ED

Reading One's Own Writing

2007-09-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

This can be painful or pleasurable, depending on many factors. One factor is how prepared we are to admit we are wrong or were wrong many years ago. Another factor is whether we can stand a few inexplicably bad phrases or thoughts that are revealed after years of experience have taught us new things. I usually enjoy reading my own writing, but I don't enjoy reading the really bad things I've written. I once read a writer's advice not to re-read what you've written while you are writing, because then it gets fixed in your head and starts to sound like it's the greatest thing ever, when it's really not. I wonder if that's true of re-reading old writing. Old writing is a guide to who we were when we were younger. New writing probably shouldn't be re-read until we've had a chance to forget we've written it.

"Are," "our," Arrrrr

2007-08-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever run across this error?

"This is are team, not yours."

It's probably from someone writing so fast they are only paying attention to the sound of words, not their function. The words "are" and "our" are so different in usage that it's difficult to get them mixed up, unless the writer is actually thinking phonetically and trying to describe the way a word sounds, not what it means.

This is one error that really makes me go Arrrrgh.

For the record, "our" is the possessive pronoun that belongs in the above sentence. "Are" is the verb form of "to be" that belongs in such sentences as, "The chips are down here," and "Where are you, Charlie Brown?"

Passive Voice

2007-07-26T19:40:00.001-07:00

I love the formality of this entry in the American Heritage Book of English Usage. Unfortunately, very few people will read such entries, much less apply them to their writing, and I have to disagree with the main thrust of the article, which is that passive voice is useful. Passive voice can be used to disguise the agent of action in a sentence. Therefore, when I notice extensive use of passive voice in an article, I start to wonder how much the author doesn't know. For example, "The fine was assessed..." instead of "The board assessed a fine..." Writers often use passive voice to try to soften the blow of bad news. This approach usually doesn't work, but we still try it.

What is passive voice? It's a deadening of language in which sentences are robbed of their core actors. "It has been determined that..." rather than "I decided..." Passive voice is using a phrase with a form of the verb "to be" in it when "to be" is not needed.

What are the main forms of "to be"? "am/is/was/were/are/have been/has been/had been"

Why is it bad to use "to be"? Because the verb is so common that it makes writing dull, and because it creates the impression of hiding something or of not telling the full truth.

Passive voice can be used sparingly, but it should not dominate a passage or an entire essay.

Weighing Words

2007-06-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Ironically, while electronic storage capacity is apparently near infinite, meaning that people can upload their writing without worrying about the space constraints of print media, online attention span is shorter, meaning that people who want to have readers need to pack more punch into each word. Thus, I've made it a goal to write shorter blog entries, forcing me to weigh words more carefully. The more I value each word, the better my writing becomes. It's better to have my mind focused by a constraint such as length than to wander around aimlessly in search of a point.

Meta-knowledge vs. navel-gazing

2007-06-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

One question: is all this writing about writing useful? In looking at the last post and the post from my other blog about a lecture I just watched on google, I'm beginning to recognize that I'm part of a larger trend of blogging about blogging or tagging. Is this a good form of meta-knowledge, or is it just so much navel-gazing? You tell me.

Creative Labels

2007-05-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

In posting to my other blogs, I often feel the urge to label my posts with tangential words, then usually settle on something rather prosaic. I've seen other friends post using "themes" or catchphrases. I'm not sure what style works. I know that labels work better than an archive for capturing what I'm writing about, so from now on I will be using labels more frequently. It's an interesting phenomenon -- how the web is changing the way we write, and also changing itself constantly. Improvements in technology change the way we use language, and it's for the better, I think.

Drilling Down into the Stickiness of Newfangled Jargon

2007-05-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how a word is created? It's simply used in print somewhere by some writer who hopes it will be understood and used by somebody else. Words are re-used in new ways all the time, but to create a wholly new word is an interesting phenomenon. How many times is the word "input" used in a day? Was it some IBM programmer sometime in the 1950s who coined the term? I wonder. I don't have the answer to this one. The Merriam-Webster On-line link on this page doesn't have the etymology of this word, and my home dictionaries are really terrible. There are thousands of new jargon words created for computer usage. The computer is a useful metaphor for thought processes, so I think that explains part of why computer jargon is exploding. I'm not sure all the terms will stand the test of time, though. "Drilling down" and "stickiness" are two terms I wish I never heard, even though I can use them properly, I think. Let's see if we can come up with some new terms that we think will last.

Creative Juices

2007-04-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

What do y'all think? Do blogging and online journaling sap our nation's literary resources, or are they a boon to them? I know my thoughts in this medium tend to be less thought-through than something I'm preparing for publication, but then it's been a long time since I've had anything published, and this is a good outlet for me to express my opinions, etc.

I am working on some fiction right now, something ambitious, but I'm working on it very slowly. There's no doubt that I spend time blogging when I could be working on more "writerly" writing. Still, I wonder if publishing is a thing of the past, and we can all be our own best editors nowadays. The trick is attracting an audience and keeping it when dealing with online writing. Publishers are looking for a mass audience, so it's definitely a different type of writing, even if the principles are more or less the same.

Stringing Words Together

2007-03-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

"Anyone can string a bunch of quotes together. What's really hard is writing something in such a way that someone out there will actually want to read it."

This challenge from a former newspaper colleague of mine has stuck with me for a while now. I'm not a natural storyteller, so writing engaging stories was difficult for me as a newspaper man.

Writing, for me, has always been more about stringing words together. I hope someday I'll be stringing them together in new and inventive ways, coming up with phrases no one else has ever used, and things of this nature. There's something to be said for letting the words flow, then shaping them later into a story or something coherent. Writing is a process, and the nature of the process itself can change from person to person. The challenge is, writing something unique that also appeals to someone else.

So, I am really happy to see my friend Ramon has endorsed my blogs on his blog. (Thanks, Ramon, for your encouraging words. I will try to live up to them -- especially the funny part.) And I hope in stringing these words together, I'm starting to shape something interesting for people to read.

The craft of writing deserves more attention in the blogosphere. Let's talk about writing, even as we practice it on a semi-regular basis.

"To," "Too," and "Two"

2007-03-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

I just had a conversation with a friend about a lawyer he knows who makes grammar errors of this type, so I decided to devote a post to this problem:

"To" is usually a preposition, meaning it links one word to another.
"Too" means also, as in, "I'd like to have some rice with my taco, too."
"Two" is the number two (2).

These fairly simple distinctions are sometimes difficult for people to remember, especially when writing quickly.

My friend and I also discussed the larger problem of how people think about writing. He looks at a piece of writing as a work of craftsmanship in which every word counts, but he has a hard time convincing others that they need to be that careful. Any ideas out there about how to convince people to care about writing that much?

My aim in this weblog is to help share knowledge and discuss ideas that will help make writing easier and more accessible for adults and kids who struggle with it. I started out thinking I would have all kinds of writing exercises to do, but the more I've gotten into it, the harder those exercises have become. I don't want to create an online textbook, but more a writing-focused discussion. So I'm open to suggestions as far as what to include in this weblog.

Speaking of Writing...

2007-03-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever talked about your blog in public conversation? I recently did this at a social event, and I wondered immediately about how different it sounds to talk about your blog versus writing it down and publishing online. It seems somehow safer to publish thoughts in this format than it is to face the stares and confusion that come with discussing blogging in public, even when talking to fellow bloggers. Blogs aren't secret diaries, but they somehow feel more private than conversation. There's something about the written word that is more private -- it takes more interpretation, maybe, or an audience willing to sit down and concentrate on the words, rather than the facial expressions and body language. Any thoughts out there that mirror mine, disagree, or can make a connection to what I'm saying, er, writing? The blogosphere is a public space, yet it seems personal and private. I guess that's what I'm getting at.

Hey! Somebody stole my title

2007-02-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Check out this article reviewing a scientific paper from Nature about nanotechnology and Maxwell's demon. Recognize the title? I'm glad they chose to use the phrase "exercising demons" in a punny way, just as I did, though I don't fully understand the science they're describing. Still, it's an interesting article.

Writing vs. image

2007-02-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but I'd say ten good words are worth a thousand lousy pictures.

Still, I'm entering the image game with my new logo (above). Apologies to the image source, but at least I gave whoever posted the little guy to the web some credit.

Here's 10 good words then, to counterbalance my new image:

"Extremes require survivors to make moral compromises without becoming immoral."

I watched The Good German yesterday, and I'm not sure if it's a good example of this or not, but I believe it to be true. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to submit your own 10 word aphorism (no haiku, please), feel free.

Proscription vs. prescription

2007-02-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

To proscribe is to rule out. To prescribe is to rule in. Proscriptive grammar says what's wrong and what isn't allowed. Prescriptive grammar is the type of grammar I'm hoping to write here -- advice on what TO do, rather than what not to do.

On the surface, these are unusual uses of the Latin roots "pro" and "pre," along with the more obvious "scribe" for "write." We're used to "pro" being "for" something, and "pre" meaning "before," although I'm pretty sure that's Greek, not Latin. The Latin root "pro" can mean "out" in various other contexts: to profess is to say something outwardly, whereas to confess is to reveal something more intimately. To progress is to move outward or forward, whereas to regress is to move backward. "Prescribe" is derived from the Latin word "praescribere," meaning to write at the beginning, dictate, or order, according to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary. Its cousins are probably more distant, as I'm having trouble identifying other words that use "pre" with the same sense of dictating or telling someone what to do. If you think of any, let me know.

This means war!

2007-02-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

I have decided to declare war on unnecessary capitalization. It is a disease that is infecting every area of written English, and it needs to be stopped! Well, maybe it's not that bad, but it is irksome. Capital letters should not be used for every noun, unless one is writing a legal document with definitions and such or Trying To Be Understood As If Every Word Is Important.

Writing with unnecessary capital letters seems pretentious. So, some guidelines: don't capitalize unless you have a reason. Proper nouns, such as names and titles, do need capitalization, but the AP guidelines I was taught are fairly simple to follow: don't capitalize a title of a person unless the person's name immediately follows. The only exception to this was the President of the United States. The president of, say, a 4-H club, does not deserve this honor.

Give me some examples, and I'll let you know whether I think they deserve to be capitalized. I may offer my own tomorrow morning.

Affect vs. effect

2007-02-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

"Affect" is usually a verb, while "effect" is usually a noun. The usage of these words gets confusing when the words are used in unusual ways, but this rule of thumb is helpful in most circumstances.

"The program takes effect in March." This sentence uses "effect" as part of a verb phrase meaning "is put in place." Another usage is to state a cause-effect relationship. "The effect of the program will be felt in March."

By far the most common usage of "affect" is as a verb. "The program affects many Las Vegans." One way to remember the difference is that "affect" actually means "to cause an effect," in a way.

"Affect" can also be a noun meaning an emotional state or appearance: "His affect was grave." However, this is an uncommon usage, and it is usually pronounced differently, with emphasis on the "a."

Proofreading and Writing

2007-02-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

High school textbooks tell us that the writing process starts with a brainstorming technique and ends with proofreading. I doubt it's that simple in real writing. Writing is a complex process, and the steps we were taught long ago don't always do well for us as we develop as writers. In college, a friend once told me, "If you don't have an outline, you can't write." That's true to an extent -- for complex writing, you have to have an outline to keep ideas straight. That doesn't mean writers should be tied to an outline all the time, or that they should never break out of the lines of thinking they set up in that outline. The same goes for the proofreading step. Proofreading is even more organically linked to writing than outlining is. Writers don't have to wait until the end of the process to fix ugly or dry sentences. Still, there's something to be said for letting ideas sit for a while, and then coming back to them later to double-check for errors and omissions. In the final stages of writing, proofreading puts the polish on the apple, so to speak. But we should also be polishing and proofreading as we go, making use of the technology that allows us to wipe the slate clean and rearrange words and letters so easily.

Daily Writing Practice

2007-02-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

Good writers write often. Writing is work -- difficult, creative work -- and it requires some dedication to get it right. I have to rethink what I'm writing every day on this blog to make sure it's something somebody will want to read. I have to market my writing to an audience out there. Right now I sound too much like an English teacher, and who wants to be lectured all the time by an old English teacher? I'd like to consider myself more a writer than a teacher, but in order to do that, I need an audience. Please help me find my audience by commenting on this blog. It's the only way the writing will get better.

Pun Intended

2007-02-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

A shorter post on the definition of a pun: a word that's intentionally used as if it were a word that sounds the same or very similar. So, if anyone ever says, "no pun intended," they've just realized that they used a word that could be interpreted the wrong way. And unintentional puns are often funnier than intentional ones. Still, unintentional puns are something of an oxymoron, since puns really can be distinguished from mistakes only if we can make some effort to guess at the author's intention. Hence, the awful difficulty of trying to explain what makes a pun funny. The title of this blog is an intentional pun.

Can't Spell Check Catch That?

2007-02-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, spell check does check many spelling errors. Still, it is important to realize that spell check does not catch everything. Sources tell me that Office 2007 has "contextual" spell checkers that will know the difference between "to" and "too," but I am convinced that the spell checker will still not catch everything. The reason for this is that the computer does not actually read the words that we type. It only recognizes patterns. If a writer uses "too" in an unusual way, chances are good that spell checker will catch the unusual pattern. There is no way it can know, though, what the intentions of the writer are, or whether the way the writer uses "too" is correct. For example, all of my uses of the word "too" in this entry have been in quotation marks. If I didn't use quotation marks, spell checker would probably be really confused. It may even get confused with the quotation marks. It's true, spell checkers are improving, and they are great tools, but they cannot compete with the human mind for understanding words and using them in new and innovative ways.

Spelling, Usage, and Repetition

2007-02-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

As the title of the blog shows, spelling words wrong can really change the meaning of what the author of a piece is trying to say. For that reason, it's important to learn not just how to spell but the reasons behind some general spelling issues, such as the difference between "affect" and "effect" -- also known as usage errors. Today's exercise is more of a drill: Type out the words you misspell often correctly, seven times each. It takes seven times for us to remember anything, so repetition is important, just as it is important in learning anything.

Here are a couple of mine:
separate, separate, separate, separate, separate, separate, separate
commiserate, commiserate, commiserate, commiserate, commiserate, commiserate, commiserate

Check out this pattern: committee, committed, committal, commission, commiserate, commissary, committee

I'll explain the exception to the rule in the comments section later today.

what's wrong with this blog's title?

2007-02-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

This blog aims to help its readers overcome the fear of writing. Too many people I know have told me they're afraid of writing. Too many people I know have to apologize for spelling or grammar mistakes, and too many people are simply unaware of the errors they are making.

I'm hoping to reverse the trend by offering simple exercises designed to improve grammar and spelling, increase confidence in the English language, and explain the reasons behind the rules that mystify so many people.

So, let's begin: What's wrong with this blog's title? Type your gut response in the comments section, and look for my answer Monday evening.