This fall, a new phenomenon has emerged in job documents—the slash/dash addiction.
I think, if you read the examples below (which are shared with permission of the authors), you’ll see the problem. In a way, it’s just another manifestation of desperate cramming , and a very close cousin to list addiction and dyad addiction.
When you resort to tactics like this to wedge in additional words, it’s an undignified attempt to cover all bases out of fear of seeming inadequate. While you might imagine it looks sophisticated, you really come across as indecisive, a sloppy editor, desperate, and in some cases a poststructuralist poseur.
If a word is worthy of mention, it should get its own dedicated spot in a sentence. If it is interchangable with another word, then it is not a word worth utilizing. Editing means making these hard choices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
my work unpacks ongoing shifts in ecological/rural development approaches.
My primary areas of specialization are rhetorical theory, composition theory, discourse analysis, service-learning, and embodiment/affect studies.
I displace subjectivity, identity/identification, and sex/gender difference as the primary frameworks through which to conceptualize XXX. [sex/gender is obviously a well-established and substantive formulation; identity/identification, however, is not].
For example, I asked them to relate/link Donatello’s David with the description of young men in the comedies. When it was the turn of Michelangelo’s David they had to compare the two representations and then assess/understand/explain the statue through the lens of a/the suddenly changed political scenario.
ok/that-was-really/annoying-to the extreme/end/blah. simply ridiculous.
Is this really a trend? do you have more than one example? that would be sad.
those were all from different individuals’ documents.
“…and the lights/illumination will flicker on-and-off!”