Opinions editor needs to practice what he preaches
In his latest editorial [Dull minds make for dull papers, June 16], J.J. McCullough takes aim at students who write lazy, biased research papers premised on unquestioned assumptions and leading to foregone conclusions. He alleges that Arts students are especially guilty of this practice.
Mr. McCullough finds his evidence in the titles of the MA and PhD theses produced at SFU this year, as reprinted in the Convocation program. On a paper whose title promises a study of the impact of Cubas Latin American School of Medicine on Ecuadors health care system, he writes: As a general rule, nobody spends any significant amount of time researching Cuba in a post-secondary institution unless theyre convinced its a happy sunshine workers paradise with awesome doctors. Therefore, without even reading this paper I can almost certainly determine that the author believes that Cubas Latin American Medical whatever was a useful and fantastic thing for Ecuador.
The unintentional irony here runs even deeper than what at first appears J.J. McCullough surely goes the targets of his scorn one better by packing two unquestioned assumptions into little more than 50 words. On top of the obvious one about the content of an unread paper, most recent academic investigations into Castros Cuba hardly paint a bright picture of the place, as anyone whos done the slightest bit of exploration of that literature must know. Nicely done, Mr. McCullough, nicely done.