Get READy for the Reading Drinking Game

First came the Lecture Drinking Game. Now get ready for the shameless plagiarism that is the Reading Drinking Game. The perfect demonstration of effective time management by combining the reading for tomorrow’s seminar with tonight’s pres?

Meta

Rules are as follows:

Drink 1 finger if

• You have to reread a sentence until it makes sense, a finger for each reread. Either it will eventually make sense or you won’t be able to focus on the page anymore. Either way: problem solved.

• Any of following: ‘paradigm’, ‘holistic’, ‘seminal’, ‘parameters’, ‘teleology’, or ‘hegemonic’ are used. It’s the 3rd year of my degree and I still have to google what these mean.

• An unnecessary italicised Latin or French phrase is used in a reading that isn’t even about a Latin or French related topic. We get it, you’re cultured and smart. Is it honestly necessary to say ‘vis-a-vis’ when you could just say ‘in relation to’?

• The author goes on about how most studies in their field follow the same agenda and how their own study diverges from the crowd. They’re "different", you see, they're not like other scholars.

When you run out of bevs having only read 5 pages

Drink 2 fingers if

• Another scholar’s theories or methodologies are referred to as ‘vintage’ or ‘classic’. Classic Marx eh, always framing class struggle through an economic framework. Not long before his theories become the dominant discourse in the social sciences, amiright?

• Shade is thrown upon another scholar’s work or personal life.

• "But that is beyond the scope of this article" (or words to that effect) comes up. I’d respect them if they just admitted they didn’t want to write anymore.

Drink 3 fingers if

• The author pretends to follow one line of thinking for about a page and a half then swerves in the opposite direction, leaving you to question whether you can ever truly trust anyone.

• An almost comically overextended metaphor comes up.

u ok hun?

Take a shot for every

• Time you get referred back to the previous paragraph or page for a piece of key information. The flow of your reading is already ruined so you might as well ruin it further by taking a shot or two.

• Typo. Why should you bother to pay full attention when paid scholars can’t be bothered to spell and grammar check their own work?

shots shots shots

Waterfall (getting your friends to read the words out) if

• Fluff has been shoehorned in to ‘set the scene’ goes on for far too long. Finish when it finally moves on to something useful.

• A sentence overruns more than 4 lines. Waterfall until it ends. No amount of academic qualifications entitles anyone to such reckless abuse of semi colons.

Optional

• Every time you finding yourself procrastinating, take a swig of a pre-prepared dirty pint or something equally as grim (like Sinners grade vodka) as a preventative measure. If playing as a group, the dirty pint could be compiled as the game commences. Keep tabs on everyone and make sure any procrastinators take swigs of the dirty pint.

The faces of students who feel personally victimised by semi colons

Like the lecture drinking game, this game is most effective for arts and humanities students. Unfortunately, a game relating to the reading and set work for non-arts students is "beyond the scope of this article".