So apparently I'm no good at blogging. I'm on my computer every day, and somehow blogging escapes me. I have it on my list of things to do. I get on and read other people's posts. And I forget that I am actually expected to contribute on my own. Part of me wants to blame the LSAT, and I do think it is an accurate. If I get a blank look on my face in class, chances are I'm dreaming about the LSAT. When my friends want to get my attention and my name does not get it, they'll say "LSAT" loudly and laugh when I turn around. It was actually upon reflecting on this when I remembered that I had not posted on inventing the university.

Although it is different in that I am not writing an essay for the LSAT, I have had to play at inventing the LSAT. When I took the class Weber State offers on the LSAT, the professor teaching it mentioned that in order to do well on the test you need to learn to think like the LSAT. There are times where the answer is not what I would pick all things being equal. But as I have studied and taken test after test after test and learned about what sorts of questions I miss and what answers trip me up, I have gotten very very good at thinking like the LSAT. There is a system to the LSAT; there are distracting words that the writers put in hoping you'll pick it. When the LSAT asks about the "main idea" they mean something different than I initially thought. In order to be good at the LSAT, you either need to be naturally good at it, or you need to teach yourself to think like the LSAT writers. When I was thinking about this it struck me how similar it was to inventing the university. Nobody really teaches you how to do it, you have to learn through trial and error. I find myself thinking in terms of LSAT questions, and when I took a proctored test last Saturday I did the worst in the section that Dr. Guliuzza provided that was not made from "real" LSAT questions, but was like Princeton Prep or something like that. It was subtly different from the real LSAT, and didn't fit with the my invention of how the LSAT "university" works.

But..to drag myself away from my tortured obsession for a few sentences: I think it is necessary that students learn to write like an academic. Is it necessary that they learn through trial and error and without every really being taught? Probably not. It is strange that we are never really taught how to write an academic paper. But however students learn it, learning to write for the field they are studying is a necessary and fundamental part of education. I write differently for Political Science classes then I do for English. It does not bother me, and anymore I do it intuitively.