Writing Conventions: The Best of the Best
After looking at your blogs for a couple months now, I think it's time to give some praise to those of you who are saying exactly what you mean. The conventions of writing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage) help make your meaning clear to those that read your work. Your readers may not necessarily care what you have to say, but they understand your meaning perfectly because you write with precision. I applaud those of you who not only know the "rules," but who also make it a point to follow them when writing in blogs.
Here (in no particular order) are the writers in this class who have consistently shown a powerful understanding of writing conventions:
Matt McKinlay, Erynn Spencer, Sofia Waugh, Madison Hearld, Jordan Jensen, Alex Waltz, and Kelsey Rigby.
Now, before the rest of you get all depressed that I didn't name you, let me explain a few things.
1) Does naming these writers mean that they always write perfectly? No, but it is obvious that most of the time they make an effort to write properly, and that is a trait to be lauded--not just by an English teacher, but by anyone--because these folks are "putting their money where their mouth is," so to speak.
2) Just because your name isn't on the list, does that mean you are a bad writer? No. It means one of these things: you don't really try very hard to write correctly, there is some particular element of proper writing conventions that you haven't mastered, or you write the exact same way you talk.
3) How do these writers know "the rules" so well? They probably don't. They just have a sense for the way writing should look and sound. They probably learned this by reading a lot. They recognize when one thought is finished and when a new one should begin. Did they learn it in school? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, they get it, and I encourage you all to go read some of their writing.
The most obvious writing problem in blogs recently has been run-on sentences. This is a product of writing the same way you talk, without considering that punctuation is sometimes needed to clarify meaning. Commas seem to be a problem for many of you, so next term we will do a tutorial on them. I get the impression that a lot of you don't really know when a comma is necessary. (It's more complicated than just a pause in the sentence.) The other common problems that still bother me, in order of importance, are these:
1) Failure to capitalize I. C'mon! You all know this word needs to be capitalized! i can't believe you don't do it! (See how annoying that is?)
2) Lack of needed punctuation/paragraphing to separate ideas. This mainly refers to periods and commas, and it is a product of writing like you talk some of you also just combine all your ideas into one long paragraph which is confusing as well. (See how annoying this is?)
3) No real topic. Some of you write like you think, in random bursts, with no transitions between ideas. This could be a product of you thinking you have nothing to say, but, believe me, you've ALL got plenty to say! Just listen to yourselves during class!
4) Capitalization and spelling issues. Thees are things that can be easly bee fixed if you care enuff to run your writing thru a spell checker. There is one on this blogg proggram, you now? See the little ABC with a check mark underneath it? (See how annoying that is?)
There are many of you who write with enthusiasm unlike any I have ever witnessed, and I think that is great. Many of you say things that are deeply profound and even poetic. Many of you question the system and make us re-think our own positions about many issues. Keep it up! And if you want your writing to have even more power, master the conventions. Then we readers not only have an easier time reading what you say, but we see in our minds exactly the ideas that you are expressing.
Now go read those blogs I mentioned above!
*
Here (in no particular order) are the writers in this class who have consistently shown a powerful understanding of writing conventions:
Matt McKinlay, Erynn Spencer, Sofia Waugh, Madison Hearld, Jordan Jensen, Alex Waltz, and Kelsey Rigby.
Now, before the rest of you get all depressed that I didn't name you, let me explain a few things.
1) Does naming these writers mean that they always write perfectly? No, but it is obvious that most of the time they make an effort to write properly, and that is a trait to be lauded--not just by an English teacher, but by anyone--because these folks are "putting their money where their mouth is," so to speak.
2) Just because your name isn't on the list, does that mean you are a bad writer? No. It means one of these things: you don't really try very hard to write correctly, there is some particular element of proper writing conventions that you haven't mastered, or you write the exact same way you talk.
3) How do these writers know "the rules" so well? They probably don't. They just have a sense for the way writing should look and sound. They probably learned this by reading a lot. They recognize when one thought is finished and when a new one should begin. Did they learn it in school? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, they get it, and I encourage you all to go read some of their writing.
The most obvious writing problem in blogs recently has been run-on sentences. This is a product of writing the same way you talk, without considering that punctuation is sometimes needed to clarify meaning. Commas seem to be a problem for many of you, so next term we will do a tutorial on them. I get the impression that a lot of you don't really know when a comma is necessary. (It's more complicated than just a pause in the sentence.) The other common problems that still bother me, in order of importance, are these:
1) Failure to capitalize I. C'mon! You all know this word needs to be capitalized! i can't believe you don't do it! (See how annoying that is?)
2) Lack of needed punctuation/paragraphing to separate ideas. This mainly refers to periods and commas, and it is a product of writing like you talk some of you also just combine all your ideas into one long paragraph which is confusing as well. (See how annoying this is?)
3) No real topic. Some of you write like you think, in random bursts, with no transitions between ideas. This could be a product of you thinking you have nothing to say, but, believe me, you've ALL got plenty to say! Just listen to yourselves during class!
4) Capitalization and spelling issues. Thees are things that can be easly bee fixed if you care enuff to run your writing thru a spell checker. There is one on this blogg proggram, you now? See the little ABC with a check mark underneath it? (See how annoying that is?)
There are many of you who write with enthusiasm unlike any I have ever witnessed, and I think that is great. Many of you say things that are deeply profound and even poetic. Many of you question the system and make us re-think our own positions about many issues. Keep it up! And if you want your writing to have even more power, master the conventions. Then we readers not only have an easier time reading what you say, but we see in our minds exactly the ideas that you are expressing.
Now go read those blogs I mentioned above!
*
posted by MRT at 10:14 AM
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