Metacommentary and academic titles

Metacommentary

1. Metacommentary

2. “a way of commenting on your claims and telling others how—and how not—to think about them” ( Graff & Birkenstein, 2018, p. 129) .

3. Types of Metacommentary

4. Clarification and Elaboration Use: clarifying complex ideas and complex quotes In 1837, a piece in The Mother's Magazine by Abigail and Samuel Whittelsey contained the phrase, "They both literally slept in Jesus", and in 1894 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , that Sherlock's room "was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams” … The point is that even if it was fun and surprising to force a "literally" where another word should go back in the 1800s, it's getting a bit old now. (Gill, 2013)

5. Emphasis Use: drawing attention to specific things or ideas “He [Guillaume Boucard ] is a very talented and hardworking player, and just as importantly , a very good teammate,” said head coach Tim Kendrick.  (Malloy, 2019)

6. Organization Use: route maps, transitions between ideas, conclusions, and as a midway point in long, complex articles. Quebec quickly stepped up to the plate and asked for $1.9 billion for having harmonized its tax regime years earlier. To add to the confusion, Martin, having just argued that the federal Liberals were living up to their commitments, proceeded to apologize for his ‘mistake’ in thinking the GST could be replaced. Martin’s apology, in turn , put pressure on Shelia Copps to live up to her pledge to quit is the GST was not replaced… (MacKinnon, 2003, p. 188)

7. Significance Use: explaining why your argument matters. From the north of England to South Australia, 2017 has proved to the year that large-scale battery storage came of age, smashing cost and scale barriers and breaking into the public consciousness. This is important because storing energy is seen as a crucial complement to the renewable revolution sweeping the world. (Rice-Oxley, 2017)

8. Titles Use: informing reader of the text’s content “Empires of the Mind: Autobiography and Anti-Imperialism in the Work of J.G. Ballard”

9. Naysayers and Objections Use: anticipating and defusing common objections to your argument Some say , for instance, that non-Western people who wear jeans and Indigenous people who speak English are taking from dominant cultures, too. But marginalized groups don’t have the power to decide if they’d prefer to stick with their customs or try on the dominant culture’s traditions just for fun. (Johnson, 2015)

10. Activity Use the following list to help you identify the types of commentary used in this excerpt from Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Against Meat.” Clarification and elaboration Emphasis Naysayers and objections Significance According to reports by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and others, factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming (it is significantly more destructive than transportation alone). Eating factory-farmed animals—which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants—is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter. (Foer)

11. Clarification and elaboration Emphasis Organization Naysayers and objections Significance According to reports by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and others, factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming ( it is significantly more destructive than transportation alone ). Eating factory-farmed animals— which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants —is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter. (Foer)

12. References

13. Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C. (2018). They say / I say: The moves that matter in academic writing . New York, NY: Norton.

14. Gill, M. (2013, Aug. 13). Have we literally broken the English language? The Guardian . Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/13/literally-broken-english-language-definition

15. Malloy, J. (2019, March 31). Boucard named NBL’s Canadian of the year. The Guardian . Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/sports/other-sports/boucard-named-nbls-canadian-of-the-year-296335/

16. MacKinnon, J. (2003). Minding the public purse: The fiscal crisis, political trade-offs, and Canada’s future . Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

17. Rice-Oxley, M. (2017, Dec. 26). Annus mirabilis: All the things that went right in 2017. The Guardian . Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/26/2017-annus-mirabilis-all-the-things-that-went-right

18. Johnson, M. Z. (2015). What’s wrong with cultural appropriation? These 9 answers reveal its harm. Retrieved from https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/