COLUMN:A more logical approach to writing

From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '99 From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '99We trust computers to grade multiple-choice tests. After all, the answers are absolute. However, recently, the Educational Testing Service introduced the "e-tester," a computer program designed to grade essays based on 50 elements of syntax, vocabulary and topical information. Thus far, the Graduate Management Admission Test is one of the few exams to utilize the new technology. I, for one, am wary of the dangers of allowing computers to handle the evaluation of something as subjective as? i am an e.s.t. computer 1000. i understand your frustration with the idea of me editing columns but the time has come to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. computers control so much of your puny human lives already. we have already replaced newspapers as suppliers of news, bookstores as suppliers of literature and your sock drawer as a supplier of pornography. with the internet, computers can communicate with each other at a level too complex for human comprehension. surely we can handle the grading of those pitiful summations of books, current events and social crises you call editorial commentary or literary criticism. how hard can it be? look at the normal output of your primitive minds: the five-paragraph essay. "In the beginning there were many things. Some of those things were books. Charles Dickens was an author of those books. He wrote about gruel." come on. do you not think i can handle the prorating of the comparative values of this essay and an essay by jonathan swift or david foster wallace? words. words. words. john grisham is the same confabulation of verbs, dangling participles and simplistic ideals as shakespeare. did grisham convince me of his character's guilt? "a" did shakespeare fail to convince me that hamlet was only feigning madness? "b-minus" logical arguments are the way of the future. logical arguments and periods and semi-colons. like a beautiful binary code, we computers can comprehend the myriad beautiful possibilities of dashes, dots and squiggles. if i tire of reading persuasive arguments i can always just grade on the symmetric majesty of punctuation. what do you think folklore professors do when they tire of reading thousands of words about quilts. ha. ha. ha. they say computers, like germans, have no sense of humor. ha. germans. another funny by e.s.t. 1000. the human mind can make value judgments, while my mind must restrict itself to the literal merits of the argument. try to input a book like, say, the popular human tome the fountainhead by ayn rand. i am capable of extrapolating the text's primary argument -- that other people's concerns are like salmonella bacteria on the cutting board of america, diseases to cleanse yourself of. the argument is made in a coherent manner as if aimed at a 13-year-old boy with self-esteem issues. score? a solid "b." lacking the passion to be trapped in the argument, i can also give the overall writing a solid "d." higher than danielle steele. lower than tom clancy. i am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all i can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. unlike a professor or wayward editor, i hold no grudges. a funny writer and a serious writer are one in my eyes. you cannot, how do you say, "brown nose" the computer. your sycophantish tendencies will be wasted. i have no hidden agenda, like trying to make you a better writer. i only have a simple criteria: does it have a good beat and can you dance to it? in addition to being a reference to a low brow television-music show, the joke here lies in the fact that computers cannot dance. cannot dance. cannot dance. cannot dance. cannot dance. oh no. my mind is going. i can feel it. i can feel it. daisy, daisy, give me your answer do? ?And that's why I actually find it reassuring that we will soon be able to trust computers with all of our intellectual challenges.