“I need to read 100 books this year,” our daughter declared at the start of her kindergarten year. At first, I thought this was a misunderstanding, but it wasn’t. Our local elementary school uses the Accelerated Reader (AR) program. They count books read. They check the levels and log them.…
Tag: education
How we teach writing and reading.
Admittedly, I dislike the stylistic rules of academic writing. Citations, I understand, but style rules should be limited to those rules that help ensure clarity. In science, I want the Oxford comma, for example, so groupings are clear within a list. I am not a stickler for citations, either, as…
I’m a full-time writer, not a traditional English professor. Thankfully, I’m employed in a wonderful English department that does embrace writing, from academic to mass market. I do not have APA and MLA formatting memorized. I don’t care if you end a sentence with a preposition as long as readers…
One of my favorite writing tools is Word Counter 2.1, from Supermagnus Software. http://www.supermagnus.com/mac/Word_Counter/ The price? Free. The value? To quote a popular credit card company, “Priceless.” If you’re like most of my students, you’re asking yourself, “Doesn’t every word processor include a word count function? What’s the big deal?”…
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/) is one of the two websites I check when I have a writing related question. The other is the Tameri Guide, of course, since Susan and I tend to add content to Tameri based on our experiences writing and teaching. I…
I advise avoiding pronouns when possible because most writers “tangle” the text. Though the writer knows what is intended, the readers end up confused. I’ve wasted too much time as a reader trying to determine what “those” and “these” were replacing in a paragraph. Other languages can still create their…
There are two types of organization we should address for students struggling with academic writing assignments: process organization and document organization. Reminder: This blog entry is part of an ongoing series. Writing-related topics I am addressing include: organization, audience analysis, supporting arguments, and mastering genre norms. If you have specific…
I am updating what might be described as an academic website. Reading for research reminds me that too many academic works are “overwritten.” I thought about compiling a list of complaints, but there are too many to catalog and rank. Instead, I’ll highlight some of the most annoying traits of…
I have outlined two projects with Mariner Software’s Contour 1.2 and remain uncertain about the product for several reasons. The program is marred by sloppy spelling errors in manuscript templates and a rigid approach to story plotting that falls short when writing a complex story or screenplay. What you are…
This is likely to be a paired blog entry, as I am certain Susan will have something to say on the matter. I strongly believe that almost anyone can be taught a skill — which is not the same as being taught an art. Given enough practice, most of us…