When making things up on WS

[howdypartner]

Should I just blatantly lie when I make things up or be all hypothetical in my wording (If this were to occur...)

eg)

Right after winning the election, the party leader, and new President, Mariah Smith went on to increase taxes

 

OR

 

If for example after winning an election, the party leader were to increase taxes...

[thatonekid]

If you're making things up, make sure that it's clear that it didn't really happen. If someone were to figure out while reading that whatever it was isn't actually true, you don't want that to potentially count against you.

[Erk]

If you're making things up, make sure that it's clear that it didn't really happen. If someone were to figure out while reading that whatever it was isn't actually true, you don't want that to potentially count against you.

 

Totes.

 

Using a hypothetical example can really strengthen a point, even if you are essentially building a straw man. Making up a study or statistics just makes it clear you don't know anything real to include. Be careful how you apply fictional scenarios to your essays, but don't shy away from them.

 

Regarding how to phrase your hypothetical, you need to make it clear it's untrue. However, for brevity, it's convenient often to give your "characters" names and from thenceforth refer to them by name. EG:

Let us a consider a hypothetical election in which the Prat Party were elected, and their leader, Paula Hypothete, became Prime Minister. After Ms. Hypothete immediately raised taxes....

 

Of course, since I used the terms "Prat Party" and "Paula Hypothete", I could leave the entire 'let us consider blah blah" phrase out, because it's clear I'm not using a real example. Use your discretion.

[apache]

Couldn't agree with this more, there's nothing wrong with being hypothetical, it gives evidence of synthetic thinking. Like Erk sais, it also gives you control of the evidence and results, allowing you to do what you wish with it.

 

I'm not sure if they would check the citations for something, but I know in my essays I used all real examples that would be quite checkable (i talked about the chicago boys economic reforms in chile and pinochet and the fine balance between government intervention and economic success etc.). in the end, if youre going to cite an actual study you should probably cite the actual authors, since the situations they give are so general and simplified, classic questions... so they warrant pretty general (and well known) answers.

 

if you feel you can fake a study though, go for it, personally though, i wouldn't do it, med apps and the mcat we're two things where consequences outweighed benefits when it came to outright bs'ing. but in the end, who knows, none of us mark the essays so we can't give more than personal insight, but if someone were to write about a study with sufficient detail to support a conclusion i would extrapolate they knew the study well and could at least provide an author, but now im speaking like a prof ... and that's probably not how the markers are taught to mark. personally, if you brought up fake studies without acknowledging they we're hypothetical and i was marking i would mark you way down, but thats just personal opinion

 

Totes.

 

Using a hypothetical example can really strengthen a point, even if you are essentially building a straw man. Making up a study or statistics just makes it clear you don't know anything real to include. Be careful how you apply fictional scenarios to your essays, but don't shy away from them.

 

Regarding how to phrase your hypothetical, you need to make it clear it's untrue. However, for brevity, it's convenient often to give your "characters" names and from thenceforth refer to them by name. EG:

 

Of course, since I used the terms "Prat Party" and "Paula Hypothete", I could leave the entire 'let us consider blah blah" phrase out, because it's clear I'm not using a real example. Use your discretion.