In Retrospect

As the semester draws to a close, I thought I would leave you with a bit of advice about the papers you’ve written over the last few months.

Hindsight is said to be 20/20. We all ask ourselves what we might have done if we had do overs in life. One good idea for writers, no matter where along the way they are, is to keep all the essays, poems, notes, letters, etc., that they write. Once a paper has been handed in, graded and returned, and the process is considered to be over, there is still a reason to keep what you have written. Even if you don’t look at it again for decades, it is worth saving as part of your personal history.

Old papers sometimes do come in handy for new courses. While it is probable that yesterday’s writing will not meet present requirements, there may be parts of it that can be renewed and used (you can’t plagiarize yourself). Sometimes an idea from your old paper can generate more ideas for your new assignment. Sometimes it is just fun to read what you wrote a year or so ago.

Down the road, what you write today may become even more valuable to you, a way to recall your college years and the important work you did to earn your degree. Finding a place to save your work will keep you from wishing later on that you had kept it - for remembering, for revisiting an earlier time, for reminding yourself of yourself as a writer then and now.

This will be my last blog for 2011, but I’ll be back in January to kick off a new year of writing tips. On behalf of the Stone Writing Center, happy holidays!

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

When Mistakes Happen

Mistakes: we all make them now and then.

Last week was one of those weeks, a time in which I caught (too late) at least two mistakes in emails I sent. One email was to a co-worker; I typed and sent “This look great.” I might have taken the time to proofread before I hit the “send” button, but that didn’t happen. Subjects and verbs should be in agreement, especially in work-related messages.

That week, too, right as I pressed “send” for another email, my eye landed on a word I’d used incorrectly – it’s instead of its. At the moment I saw the error, the email was probably already in his inbox (too late again).

While it is nice that I, eventually, found my errors, I needed some way to prevent them. The situation had to be improved. A resolve to reread emails (like proofreading or editing an essay) before sending seemed logical enough. Then I thought about other ways to come closer to impeccable grammar, a personal goal. That’s when a memory surfaced.

I was eight or nine years old and in elementary school. The teacher was concentrating on grammar. What I did then was try to incorporate the lessons she taught into my everyday life each time I learned a new rule. Without really knowing what I was doing, other than being determined to get an A, I was reinforcing the right way each time I used a new rule correctly at home or on the playground. It is possible that my spoken words might have become somewhat odd then, maybe even stilted on occasion; but using what I learned paid off in time, most of the time anyway, even if not last week when I was sending emails.

Repetition of correct usage makes a major difference. By the time a writer has discovered and corrected several of the same type of grammatical errors, it’s probable that the original tendency to err will have been replaced by a tendency to use the right grammatical construction in the first place.

No one truly loves to be criticized or corrected; but when I really think about it, any time someone does legitimately correct my grammar, I’m given a chance to know and subsequently use the right form. I can convince myself to use corrections and try to be thankful for them, even though finding out I’ve made mistakes isn’t exactly as much fun as watching perfect waves roll onto the shore on a sunny day when grammar concerns are far, far away.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Punctuation's Odd Cousin: the Semicolon

Semicolons do look strange - a dot with a comma right underneath it, like a hybrid or a mutant punctuation mark. Odd looking or not, the semicolon can be useful. One of its main functions is to separate independent clauses (sentences), especially when the ideas are closely related. The first use of a semicolon is diagramed below:

Sentence (Independent clause) ; sentence (Independent clause).

You might have noticed that the second “sentence,” the one following the semicolon, begins with a lower case letter. Unless the second independent clause begins with a proper noun, a name or title like Captain Seafar, capital letters are not used. It seems at first to be another somewhat weird part of the use of the semicolon; however, the reason probably has to do with considering two independent clauses joined by a semicolon as one sentence.

Another main use of a semicolon is to clarify lists when they contain additional information set off by commas. A list of cities and states, for instance, needs semicolons to separate the items on the list: Corpus Christi, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Other lists may include extra, non-essential information. For example, a few of the many good aspects of life are the beach, especially on sunny days; a surf board; and a perfect wave. Only one item on the list includes a comma, but the whole list is separated by semicolons for absolute clarity. When a list is long and complex, semicolons make a huge difference in understanding exactly what the separate items on the list are.

Writers who just like the looks of semicolons might be tempted to over use them. Mostly, though, the funny-looking semicolon serves writers well for the two reasons discussed above.

Now it’s time for me to head out to the beach, perhaps to find the perfect wave; consequently, semicolons used with conjunctive adverbs must wait for another blog.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Me, Myself & I

Most people try not to use the word “I” frequently, not even the most egocentric or egotistical. If your assignment is to write about yourself, however, you’ll need to find a solution to the problem of writing a paper filled with the ubiquitous word “I.” You might ask yourself, “How am I to refer to myself without using the previously mentioned one-letter word?”

One way to manage the difficulty is to discuss events or ideas with the events or ideas as the subjects. For instance, instead of saying “I surfed at Mustang Island, and I had a great day,” or saying “I think my day of surfing at Mustang Island was great,” you can say “Surfing at Mustang Island that day was great” or “The day of surfing at Mustang Island was great.”

By changing the subject, you minimize the number of times you use the word “I,” but there is no reason to take it completely out of a paper when the paper is all about you. You should not even try to totally eradicate the word “I.” It is sometimes best to just limit how often it appears.

One note of caution is that it is better by far to go ahead and use the word “I” than to wind up with an awkward or stilted sentence. Using your own judgment and being aware that there is a way to get around repeatedly saying the word “I” should give you at least an idea of how to write about yourself, your own experiences or thoughts, without the one-letter word being the subject of all your sentences.

I like the idea, even if I do say so myself.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Can I Say That?

Among the many advantages of living in America, freedom of speech constitutes one of the finest. I certainly enjoy the right to say just about anything I choose. To answer the grammatically suspect question that serves as the title of the present blog, yes, I may say that, but I have to be reasonable about when, where, and how I do. Audience, circumstance, time, and place - all require consideration before I speak or write.

What students say and how they say it also changes, depending on their situations or assignments. College writing in particular often means paying attention to potential readers, primarily the instructor and, on occasion, classmates, as well. In addition, instructors generally limit the area of discussion for their students. Such limitations won’t stifle creativity at all; on the contrary, instead of mentally casting about in the entire universe for any idea whatsoever to discuss, students are given the basic subject area: a story, an article, or a specific question, in fact, a definite context for their papers.

Having limits and using them advantageously often liberates writers. Limits can direct and focus ideas, just as stars and compasses once kept old-timey sailing vessels on course. Assignments provide guidance systems for students navigating the open waters of liberty to say what they please and still keep it relevant.

As you yourself explore college level writing - you can say that -you may find that freedom of speech inspires you to go beyond any previous experience of school writing. Sail on. Keep the Ship of Context on the right course as you discover uncharted new lands of thought and expression.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

Taking Another Look

What if you have spent hour upon hour polishing (editing and proofreading) a draft, only to discover the night before it’s due (a bit of an awful epiphany) that the assigned work requires something different from what you have written? The professor asked for a description, and you wrote a narrative; or the assignment called for analysis, and you wrote strong personal opinions about the usefulness of analyzing; or even, in a worst case scenario, you retold a story instead of discussing it in terms of literary devices. Occasions such as these call for revision, a dismantling of the work in order to rebuild it in another form. Taken apart, the word revision has a connotation of seeing again, taking another look.

What should you do? First, read your work again (re-vision) to see if there is part of it that you totally don’t want to give up, a turn of phrase, a choice word, an idea you love. Once you have decided to keep sections, it might be possible to revamp them, change them enough to fit with the assignment and comply with the requirements. By the way, keeping everything you write is a smart thing to do, even drafts that you don’t think you’ll ever use.

Sometimes revision involves moving whole paragraphs or sentences to other sections of your paper to improve the logic or flow of ideas, a technique better known as editing. If you see points that fit logically somewhere else, move them. At other times, however, revision involves a complete rewriting of your paper, especially if your first draft is not going to work, no matter what you add or take away or move.

The good news is that in writing a first draft, you have probably clarified your ideas, thought about the assignment, or considered how to approach the topic. If your first draft seems off, not quite right, review the assignment first, and then double check to see if you can use any parts of what you have written, weaving it into a new form with changes, either drastic or simple. If you have retold a story instead of analyzing it, use elements of the plot to discuss the story.

Keep in mind, too, that spending time proofreading (fixing sentence-level errors) or editing (improving on the points you’ve made) before you are basically satisfied with what you have written overall may not be time well spent. Save the final tweaking of commas and such until you know the paper you’ve written is the one you will turn in to complete your assignment, the final draft that fulfills the requirements and instructions you’ve been given.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!

The Literature Code

There’s something calm and relaxing about a clear blue day. Perhaps it’s the sunlight gently pouring down. Perhaps it’s the soft blue sky, or the wispy movements of the clouds. Perhaps it’s just feeling that wind at your back and enjoying the mirror-like blue of the water. Then again, maybe I make the day out to be more romantic than it really is, and there’s no real meaning at all.

Life is the search for meaning. As humans, we want to make sense of the world around us, and transform it into something we can understand. This desire inspired the earliest stories and myths, which were told to explain the unknowable.

Although our understanding of the world has changed, literature remains the same. There’s still that same search for meaning in our lives. However, with literature, we are searching for meaning within a book, poem, or short story. This is called literary analysis.

Many people confuse literary analysis with retelling the story. However, there’s no real reason for anyone to summarize a piece of literature. We know what happened in the story. Literary analysts are not concerned with the words themselves, but with the meaning behind them.

“When is a rose not a rose?” When it’s used to mean something else.

When looking at a story or a poem, the first thing to ask is what the author’s main idea is. When reading an essay, we first look for the author’s thesis statement. It’s no different with literature. The story will often have a moral behind it, or some kind of hidden message from the author. This is the story’s theme.

Once you identify the theme, consider how the author is using language to show meaning. Ask questions about the text. Do you see an object being used constantly within the story? That object could be a symbol for a larger idea within the story. Do any characters act in a way that proves the author’s point? This could be used to show theme. Do you see similarities between the characters and the author’s life? The author may be writing the story from experience.
When reading a story or a poem, always interrogate what you’ve read. Once you’ve answered those questions, ask what it all means. Look for a pattern that makes sense. From there, you must prove your ideas with evidence from the text or any useful outside sources.

Don’t worry if your idea sounds strange or unusual. There’s always room for more than one “correct answer” in literary analysis. The important thing is that you’re reading beyond the text and making connections about what you’ve read.

Although writing a literary analysis can be difficult at first, it gradually becomes easier with time and practice. Just keep reading, keep questioning, and keep writing until the answer comes to you.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!