Sweeping statements

[luzula]

I am grading university student papers. Their task was to write about the application of mathematics in other subjects, after watching some lectures by mathematicians in industry who talk about their work. I won't inflict the students' bad grammar or terrible style on you, but let me quote some of their sweeping statements:

Student 1: Society is changing exponentially!
Me: Do you really mean that all social change is exponential? If so, how do you know?

Student 2: All phenomena in nature and society can be modeled mathematically!
Me: I suppose this is technically true if you allow for bad models with no relation to reality, but otherwise, citation extremely needed.

Student 3: In the future, humanity will keep all their knowledge about mathematics, and the subject will continue to develop!
Me: How do you know that?

I don't know what genre they think they're writing in. Some sort of...advertisement for mathematics? *feels grumpy*

Comments

[james]

Mathematics(tm) will keep your teeth whiter than white and help you find your lost socks!

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Be the first person on your block to have Mathematics(tm)!

[luzula]

*giggles* Exactly!

[snickfic]

I swear "exponentially" is one of the most misused technical words in the English language. (Possibly also the Swedish language?)

[luzula]

Yes! I have actually seen someone point at a graph of a quadratic function and say it was growing exponentially.

[jesse_the_k]

All language is vulnerable to meaning mashing, and you have every right to complain!

[sage]

In the future, every student will remember how to do Algebra fifty years after their last Algebra class, and also know what it's for, despite never having used it since taking their last math class in school. :laugh:

(Whereas geometry has had some real world application in my life, even if I always have to look up the answers online because I don't remember how to do it, either. :g: )

[luzula]

See, I don't expect that they're going to remember everything from my classes. That's fine! I just want them to stop and think, when they're writing an essay, about whether their claims are actually true or not.

[chestnut_pod]

Speaking as a teacher of How to Write an Essay, this is not a subject-specific phenomenon ':D

[tei]

I once had an argument with my partner which was genuinely upsetting to me because they simply would not believe me when I said that what they thought was exponential growth was not exponential growth, and then they had to do another math class for school and came back like "remember that fight we had several months ago, you were right :/"

[luzula]

Heh. I have seen an AI enthusiast point towards a graph and say: "here, at this point in the future where the exponential curve of technology development has a vertical asymptote, is The Singularity!" Me: WHUT.

[tei]

I guess that's reassuring, if you'd rather not live through the Singularity!

[luzula]

Well, yes. He did not take me seriously when I raised my hand and said exponential functions don't have vertical asymptotes...

[princessofgeeks]

I feel your pain.

[luzula]

Thanks! <3

[regshoe]

Oh dear. Well, I admire student 2's optimistic confidence...

(Also, that sounds like an interesting paper. I admittedly did not study maths myself, but I don't remember hearing about maths students having to do anything other than actual maths problems—hence they didn't have to be any good at writing essays! Do your students have much of this sort of thing to do?).

[luzula]

Well, they have to write a thesis at the end of their bachelor's degree. And we feel that it's unfair to throw them into the deep end without any previous practice, so they have a short essay in the first year (that's this one), and then a longer one in their second year, as preparation. For both of those they get feedback on their writing and have to revise. The second-year writing project is supposed to follow the genre-specific style of a math paper, which of course isn't something they can be expected to know beforehand.

I'm the one giving them feedback on both of these, because I am interested in writing. The students are often surprised at the amount of red ink on their papers... : )

[regshoe]

I see, interesting! Heh, yes, I suppose your combined mathematical and literary skillset must be well-suited to this kind of thing :)

[seascribble]

Send those ones over to the liberal arts building! (I jest) I hope student 3 is right though.

[luzula]

I actually just read a good essay! \o/ One among twenty...

[hyarrowen]

*plays soothing music at you*

[luzula]

Thanks! I do three a day, and I'll get through them...

[chestnut_pod]

l o l

I love a good student quote. Bless.

[luzula]

Actually I just came across a good one, which argued that the application of mathematics requires critical thinking! This exhibition of common sense quite impressed me, in comparison. Also, she could use semi-colons correctly. ♥

[chestnut_pod]

A good ‘un!