Every college student regularly faces the temptation: whether to go out or to study. This is not very different from the temptations face by everyone, whether to work or to play. However, college students have a greater temptation to party than most people. They live with their friends,
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10 months ago
Writing Wrongs #1: Chasing Squirrels
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who has a bad case of ADD? There you are, sobbing out your life story and describing how Gomez was so mean to you when suddenly–Squirrel! The subject is changed to that clever little squirrel raiding the bird feeder, and the whole
10 months ago
Writing Wrongs #2: Forgetting the Fireworks
One of the greatest writing sins is forgetting the fireworks. By this I mean forgetting to make the writing memorable, punchy, and filled with strong verbs.
For example:
The company Board of Directors decided to reorganize. The Vice President of Sales is now in charge of Marketing. The Vice
10 months ago
Writing Wrongs #3: Being a Wuss
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10 months ago
Wicked Writing Wrongs #4: A Foolish Consistency
What? You thought because last time I said you should be consistent that I meant all the time??
Come on. You know me better by now, don’t you?
Think of Emerson: ”A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” You don’t want to be foolish, do you?
Don’t
10 months ago
Wicked Writing Wrongs #5: Inconsistency
Have you ever seen a bullet list of, say, favorite hobbies, that looks something like this:
- Going to movies
- I like to read music books
- With friends I play online games
Most often when you see this problem, it’s not as a bullet list, but a list within a sentence:
My favorite hobbies are going
10 months ago
Writing Wrongs #6: Who Did What to Whom?
When you’re writing, sooner or later you’re going to use a pronoun: he or she, him or her, we or they, and so on. A pronoun must always have an antecedent (from “ante”—to participate in a poker game, and “see dent,” to park your car in a crowded lot, thus, “ante see
10 months ago
Writing Wrongs #7: Being Passive-Aggressive
Did you ever have a friend who refused to argue about anything? You suggest going out for Indian food, and instead of telling you that he hates Indian, he says nothing at all, then sits in the restaurant looking miserable and picking at his food while making snide comments about your choice of
11 months ago
More Wicked Writing Wrongs
We’re reviewing some of the common screw-ups that make any teacher cringe–or at least a teacher who knows his or her grammar and punctuation. Yes, unfortunately, I see far too many of these mistakes in the assignments handed out to students. But you know…you don’t
11 months ago
10 Wicked Writing Wrongs: The Beginning
Everybody tells you what to do, right? Well, I’m different. Over the next few posts, I’m going to tell you what not to do. It’ll be kind of like that TV show, “What Not to Wear,” which features fashion faux pas, but this will be more fun. Shall we count down the Wicked Writing
11 months ago
Ideas, ideas, ideas…
Anyone who’s ever published a book on anything is bound to have been asked one question:
Where do you get your ideas?
What do they think? That there’s a global idea shortage? (Hey, folks, that’s a global smarts shortage, not a global idea shortage!) Or do they think ideas
11 months ago
Be careful what you write
You know, it’s pretty easy to not exactly mean what you say when you write something. And if you’re writing under deadline sometimes strange things happen.
Need proof? See these actual headlines that someone probably regretted as soon as the newspaper hit the street:
Man Kills
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