Three Thoughts On Communication

[fadeaccompli]

1) I'm not sure if I should pick the paper that engages with recent secondary sources or the paper that's on a topic I care about and which is relevant to my proposed area of study, when it comes to grad school writing samples to revise. Given the amount of revision ahead, I should pick soon.

2) I'm struggling to work out the nuances of "got Xed" vs. "was Xed" in casual uses of the passive voice. It's not just about formality: at least in my dialect, it sounds more natural with some verbs than others. ("He got indicted" and "He got arrested" both sound fine, but "He got executed" or "He got requested" sound weird and weirder.) And it's not the same as the use with the reflexive, which indicates culpability. ("I was scratched by the cat" and "I got scratched by the cat" mean slightly different things, but I can't figure out what; "I got myself scratched by the cat" implies I was doing something that annoyed the cat. More middle voice instead of passive.) Anyway. If anyone has a good explanation of it, or can point me to one, I'd appreciate it.

3) ...wait, that fanfic exchange assignment is due tomorrow? Shit. Okay. Time to start writing.

Comments

[lizvogel]

Re #1, I say go with the one you care about. That's where you want to be, that's what the sample should reflect. (Also, anything you're going to have to spend that much time with should be something you like.)

(Free advice, worth every penny.)

I can't help with #2, but I agree that there is a slight but significant difference that I can't explain properly either.

[fadeaccompli]

That's my general inclination, on number 1; the main thing holding me back from doing exactly that is the part where the paper I really like is strictly a close reading of the text, and I really need to be responding to contemporary scholarly work. So it's going to be a lot harder to edit, since that's a more significant structural revision instead of just refining my argument and presentation of it. Thus I waffle.

Over on my LJ, someone suggested that "got Xed" puts more emphasis on the subject of the sentence, as opposed to "was Xed", which is somewhat more neutral in emphasis: thus the "got themselves Xed" making it an emphasized sort of middle voice that's even more heavily focused on the subject. Which is an interesting way to look at! Though some other people were saying it comes across as purely interchangeable to them, aside from swapping formality levels.