Comments on: "Just" grammar?

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:24:00 +0000

Now we get to the bottom of it: it’s the fault of Evangelical Christianity!! Such is everything

By: J. Matthew Barnes

J. Matthew Barnes — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:12:00 +0000

After I read this entry I then emailed Dr. Wood to see if there was something else that I was missing other than the preciseness thing. If and when he responds I’ll let you know.

I do know that there is one other thing that he didn’t like about “just,” even though it doesn’t have to do with academic writing. We each were given the opportunity to lead the opening prayer of the class twice during the semester and we could not use the word “just” at all. He said that it was overused by Evangelicals and, thus, should be avoided.

You know what I mean: “God, I just come to you today to just ask you to just bless me and my family and just teach us to just follow your ways…” Ugh. It’s like “just” stands in for “like,” “um,” and “uh.”

Good thing God can overlook grammar in our prayers (we hope!)!

By: Patrick George McCullough

Patrick George McCullough — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:39:00 +0000

So it is for precision’s sake that we try not to utilize the overly-broad adverbial usage of “just” in academic writing. That makes sense, since scholarship is largely about being precise, making clear distinctions, etc. That’s a helpful thought. I think you should include that in your instructions for “things to avoid.”

There are so many other words and phrases that should be reevaluated as well. I often make use of the thesaurus while I’m writing, not to pick a word that is bigger and sounds more intelligent, but usually to remind myself of more appropriate words for that particular context.

By: J. Matthew Barnes

J. Matthew Barnes — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:08:00 +0000

This emphasis of mine comes from a literature and religion professor at Baylor named Ralph Wood. He says that just is not precise enough for academic writing, and I tend to agree.

Or, to put it a different way, since he marked me for it and it helped my writing be more precise, I want to extend the same favor to students whose papers I have the privilege to grade!