Does the author matter?

Colleges & Universities Columbia University
1

<p>After answering Columbia’s question about something meaningful about a book/event I noticed that I wrote about an Argentine author…
Will the admission officers give preference to reviews on books by american authors like Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain, or is it solely the review that counts?</p>

<p>Moreover, I noticed that if you google the author, you can find that his views were incorporated by communism, as well as anarchism and masonry. </p>

<p>The ideas I delve in my response have nothing to do with these systems, but the author’s reputation maybe does.</p>

<p>The author is Jose Ingenieros and the book is called “The Mediocre Man”</p>

2

<p>They care way more about the review than the author himself. I would say don’t worry about that</p>

3

<p>I’m sure prospective sociology majors have written about Marx. You’ll be fine (probably even get points for showing a “global perspective.”)</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the answers, I’ll keep my review then. </p>

<p>Merry Christmas to all</p>

5

<p>I think Columbia cares much more about what you got out of the book, and how you articulated that, than about the book or the author itself. Columbia wants to learn about you, not the author. You’ll be fine :)</p>

6

<p>I would not worry about this at all. They’re not going to think a response is automatically better just because it’s about an American book.</p>

7

<p>It will almost certainly look better than you chose a more obscure and non-Western author, particularly if his ideas were politically influential. If I were an admissions officer, I’d certainly consider it a credit to your intellectual ability and understanding of the world. </p>

<p>And there’s nothing wrong with analyzing Marxist thought. You read Marx in CC and Marxist influences are completely mainstream in most of the social sciences. The idea that Marxist thought is “bad” or that you’ll be looked down upon for considering it is a very “high school” idea.</p>

8

<p>I don’t think it matters in the least. I talked about a U2 concert. I guess that was good enough for them.</p>

9

<p>It’s not what you write about but rather what you reveal about yourself in your writing.</p>

10

<p>I wrote about Al Franken… just reread mine and realized it made me sound sort of uppity and political. Welp. I guess I’ll find out in a few months how well that served me. <em>shrug</em></p>