Test next week...

This week has definitely been the hardest so far for me. There are so many rules to remember! Who would have thought that there could be so much to know about pronouns! You’ve got to keep the types straight, some can be considered plural or singular in different situations, and you have to make sure they always match their antecedent. Not to mention who/whom and who/that. I wouldn’t say any one rule is particularly hard, it’s just that there are so many of them! My brain is being overloaded with information!
I went to the review for the test today, and that was very helpful. I think my favorite part was a hint we discussed regarding who vs. whom: who stands in for he or she, while whom stands in for him or her. So if you can reorder the sentence and replace who with he or she and it makes sense, then you’ve done it correctly! I’m not sure if I explained that very clearly, but it really helped me to get a handle on who/whom so that I can understand it. I think I’m ready for this test, but we’ll see!
The grammar mistake I found this week was a particularly funny one. I was looking through some of my photos and found one that I had taken of a student’s comment on rateyourprofessor.com. What’s even funnier is that the teacher (who shall remain nameless) is an English teacher! I don’t know if the student was actually serious when they posted this, or if they were just trying to be funny, but either way it’s a pretty hideous use of the English language!

Review

Today We reviewed for our exam that we must take next week. I must admit that without the review today, there would be a distinct possibility of test failure. Dr. J helped me with the intricacies and nuances of punctuation and grammar.

The proper use of who and whom has been giving me a headache since I started to dissect its proper usage. Simplification is necessary in my opinion to understand some of the rules of usage. For example, I think of who as the subject and replace the who with he or she. I think of whom as the object and replace it with him or her.

Another aspect of today's learning experience was the use of that and which. That is essential with no commas, while which is non-essential with commas. Similar rules apply with the use of good and well. For example, I am good. Good would be used because of the linking verb in between I and good. I am doing well. Well would be used because of the adverb doing.

Looks like our test is next week. Good luck everyone!

Glitz and Fluff

I thought that chapter 6 and chapter 7 were very informative. I enjoyed the concept of descriptive adjectives. They paint a detailed and colorful picture. I have never been one to use many adjectives. It was good to hear that not only do they add glitz or fluff, but when properly used they provide information to create a more complete picture. I will definitely be using descriptive adjectives from now on.
I thought the degrees of adjectives were interesting as well. It reminded me of the scene in Tangled between the wicked queen and Rapunzel, 'I love you,' 'I love you more,' 'I love you most'.
While growing up I learned that you should never say “me.” You should always use “I” instead. Therefore, this has been a very confusing concept to me, or as I learned growing up, this has been a very confusing concept to I. Do you wonder where I went to school? Between you and me, I am still somewhat confused about this concept. I will have to study up on it more.
As for editing errors, I do not like cutesy misspelled words. One example would be Krispy Kreme. I was watching the Simpsons this week and I noticed that they used these cutesy words in one of their episodes. Bart got his own news show entitled “Kidz Newz , Newz Kidz can Uze.” I guess these titles attract attention, but I still do not like them.

Another Week.

Now onto my week four blog entry. Week four was a crazy week. I had family in town from Vermont which made studying difficult. I promise I learned something, but it didn’t stick as well.

I am a passive writer, normally. It is just what I do. How do you make a passive writer an active writer? I have no clue, but the book does. As I read, they shared the valuable concept of avoiding there is/there are constructions. I am queen at using there is and there are. The more I write the better I become at not using this construct. Gradually, I will be the best at creating creative sentences that are void of there is/there are.

My passive writing abilities are changing. I will write emails now and as I am reviewing, questions pop up in my mind like “how can you make this sentence more active?” Is it working? Maybe, I’m not sure yet. I did get an e-mail back from my mom the other day yelling at me for not using well to describe how I am doing. Sheree, you would like my mom. She is grammatically savvy.

Onto my editing adventure. For work I had to go to the archive office in the library and look at Signposts from the 1960s. As I was reading through some of the articles I picked up on spelling mistakes. I found the word stand spelt as standd. Other than that my week was pretty low key.

Blog...

Oh man, I am so behind on blogging. Sheree, please don’t dock off too many points. At least I am posting, right.

What concept did I learn for week three? Let me see. I gained insight on secret number three, “Organize Your Thoughts.” As I was reading through it, I was struck with how simple this step was in writing. Personally, I have never been one to strategically sit down and plan out my method of writing. After careful thought about this I am realizing that it is probably smart to sit down and follow this simple secret.

After realizing that I need to be better at planning, I took into consideration the concept of revising and I applied it. At work I wrote this profile about a man on campus. I handed in my first draft to be edited and it came back dripping in red. I went through four or five drafts before it finally came to a point where the editors liked what they saw. Revise, revise, revise. Well, I did and hopefully the final product looks better than the first.

As for editing mistakes, I am horrible at finding them. They are all around me and yet my eye just doesn’t see them easily. Horrible I know. What I did notice was how bad people are at using capitals and punctuation on facebook. Where are the capitals and the commas people? I was looking at a cousin’s post and “i” was used a million times and to no avail she did not capitalize them. Shocking, I know. She’s 16 so I’ll let it slide, but I bet her English teacher wouldn’t.

The Book was Wrong...

You may recognize this picture to the left. It is from our book, "When Words Collide." As I was reading the last sentence, "Remember these sentence types are we move through this discussion," I picked up on a grammatical problem. The are seriously sounds wrong. I am not sure what they were going for here, but it would sound better if the are was replaced with as. If that happened it would read like this, "Remember these sentence types as we move through this discussion." Ah yes, that sounds magnificent. Point for me.

Now that I have my 50 words of editing mistakes out of the way, I can move on to more exciting things such as nominative pronouns. I've been lead astray all of these years. My understanding of pronoun placement has been terribly wrong. Chapter 6 and 7 changed my writing world. Who knew that a sentence such as, "He is smarter than I," was not suppose to end in me? Well, I bet all of you did, but I'm a little slow (so much for catholic school).

I feel a bit more confident in writing. I have to admit that the section on who/whom confused me.

My other epiphany from my studies was that there are words out there that seemed plural to me, but in all actuality are singular. Words such as each, either, every, and neither take on the singular verb which was news to me.

I hope I used the correct grammar, punctuation, and tense throughout this blog. It's intimidating to have all of you read this.

The Case of the Missing Comma

One of the most important things I learned this week was a review on compound modifiers. I was never very clear on that topic and reading a little review on it was extremely beneficial. I also found chapter 7, the agreement chapter, to be particularly helpful. As we expand into harder material, I’m finding that I make a few of these mistakes unknowingly. I’ve been known to misplace modifiers and leave the poor things dangling a time or two.

This editing stuff is A LOT more complicated than I ever expected! The “cases” assignment pretty much freaked me out. I can spot the mistakes but I have a really hard time justifying why they need to be changed at all.

Amid all of the complicated vocabulary and countless rules, I am finding myself becoming more editorially analytical on a daily basis. For example, the other day I received a baby shower invitation for my stepsister-in-law and immediately noticed a punctuation error (the case of the missing comma).

Last week I edited an assignment for my group in one of my classes and was able to catch mistakes I know I wouldn’t have caught before. So as overwhelming as it can be to read rules upon rules every week, something must be sticking in this brain of mine!