have to read through them last year. At least this year they're all funny.