Writing & Grammar

Posts about writing and grammar.

Team work can make the dream work or it might be a nightmare

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Sometimes it becomes necessary to work in a team. Maybe your professor requires it or maybe the creator of the course you are taking thought it would be a good idea. The bottom line is that you have to do it, so how do you get through it?

You could do all the work yourself, but that’s not really teamwork by any stretch of the imagination. You might actually lose points for taking that approach, so watch out.

You might also have a teammate who thinks they could do the work better than the person who dominates the team and tells you that he or she WILL be doing all the work. Again, this is not ideal.

Here’s some ideas for picking a teammate (or teammates) if you have a choice in the matter:

What is your idea of getting something done “on time?” If you are a Last Minute Lewy, then you don’t want to be on a team with Get It done Glenda.

What is your goal grade for the project? If you want an A and your teammate is fine with a C, you will drive each other nuts.

What is your idea of “doing research?” If you check out the resources of school library and your potential teammate is fine with googling everything, pick another group, especially if you are in graduate school (I’ve seen it done!)

The bottom line is to be careful with teammates. Your grade depends on the work you are doing as a team, so you have to be vigilant. I was on a team in graduate school once where I had a real nut job on the team of four. This gal was demanding, obnoxious, and weird. When the semester was over, she gave us all very low ratings (the students were allowed to grade each others’ performance and it would be deducted from their final grade, if the review was negative). She gave each one of us a 2 out of 20, which would have lowered our final grades by a full letter. Fortunately, the instructor was keeping an eye on things and he gave us full credit.

So, they say that “teamwork makes the dream work” but it can be a nightmare, like I found out the hard way.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Before you submit it, read it out loud

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Today’s blog posting is about a great way to proofread your work: read it out loud.

My son recently published a book that was over 120,000 words. He read each of them aloud before posting the book. I had a 400 page dissertation that I sent to a proofreader BUT did not read out loud before signing off on it. I caught 12 errors in the published version. Oops! (I figured that the paid proofreader, at $800, would have caught everything. She didn’t.)

You will be amazed at the grammatical and punctuation errors you can catch by taking the time to read the document before posting it.  Don’t skimp here, folks. The extra few minutes you spend will pay off in a better grade, which could affect your eventually getting into graduate school!

Have you had any embarrassing mistakes in a document, that you would have found otherwise? Oops, gotta run. I have to read my 90,000 word novel out loud, so I can prepare to send it to my agent.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Last minute Lew makes a bad impression

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

I got a flurry of documents from a student yesterday. He had only turned in one thing all semester long and then suddenly turned in all of his other assignments on the last day of class. Poorly written, the wrong assignments, copied and pasted from each other….the list goes on.

Last minute Lew did not make a very good impression. He offered no reason for being MIA all semester long and did not follow the directions when he finally, at long last, turned something in.

I received an email from Last minute Lucy a couple of weeks ago. She was also MIA for the entire semester, after the first week. She had been “busy” and unable to get around to doing her homework, so she wondered if she could make it up in the last week of class.

I told Lucy that my syllabus clearly states that I don’t accept any document more than two weeks after it was due. She had missed every discussion board posting; my policy is “you snooze, you lose” because discussion boards cannot be made up. That was 20% of her grade, so now she would have an 80. Two of her documents were more than  two weeks late, so that was another 20% of the grade. Now she would have a 60% or a D. If she missed the other two documents by even one point, she would have an F. I told her to do the math. She sent me a reply saying, “I did the math. See you next term.”

What about Lew? Well, he missed a “Failure for Nonattendance” grade because he turned everything in on the last day of class. One of his documents was more than a month late, so it got a zero. Another document was almost three weeks late, so it got a zero. The one thing he turned in on time was very poorly done, and he  lost points for not turning in two rough drafts. Long story short, he got the same grade Lucy would have gotten, if she had turned things in at the last minute.

The lesson here? Don’t be Lew or Lucy. Show up for class, turn things in on time, and pass your course.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

P.S. The names in this blog posting have been changed to protect the guilty.

Introductory phrases revisited

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Students sometimes come up with a plethora of introductory words and phrases. Like one student I have had recently.

In the first two paragraphs of his document, he had 3 out of 4 sentences beginning with “Although,” Additionally,” or “Further.” He visited some of those introductory words more than once.

Those are the marks of someone who is trying to use transitions but has decided to ease his way into a sentence. Within the body of a single paragraph, you do not need a transition between every single sentence.

Let me show you how to turn those phrases around, using one of my own sentences as an example.

I would take the following:

Within the body of a single paragraph, you do not need a transition between every single sentence.

And flip it around to:

You do not need a transition between every single sentence within the body of a single paragraph.

Or we could take:

Let me show you how to turn those phrases around, using one of my own sentences as an example.

And change it to:

Using one of my own sentences as an example, let me show you how to turn those phrases around.

However, please note that the second example still has an introductory phrase. We want to eliminate that introductory phrase part so we need to move some words around.

Phrases can be turned around so that you no longer have an introductory phrase. I offer my own sentence as an example.

I hope this helps!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

Thou shalt not use words ad nauseum

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

One thing that beginning writers do is they use the same words over and over repeatedly. It is almost as if they have found a word they like and they cannot use it enough. (Okay, I am sometimes guilty of using the word “recalcitrant” more than I should, so I know how they feel. It’s like using the word “titillation” if you are a teen-aged boy.  Maybe you don’t even know what it means, but it sounds so…forbidden.)

So, what is to be done? Right click on your mouse and find a synonym for the word, my friend! That’s why it’s there.

In academic writing, you sometimes need to say that a certain author has stated something, so rather than write “he or she says” time and time again, try one of these words:

He argues that…

She contends …

He maintains such and such…

She claims abc and xyz….

He posits… (Note that this is a graduate-level word)

She suggests….

Do you see how things can get a whole lot more interesting by changing things up a bit?  You can vary your wording and thereby keep your professor from falling asleep while reading your document (which is a good thing).

Are there any questions you have about writing or grammar? Just ask!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

What to do when you don’t know what to do

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Ask for an example. If you are nearing a deadline and you simply don’t know what the professor wants, email him or her and ask if he or she would be willing to post an example of an excellent student paper on your class page.

Periodically when one student really “gets it” and others do not, I ask the superb paper-writer if he or she would be willing to post his or her paper. In fact, I just did that today with one of my classes. The students are writing their second of four in a series of assignments and a couple of the students are trying but are not quite where I want them to be. I have tried to explain what I mean but then I realized that one of their classmates was doing the same assignment but approaching it differently. The highly-successful students are usually willing to give their classmates a hand, so everyone wins with this deal.

So, what do you do with the example? First, look at formatting. How was the paper set up? What appears first, second, and third in the document that the teacher liked? How many sources are there? Don’t try to re-invent the wheel here. The instructor has told you that this is a really good paper, so follow that paper’s lead.

Make sure that your grammar is good, that you don’t have any typos, and that you have subject/verb agreement. Do you have an introduction, body with transitions, and conclusion? Have you matched the successful paper, without copying it? It looks like you are on track for a much better grade.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

How do I get started on this assignment?

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

One huge question I am asked and students stress over is: how do I get started on this assignment?

The first  thing to figure out is: what is the assignment asking you to do? Do you have to write an informative speech? An essay on what you did over winter break? A narrative tale that talks about your life to date?

Let’s say that you are preparing an informative speech. What are you going to talk about? What do you know at least a little something about? One of the best informative speeches of all time that I heard in a freshman speech class was a talk on rims. (I always thought they were called hubcaps, but found out differently that day.)

The fellow who gave the talk was a very, very shy young man whose passion was rims. He did his research on his passionate love of rims and gave an incredible talk. Here are the keys to his success: he absolutely loved the topic AND he did research.

You can’t begin to write until you find out what others have said about your topic. You absolutely must do research, so that you have sources to cite.  My personal minimum on most undergraduate assignments is three outside sources. Impress your instructor and use five. Don’t do the minimum, if you expect to do well.

Sit down at your computer and begin to work. Plug your citations into the points you have decided to use (based on your research) and then build the speech around what your main points are. Add a conclusion and then go back and write the introduction. Do not copy and paste the conclusion into the introduction because they have different tasks. Please look at my blog on writing a speech for additional details.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. The main take-away here is you can do this, if you research your topic ahead of time!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

The dilemma of over commas

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

To use a comma or not to use one, that is the question. Hopefully, you will find this blog helpful in guiding you!

Oxford commas are used to connect the second-to-the-last item in a list of things with the other items in that list. It prevents confusion, such as in the following sentence:

I love my parents, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck.  Your parents are ducks???

I love my parents, Donald Duck, and Daisy Duck. I see;  this is very clear! You love three different folks. I understand that you are human and your other loves are ducks.  (I’m not going there….you must just be a Disney fan.)

Parenthetic expression commas are used in mid-sentence. You have added in an additional thought for clarity in the middle of the sentence, such as the following:

My brother John, who is a good man, helped me move.

Commas are also helpful when you write  introductory phrases. For example, I just used an introductory phrase in this sentence.  Sometimes folks, especially undergraduates, use too many introductory words or phrases. That can be tedious, so you can flip the sentence around to get rid of the introductory phrase, such as:

I just used an introductory phrase in the sentence above, for example.

I have additional information on commas in this blog, so feel free to read through those blogs and ask questions, if you like.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

Discussion board blues

Posted on by Sheri Dean Parmelee

Hello everyone:

Here’s your assignment: write an initial thread of two five-sentence paragraphs that answers the questions for this week. Post by Wednesday night at 11:30 pm ET and reply to one classmate’s initial thread in  a single five-sentence paragraph by Sunday night at 11:30 pm ET.

Is that clear and concise? Any questions so far? Note that the original thread is to consist of a total of ten sentences on the topic. The reply is five sentences in length and should refer to something that is in the original thread, so that I know you read it.

I have a student who writes two one or two-sentence paragraphs every time he posts his initial thread. Instead of posting a single five-sentence paragraph to one classmate, he instead posts to ten to fifteen of his classmates, with one or two sentences. Aughh!!!! (To quote Charlie Brown when he is kicking a football that Lucy is holding.)

It is my policy to read every thread that is posted and to post my feedback on it. Instead of having two posts to read from this one person, I now have eleven to sixteen posts to open and comment on. While he is technically meeting length requirements, based on the sheer number of postings he is making, he is missing the point of the exercise.

Most of my feedback on his postings states something along the lines of “Please stick to the topic at hand” and “this posting does not meet length requirements.” Complaining that he doesn’t know what to write does not address the topic we are discussing. Ever.

What do you suggest to get this individual to follow the requirements, not just the spirit of the letter? He will receive his first participation grade at the end of this week. What should that grade be, in your opinion?

Best,

Dr. Sheri