CJ’s blog: A lesson in personification…with Tommy the Truck

Posted on February 4, 2015 at 5:57 am by with

 

 

As I sit down on my comfy sofa to write blogs, she welcomes me like one of Grandmum’s warm oatmeal cookies…

 

 

 

 

…cushions made with just the right amount of butter and water, taken from the oven while still soft, enveloping my posterior as if to say, “There, now. You are safe, warm and loved.”  

 

My couch; I love her so.

 

 

Whether you use one word or a whole sentence, personification (when not overdone) can make your writing relatable.

 

Most of us know the nature of people–what they are like, how they behave; but any time you apply human qualities to inanimate objects, you use personification.

 

You can achieve personification subtly; one well-placed human trait can personify your words and create a memorable image for your reader:

 

The stars winked at me as I embarked on my voyage.

I paused to listen with joy as the wind sang in my ears.

 

Stars winking? Wind singing?

 

If you’re someone who takes thing literally, you might find personification is not for you.

 

 

But don’t forget what is possible within your imagination!  

 

You have experienced the stars and the wind as inanimate elements in your daily life. Now you add a “human” trait to deepen your familiarity, and, presto!  Out comes a personification.

 

 

Similes, metaphors, and personification

Personification in the form of a word or a few words can also be considered a metaphor or a simile. In fact, some may say that all personifications are metaphors and similes, but not all metaphors and similes are personifications.

 

However, certain brands of personification do not qualify as similes, which happens when you clearly treat an inanimate object as if it were human (usually in fiction or maybe in a journal—used just for humor).

 

Tommy the Truck:  a bittersweet story of personification

 

The following posts, adapted from my Facebook page, involve the ill health and eventual passing of my pickup truck; judging from the emotional reactions, comments, and LIKEs elicited from my posts on Tommy, well, my truck may as well have been human:

 

January 7th: Downtown Springfield: Tommy had to take a ride in an ambulance to a garage for a diagnosis tomorrow.  Poor twuk has never been away from Mommy this long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 10th:  Tommy made it through his surgery. He is still running roughly, however. As he limps down the road, I feel his pain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photo 3January 20th:    Poor Tommy, my truck, had to be towed again from work last Thursday. He was in the truck hospital again and had computer board surgery. He got a used computer, but he will need to be replaced. His compression is poor. I will have to get a different vehicle in a month or so when I can afford it.

 

 

 

“Alas, poor Tommy (Yorick)! I knew him, Horatio…” (But I moved four times with all my stuff in his truck bed, and he is only a 4 cylinder.) Poor little guy. 

 

 

My Facebook status updates for Tommy were not only met with an outpouring of LIKEs and comments, but with heartfelt wishes for Tommy to “get well soon.” 

 

 

When later I announced Tommy’s poor prognosis, wishes for recovery becoming condolences, my Facebook friends didn’t disappoint:

.

…Tommy had lived a full life.

 

…May he rest in peace in junkyard heaven.

 

…Maybe he just wants to take early retirement.

 

 

 

 

 

So, in my case, on Facebook, personification worked on its audience and delivered the sympathy I probably had been craving at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still skeptical about the effectiveness of personification? 

 

Let’s try an experiment.

 

Let’s remove personification from my post to a stripped-down (forgive me) version: 

 

 

My truck broke down.

 

 

And its lackluster follow-up post:  

 

 

My truck broke down, again.

 

 

How many LIKEs, comments, shares and sympathies might be warranted now?

 

I rest my case.

stock-photo-17388058-crying-african-american-female-nurseAs an aside…It’s not nice to “LIKE” something tragic, but people do it every day:

 

“My father died.”

 

Susie likes your post.  

 

Bad, bad, bad.  Be careful.

 

REMEMBER:  Use personification sparingly in writing that allows for a degree of individual flair. 

 

Be sure you stay in context, too.

 

stop sign

 

Where personification does not belong

Personification has no business poking its nose into serious reports…nor should personification butt in where scholarly writing is concerned… except possibly when writing in a style that might allow for or even reward personification (e.g. when your essay is about a genre that uses personification).

 

 

Thou shalt not commit a syntax error

Do not interject a phrase that is worded informally (meaning the same way you speak) using the syntax you developed from childhood until now.  Resist the temptation to insert your brand of poetic flair into formal writing.  If you simply cannot help yourself, do so at your peril.

 

Read up on syntax clashes and syntax errors, and you’ll find it can be quite technical.  The least you need to know: stick with one style throughout your writing.  Failing that, contact us for help with your scholarly writing.

 

And may your day be filled with all the glow of a kid with a lollipop.    

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Molly’s guest edublog: How to write a literature review

Posted on September 9, 2014 at 3:14 am by with

Guest blogger: playwright, satirist, and stand-up writer, Molly Bixby, offers her take on literature reviews

Literature reviews for your bachelor’s or master’s program are a far cry from your fifth-grade book report.

Don’t feel dumb if you don’t know what a lit review is.  Higher ed should require a course called Literature Reviews 101 as early as possible for every student. 

Maybe you were taught basic concepts of the lit review and how to design one, but your instructor didn’t teach it in a way you could understand.

When a professor or TA presents something new and complex in a monotone voice with all the excitement of a toilet running all night, well, good luck staying awake, much less retaining any content. 

You may only now be learning the term “literature review”–as you write your thesis for a master’s degree–which might seem to you like too little too late.

I hope the following conversation between two college students will help you understand and remember the basics of a literature review.

 

What’s a lit review?  Meet Jarod and Jenny

Jarod, a tall, handsome psych major, strolled up to a round table in the college student union and plopped down his heavy book bag. It landed on Jenny’s right foot.

“Ouch! Ya JERK!” Jenny said as she laughed and slapped Jarod’s shoulder. Jenny and Jarod were, so far, just friends, but it was obvious to even the most casual observer that the attraction was mutual.

“Hey, I’m not doing anything tonight. You?” Jarod asked, as he poured salt on the top of her hand, wooing in a primitive way.

“Well,” Jenny said as she blew the salt into Jarod’s shiny, thick hair, “I have to write a ‘literature review’ of some sort as part of my final thesis, but that should only take about fifteen minutes if I pick a short book about whatever psychology topic I decide to grab out of the textbook.”

“Whoa! Wait!” Jarod dropped the flirting and added genuine concern. “A lit review is a very time-consuming step in your thesis. You don’t just write a review about a book.”

Jenny blushed. “It is a book review, though, right? I mean, I wrote tons of book reviews in fourth, fifth and sixth grades. They’re simple.” Even though Jenny said that to Jarod out loud, she was already worried she had just made a fool of herself in front of the guy she liked.

 

A literature review is a book report–times 30 or 40

Jarod reassured Jenny. “A book report, a literature review….they sound like they would be exactly the same, don’t they? Well, there is a tiny thing they have in common. A literature review is a book report–times thirty or forty.”

“Yikes!!! I have to read that many books?”

“Well, you don’t necessarily have to read whole books.  And not all of your sources need to be books, either.  You can use journal articles, white papers, and other sources.

 

Your professor will ask you to list tons of sources from professional literature. Be sure to:

 

1.  Get articles written by credible researchers who have already analyzed the topic that relates to the thesis you want to prove…or improve upon.

 

2.  Make a bibliography and wade through the best of the best on your topic.  

 

3.  Build upon theories already established by researchers. 

 

“I will make a huge bibliography, then. That’s harder, but not like walking on water.” Jenny smiled at Jarod.

“Well…that’s just the start. The bibliography is just in your notes. When you weed through all of your sources and pick the best ones, you then need to write the lit review.

 

How to organize and write a literature review

Jenny got flustered.  “This could take forever to do!  Maybe I should just withdraw from school!”

“Jenny, don’t panic.  Here’s what you do:  

 

1.  Review all of the sources you’ve collected.  That means skim/read your sources!  

 

2. Once you understand the research you’ve collected, describe how these past discoveries are connected.

 

3.  Explain how you concluded what you did.  Add a different spin to your work. Try to conclude something that others haven’t.

 

4.  You can also talk about how earlier studies were limited in what they did. Explain what you plan to do differently to deal with those limitations in your study.

 

5.  In fact, addressing a limitation in a past study can be the slightly different spin you offer! Make constructive criticisms of past research designs.

 

Jenny shrieked. “This is just too much, Jarod. So, what now?  Go online and find tons of bibliography sources tonight?”

 

Examples of sources that are not scholarly

“Jenny, I know you hate the library, but go there anyway.  

Avoid Wikipedia. Anyone can claim anything as fact on Wiki, even though the people at Wikipedia seem to be cleaning it up to become more credible. The content is written by…anybody. That’s why Wiki is frowned upon as a credible source.

 

Don’t use anything from Ask.Com or Yahoo Answers, either. Those people will tell you that a jellyfish eats more than a peanut butter fish.

 

****Get the best and most sources you can from databases.  Learn to use them!  Then wade through them.  

 

How to read sources, form ideas, and build connections

Jarod tried to reassure Jenny,  “Now don’t freak out…but you need to actually read your sources.  I don’t mean read them word for word, but at least skim each article, pamphlet, book, etc., until you decide what you’re going to try to prove. 

Remember, try to add something new to what the experts have already done. It’s an ego trip, kind of, to find something others may not have correlated, but you have correlated!”

“So,” thought Jenny aloud, “…in this case, my class is psychology. You’re saying I need to think of something new to say about psychology that all of the greats haven’t already thought about? How can little ol’ me do that?”

“Oh, come on,” Jarod challenged. Almost everything has psychology behind it. Name something.”

Jenny poked her finger into the factory-made hole in the expensive jeans Jarod was wearing. The new jeans were made to look worn, with a hole on the thigh. “How about this hole, Dr. Freud?” She taunted.

“Well,” Jarod said, “I could go with Freud, actually, and talk about how he thought so many things were phallic, but I think I would go with Pavlov’s dog.  

Yes! Pavlov’s dog and its correlation to fashion trends. The dog learned to salivate when it heard a bell because it knew the bell meant food was coming. If I wear these jeans, both females and males say to me, ‘Hey, I love those jeans!’ but I notice their eyes go to the hole in the denim. So, like Pavlov’s dog, I like that, and I want to buy new holey jeans each time I get eyed.”

“Oh, psychology and fashion! You’re right, Jarod! There must be tons of things that I could theorize to be related to psychology!”

“Yes! But, if your prof wants you to write a literature review, just think of your third grade math teacher who always said, “You must show your work!”

The purpose is not to make you want to jump off a bridge but to show that you truly understand the works of those who paved the way for us.

 

How to write the thesis statement:  Start broad, end narrow (the inverted triangle approach)

“Do I need to start with the same thesis statement that my final thesis will start with?”

“No way, Jenny!  Here’s what to do:

 

1.  Start with a broad area and narrow it down.

 

2.  No thesis statement should ever be too broad. In fact, you can take that upside-down triangle and move from the broadest of the great thinkers to the smallest point you created and flip it over.

 

3.  In other words: start your final paper with your point. Then use points that are broader to show how you plan to support that point in your thesis paragraph.”

 

 Need more help?  

“Jenny, here’s a cool link to The Writing Center at UW-Madison if you want to learn more about lit reviews.”

“You’re so smart, Jarod. You never make me feel dumb, either.”

“Well, you can’t know something you aren’t taught. If you don’t learn it on your own or by a caring person, well…I once knew a guy with a developmental disability who at age 70 still didn’t know how to toilet himself because his impatient trainer stopped trying halfway through.” 

Jenny laughed but then looked at Jarod sideways. “Are you saying I don’t know how to toilet myself?” She had a little nervous giggle.

“No! Ha ha ha! I’m saying that you’ll do a fabulous job now that somebody who cares about you has just….told you how fabulous you are.” He looked down, nervously, cleared his throat, and added, “You need to read more about lit reviews now, though.  And get your stockpile of expert writings from a database and/or other credible sources so you can get your thesis done.  

Then maybe we can talk about the sex appeal of holes in $75 jeans firsthandedly.”

 

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Mike’s blog: Metaphorically speaking

Posted on July 31, 2014 at 7:19 am by with

Metaphors, in their simplest form, are powerful tools to convey ideas that may be deep, complex or difficult to describe succinctly into a broadly understandable analogue.  

Put another way, metaphors draw a comparison between two very different things with the purpose of making a meaningful comment upon one or both of them.

Metaphor appears in many forms. They can be as short as a single sentence:

 

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

 

Or a metaphor can be as long as an entire book, such as a novel where a man is constantly making repairs to a house that’s determined to fall apart, while struggling to hold together a broken marriage, a failed career and children on the verge of delinquency.

 

Metaphor in art

Some metaphors don’t have to be written.  A work of art is often a metaphor for an aspect of life. This is especially true of propaganda.

Consider this iconic World War II image of of a solo motorist riding with a ghostly depiction of Hitler, commissioned to encourage carpools and gasoline conservation for the war effort. 

 

Or take this image of an hourglass with melting glaciers slowly dripping onto a city as a warning about the long-term dangers of global warming.

 

These examples are heavy-handed, but they demonstrate the concept.

 

Metaphor in music

Music can be steeped in metaphor as well. Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf is a well-known example of this, with each character represented by a particular instrument and theme. The piece is often performed without the original narration, allowing the story to be told entirely through the movements of the symphony. This technique has become the standard for composition of modern film scores.

It has been argued that the human ability to recognize metaphor is the common basis for all art, and largely responsible for our capacity to learn.

Metaphors offer lots to the writer skilled enough to employ them wisely.  

 

But before we continue…

 

An important side note about similes and metaphors 

We’ve all had a high school English teacher who scolded us that “similes are not metaphors.” That isn’t precisely accurate. It is true that not all metaphors are similes, but similes are, in fact, a form of metaphor. However, the simile is a weak aspect of the form, because it reduces the comparison between objects to a very narrow aspect:

 

He was like a lizard, cold and dispassionate with others.

 

This sentence is fine, but an editor with a keen eye will be unimpressed and ask for a rewrite that eliminates the simile, like this:

 

The man was a lizard whose blood ran cold to compassion for others.

 

The second is a stronger sentence and imbues lizardness into the whole of his character, rather than just a particular aspect. Depending on how much time we spend with him, we can layer other lizard-like tendencies into further description of his character without having to revisit the comparison.

 

And on we go with our discussion of metaphor.

 

In his famous ballad The Highwayman (1906) , Alfred Noyes uses metaphor in the first stanza to establish mood and theme:

 

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.  

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.  

 

In these two lines alone, we know that this is not to be a happy tale.

 

Dead metaphors

Most clichés are a form of metaphor, but they’re a special, insipid member of the category known as dead metaphors. A dead metaphor is one whose meaning is understood absent of the original intent of the phrase.

Notable examples of dead metaphors include “dialing the phone number,” which is only true if you still employ a rotary phone; or the archaic “world wide web” which was the term we used to describe the internet to our parents 20 years ago. Originally evocative of how the interconnected network of networks is like a spider’s web of information, it evolved to become its own definition of the internet, before we all just decided to call it the “internet” and be done with it.

Dead metaphors don’t provide any of the benefits of a well-crafted original metaphor. Clichés are worse, because they’re simply rehashes of old, tired metaphors that have been thoroughly cleansed of all meaning.

 

Metaphor:  an insight into thinking

That brings us to the most important role metaphors play in your writing: they are your reader’s best insight into how you think. The highest goal of metaphorical language not only is to inform the object of the metaphor, but the thought process that created the comparison itself. It will reveal the author as irreverent, acerbic, brooding, melancholy, or any other possible adjective. The worst it could reveal an author to be is staid or unoriginal. Excise the tumors of static thought.

I briefly mentioned mixed metaphors in my last blog post (link back to preventable errors). Broken clichés are the easiest of these to identify:

 

He drinks like a chimney and smokes like a fish.

 

Metaphors require tact

Mixed metaphors draw a false or confused comparison, undermining the intended point and halting readers in confusion.

Like any powerful tool, metaphor is best used with tact. It’s the highlight touch on the important details: the parallel arc that examines the theme in another way. But an over-reliance on metaphorical language will frustrate your reader until they are screaming at you through the page to just spit it out already.

Obvious metaphors will similarly displease your readers. They come across as pedantic and insulting, as though you think the audience too dim to take your meaning. It is not always the easiest balance to strike, as particular audiences will have a different tolerance for them than others–a children’s novel, for example, will have more room for obvious metaphors than literary work aimed at the academic crowd.

For some more reading on the subject, author Chris Wendig has compiled a helpful, and (WARNING to parents) heartily profane, list of 25 things he feels writers should know about metaphors. He expands on many of the issues described here and discusses more key elements of how and why authors use them.

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Mike’s blog: Your argument is invalid: simple mistakes that torpedo the best writing

Posted on July 22, 2014 at 1:16 am by with

Thanks to social media, we’re all writing a lot more. Every day, untold amounts of information are posted to the internet . 

Given the quality of the common tweet or Facebook post, the cynics among us might use this data to dispute the commonly accepted wisdom that writers get better at writing chiefly through the act of writing.

Even the best intentioned among us have our lapses. Sometimes the dreaded autocarrot  is the culprit, but whatever the cause, it’s a lazy inner editor that lets us hit “Post” without double-checking our content.

The same issues can leak into the rest of our writing as well. Nothing subverts a well-crafted argument more mercilessly than a careless error. We’ve covered run-on sentences and misused words before, but here are a few other common errors to keep in mind for any type of writing.

Mind your apostrophes

You’re vs. Your: countless faces have met palm at the misuse of this basic contraction. It’s not the only word whose apostrophe use is commonly mistaken. They’re out there.

Writers use apostrophes in two ways:

1.  to mash a pair of words together into a contraction.

2.  to denote possession.

There are only four possessive pronouns that don’t use apostrophes: their, your, its and whose. Commit these to memory. 

Every time you write “it’s” “or who’s” read it aloud with the contraction taken out:

“It’s [it is] a bad idea to take the dog way from its [possessive] food bowl.”

“Whose [possessive] dog is it anyway? And more importantly, who’s [who has] got bandages?”

Know the word you’re trying to use

Bookmark Dictionary.com now. Use it often, even when you’re certain you don’t need to. Typos happen, they can slip through the cracks when you’re drafting, but there isn’t as much forgiveness when you use an entirely wrong word. You may be a tremendous wit with a flair for narrative, but no anecdote in the world is going to neutralize the snake venom.

Mixed metaphors and incorrect idioms

Before his team was thoroughly trounced in the decisive game 5 of the NBA Finals, LeBron James told the assembled media that “history is made to be broken.” All respect to revisionist historians and Dr. Emmett Brown, but few things are as irreversible as history.

LeBron mixed his metaphors. “Records are meant to be broken” is the common sports cliché, typically referring to things like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game or Brett Favre’s streak of consecutive starts.

LeBron wanted to dismiss the fact no team had ever come back from a 3 games to none deficit to win the NBA Finals. Speaking off the cuff, he instead mistakenly made a claim that, until we discover how to break the laws of thermodynamics, is entirely impossible.

Idiomatic language is closely related. While idioms and colloquialisms can provide color and uniqueness to the voice of your work, they should be used with caution even under the best circumstances.

To a non-native speaker, for example, “beating someone to the punch” could just mean you’re very thirsty at a party. Describing someone’s effort as “swinging for the fences” wouldn’t mean anything to someone who doesn’t know baseball.

Write in a clear, direct voice

In a previous blog, I discussed George Orwell’s famous essay on political writing. Three of his six rules to fix the bad writing of his day (and, sadly, ours still) directly involved writing clear, direct sentences. The University of Wisconsin Writing Center lists “sentence sprawl” as the second-most common error in student writing.

To paraphrase Orwell:

Never use a long word when you can use a short one.

If you can remove a word, do so.

Don’t use foreign words, scientific words or technical jargon when an equivalent exists in everyday English.

These are not always the simplest rules to follow, particularly among the perspicacious among us, and when considering that it is still de rigeur of celebrated authors to bombard us in haughty French and Latin phrases.

If you want to see how to write clearly and directly while still garnering praise as the most talented writer of your generation look no further than Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. 

If you really want to break the rules, write dialogue

Writers of fiction and creative nonfiction know the benefits and necessity of including dialogue in their texts. It breaks apart the monotony of description and exposition and lets the advancement of plot happen in conjunction with characterization.

The biggest mistake a writer can make in dialogue, though, is writing it perfectly. No one, not even the Queen Mother speaks in perfect English all of the time. So if you really want to cut your language loose and break some of the rules, write a story with some dialogue (or a blog with a conversational voice). But just be sure to know the rules before you decide you need to break them.

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Robin’s blog: Concrete tips for writing abstracts

Posted on April 30, 2014 at 5:36 am by with

dr. abel scribe

It’s an information-laden world, there’s no doubt. Thank heavens someone invented abstracts!

An abstract saves you from having to read or skim through pages and pages of an academic paper. Soon you learn what the writer has done, what they’ve thought, what and how they’ve studied, and what they’ve concluded. Simple, eh? Not every student faced with writing an abstract would agree.

Some guides recommend writing the abstract last. That might be the last thing on a weary writer’s mind after writing the paper itself. But if you can’t write the abstract with some ease, you may need to revisit the thought process you used in writing the paper. In other words, after developing your study, doing the research and drawing the conclusions, you should be able to summarize what has happened in 200 words or less. But “should” is not always easy. Here are some hints, tips, and formatting how-to’s.

What’s in an abstract?

The abstract has four parts: 1. Question: What research question did you ask? 2. Methodology: How did you explore your question?  3. Results: What did you find out? 4. Discussion: What might be the significance of your findings? Don’t write anything in your 200 words that isn’t in the paper itself. Edit ruthlessly. Include a sentence or two exploring the possible implications of your conclusions. Indicate any future research that could or should be done. (Write about those more completely in the discussion section of your paper.)

How do I say it?

To write the abstract, imagine writing home about what you’ve been up to – that is, if your siblings, parents, friends, etc. are interested in what you’ve been thinking (on a scholarly level, that is)! 1. Take a deep breath. 2. Re-read your paper; then put it aside so you don’t just copy from it. 3. Ask yourself, “What’s my research all about?” 4. Have compassion for your weary, information-flooded reader. 5. What did you wonder about? What did you discover? Why does it matter? Explain. In 200 words. Or less. Do that, and you truly grasp your paper as a whole. You may have even learned something creating it.

How do I format an abstract?

Writing an abstract poses two challenges:

1. You have to figure out what to say. Fortunately that’s probably the harder part.

2. You have to follow the formatting dictated by your professor or the publication (it could happen) that may publish your work. Often this is the American Psychological Association’s style (APA), and we’re now into the 6th edition of same. Rejoice! Sources for APA style information abound on the web. Of course, you might be someone who cannot abide the tedium of “underline?…comma, period, semicolon…?” In that case, let the editors at In Writing come to your aid. We thrive on that. Bibliographies and footnotes? Get ready to tear out your hair style-wise.  

Abstract style:  a quick guide

First, the Abstract page is always page 2. Include a “running head” on it (a condensed, 50 character or less version of the title on the left, the page number on the right).  Next, center the word “Abstract” (minus the quote marks!) just below.   Then, type your abstract in one paragraph, block style (no indents).

What about keywords?

You may want to include a keywords section. This isn’t required by APA style per se, but it might be required by your professor. And it seems like a good skill to practice. Select your keywords thoughtfully; they’re an even more condensed version of your paper.

How to format a keywords section per APA style:

Make a paragraph just below the abstract. Indent it. Type the word Keywords, in italics, followed by a colon, then type your keywords separated by commas. Don’t capitalize the first word after the colon (unless it would be capitalized anyway). There’s no period at the end of the list. Your abstract and the keywords section – should take only half a page. Leave the rest blank. Start your paper at the top of page 3.

Don’ts when writing abstracts

1. Don’t define terminology or phrases; do that in the body of your paper. (Clearly if your paper is ABOUT varying definitions, that rule isn’t relevant).

2. Don’t cite or quote outside sources. The abstract is about YOUR thought and research. (An obvious exception would be if a particular bit of existing research forms the basis for your paper’s investigation.)

3. Don’t use future tense, like “this paper will show.” Use present tense and past tense.

4. Don’t use “I,” “we,” “my,” “our,” etc. Stick to third person (he, she, it, they, etc.)

5. Try, as in most good writing, to avoid what’s called “passive voice.” You can recognize passive voice if the sentence leads to the question “by whom?” For instance – “It was determined that…” invites you to ask, “By whom?” A better sentence answers that question right away, that is, it’s what’s called “active voice.” The above in active voice: “These findings suggest….”

Do’s

A final “do” would be this: Think carefully about what you’ve accomplished. Envision a world full of people who want or need to read your conclusions. Then give yourself 200 words, give or take, to tell them what they can learn from your work!<

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Robin’s blog: Quote me: a quotation mark cheat sheet

Posted on February 2, 2014 at 3:26 am by with

 

Quote marks are satisfying to me. Unlike the “who/whom” business for example – the rules on how to use quote marks make intuitive sense  – to me, at least!

 

Most people know the first quote rule: if the words are exactly what someone said or wrote, put them in quotes. There are exceptions to this  (is there a grammar rule without exceptions?), but it’s a start. The issue of plagiarism may come to mind, but that is a topic whose complexity merits its own  blog.

 

Back to the simplicity of quote marks.

 

Double quotes

Use double quotes (these “) around short to medium-length quotations.

The man said, “Bring me an apple.”

One study participant noted, “I would not want to do this again.”

He said he would “never do that again.”

 

Block quotes

If you want to use a longer quote (APA style says 40+ words) you format it as a block quote. 

 

With a block quote, you DO NOT use quote marks. Instead, you start the quote on a separate line (indented 1/2 inch from the left margin).

 

Each subsequent line of that quote lines up with the initial line.

 

The quote’s introductory line should end with a period or colon, not a comma.

This is perhaps most famous part of the speech Churchill made to Parliament on May 13, 1940:

I say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.

 

Onward.

 

Introducing an ordinary (not block) quote:  Comma or no comma?

 

If the preceding word is the sentence’s primary verb, put a comma after it.

 

Another way to think about this is whether the preceding words are the “attribution” of the quote, that is, the phrase that tells you who said (or hissed, or shouted, etc.) the quoted words:

 

She said, “I found the answer!”

 

I responded, “I don’t think you did.”

 

Quotes that “run in” to the sentence

If your introduction to a quote includes “that,” you’re not going to use the comma:

He said the statement was “simply not correct.”

She said that the boss was “a problem.”

 

Quote within a quote 

Sometimes you’ll find what is called a “quote within a quote.”  

Here, place single quotes (this ‘) on the inside.

Place exterior quotes (this “) on the outside.

He said that he “will not forego the opportunity to ‘offer…blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'”

The three dots in the example above are called an ellipsis, and are used to indicate words left out of the middle of the quote. 

There we begin to enter the treacherous territory of actually using quotes, tricks such as when to use a four-point ellipsis, how to incorporate a comma with an ellipsis, and on and on.

In this short – and I hope simple – list of samples we’ll avoid those topics, too.

 

Punctuation:  Inside or outside the quotes?

There is one final point, and it’s one of my favorites, partly because it’s done incorrectly so often.

 

Please, please put ending punctuation inside the quote marks. (If you want the exception to that, it’s the semicolon, but that occurrence is rarer than a clear grammar rule!)

 

“Man the fort,” he said. “We will prevail, or die trying!”

 

He quoted Churchill accurately, saying, “Man the fort; we have nothing to offer but ‘blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'”

 

A final thought, occasioned by Churchill’s eloquence: punctuation and its companion grammar, as demonstrated above, can confuse and challenge the best of us. But we can look to Churchill’s words – not the punctuation surrounding them – to find what really matters.

Copyright © 2014 In Writing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Katie’s blog: What a central auditory processing disorder is and what to do about it

Posted on October 19, 2013 at 10:38 pm by with

image002 I was at Walgreen’s the other day when an overhead announcer requested a price check on papaya tablets.  When I heard this, I had to pull over with my  shopping cart and pause.  What did they just say?   Popeye’s tablets?  Is that a euphemism for canned spinach?  Oh, wait a minute… they are saying “papaya”  tablets.

This kind of thing happens sometimes when you have a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD).  It’s not a bad idea to laugh about it…or at least laugh about it after some time has passed if the distortion caused an embarrassment for you.  After all, the distortions CAPD causes CAN be comical.

CAPD is neurological

What happened to me at Walgreen’s is a common occurrence for those of us who, for all the audiologists in the world, hear normally, but our brains distort what we hear.  CAPD is actually a neurological condition.  You may then ask, “Well, doesn’t everyone sometimes misunderstand what they hear?”  Of course they do; the difference is in proportion.  How frequently do you misunderstand what you hear?  Do you often miss important information that most everyone else seems able to process? Has your processing style significantly impaired you/interfered with your life?  Has your processing style adversely affected you socially and occupationally?   Are your grades at school slipping because you “miss” important points in lectures?

When sounds hurt

Having CAPD can feel a bit like old age setting in…about 75 years or so ahead of schedule.  People tend to think I am hearing impaired when in reality I sometimes can’t accurately process what I’m hearing the first time; subsequently I may “miss” things.  Yet and still, I test normally on hearing screens.  Airports, shopping malls, the Fourth of July parades and fireworks—these are harmless places for most people; for those of us with CAPD, these places at one point or another in life may have created serious stress since we can hear and experience them so differently from people whose brains normally process what they hear.  As a very young child, I could not tolerate the sound of fireworks and would cover my ears and scream.  The sounds were painful.  Imagine what you hear amplified by a factor of 10.

Processing speeds will vary

As a teen, I forced myself exposure to novel and often noisy situations to desensitize my “quirky” wiring.  Still, I used to think I was slow on the uptake and was sometimes labeled “ditsy” because of my differences in auditory processing, which can come across to others as being “slow.”  Of course, there is a grain of truth to the “slowness” part, but it does not reflect a person’s intelligence; rather, it reflects a slower auditory processing speed since CAPD brains simply take longer to process what’s heard.  I used to often ask people to repeat themselves, of course, and I even had a rule about it:  If after asking someone to repeat themselves a third time I still did not understand what they were saying (as I could sense they were getting impatient with me), I would just go ahead and PRETEND to hear them.  Now, you can imagine just how distorted stories might get in the retelling in the world of someone with CAPD…kind of like an endless game of “telephone.”  It’s no surprise that I disliked and avoided that game as a young child.  Just use your ears and stop being so dopey, they would say.  As if being dopey were a choice, I thought at the time.  More important– I knew that I wasn’t “dim”–something else was going on.  Little did I know at the time that my brain just worked differently in processing what I heard compared with other kids.

Closed captioning:  Not just for the hearing impaired and the elderly

For a while, before I knew I had CAPD, I rationalized that all people just mumbled and talked too fast.  To this day, I rarely ever understand the lyrics to songs on the first listening, much less the third. If I’m curious about song lyrics, I can usually find them if I search Google.  I find places like bars or other places with lots of stimulation going on stressful and even confusing when I am expected to process conversations with others in those settings.  I rely on closed captioning when I take in programs on television or the computer (I am so grateful for transcriptions-and I have to say You Tube is in dire need of better closed-captioned transcriptions).  I find I must ask people with unfamiliar accents and those who speak quickly to repeat themselves; and I’m no longer afraid to ask people to repeat themselves more than three times.  If there is background noise, the problem is compounded, and I must ask for patience and help and to perhaps relocate to a quieter spot.

An irony, or at least a “perceived” irony, in all of this is that I have been successfully employed in medical editing and transcription for many years.  This type of work requires listening to medical providers dictate audio on patients and then editing what is heard.  How is it I’m so proficient in this work living with CAPD?  It’s essential to understand that the work itself takes place in a highly-controlled setting, wherein I can listen and relisten as many times as I need if I don’t understand what is said the first time.  Because the voices are prerecorded and not live, it is not embarrassing to go back and listen again.  There is no one there to ask, “Please say that again.”  Plus, with repetition, I have become so familiar with providers’ voices (including accents, quirks, and nuances from all over the globe) that it is like a second language in which I have achieved fluency.

As for my teaching, all in-person tutoring sessions happen one to one in settings that tend to be quieter and more controlled, which is essential for students and tutors to succeed regardless of sensory processing differences that may exist.

Compensatory strategies

Figure out your strengths and find a way to pursue them.   A central auditory processing disorder undiagnosed might  feel limiting, but do not allow it to limit you.  Easy to say, I know. You need to find ways to create a life that is less overwhelming.   Learning compensatory strategies will allow you to thrive (and in places like noisy bars—survive) in a world where the majority processes information differently than you.  You are in the minority, which is maybe not where you’d prefer to be if given a choice.  However, as in other things you might encounter in life, here again you must accommodate to the majority way of doing things.  Know that you CAN adapt to the culture with practice and patience.  Most important–don’t ever allow anyone to put you down for it.  It would be like putting someone down for having diabetes or cerebral palsy.  Of course, there are settings that are obviously a setup for you to do worse and even fail (you might reconsider your idea of supplementing your income by becoming a bartender– unless you want to say you’ve REALLY overcome an obstacle; I cannot fathom a more disastrous career choice for someone with CAPD).  You need to also learn about where you perform your best and work to your strengths.  It’s not unlike the experience you may have had in high school where you tried to change your personality to fit into a group when really you needed to find the group that fit you.

Explain to people how you process information.  There is nothing wrong with disclosing your CAPD; the condition is more common than you might think.  The other thing is people need to learn about it.  And the average person does not know what CAPD is.  I tell most people about it in some way. I may simply tell them I process things a bit differently through hearing and leave it at that.  I do this straight away if we’re working closely together.  In my experience, people are usually respectful about it.  There will always be those rare few who may dismiss your condition as a “café syndrome” and who might be mean or impatient about it.  I say, do you really want such people in your life anyway?  If these are chosen relationships (e.g. they are NOT your bosses, co-workers, clients), stay away from them if you can.

Pursue work in settings that aren’t overstimulating to you or at least in settings that you can tolerate.  Most people who know me well put information in writing for me.  Our virtual society in which emails and texts are the new norm is a godsend and an empowerment to people with CAPD–or really to anyone who communicates better in writing than speaking.  I gravitate toward quieter, structured, more predictable and controlled settings, which helps me better process what I hear.  That might be a good workaround for you, too. I take solace in written communication and have always preferred it, although I have learned to become proficient in auditory processing on the phone and in face-to-face interactions.  I do very well one on one in live tutoring sessions.  Add two or three people to the situation, and it becomes more complicated to auditorily process all that is going on, although I have worked long and hard to adapt to it and can do it well.

Ask people for what you need.  What’s the worst that can happen?  It is important that you learn compensatory tricks, just as people with hearing impairments adapt to the world around them; otherwise you’ll end up shortchanging yourself and the world around you.  It is tempting to want to become a hermit when you’re met with misunderstandings and impatient reactions all of the time, but try not to isolate yourself. Remember–this is not your fault. It is your neurology. Do not blame yourself for it. You will find that processing the world around you does get easier with practice and exposure.  

Do ask people to please slow down their pace of speech.  Do ask them to repeat themselves or to speak louder (especially when there is background noise).  Don’t pretend to understand what you can’t process (even if you feel stupid asking, ask–and you might even educate people about your condition if it’s fitting).  Do limit your time in places where you feel overloaded (if you are like me, you’ll avoid or limit your time in noisy places like bars).  If you feel that you don’t want to disclose your CAPD, you don’t need to.  You can always just tell people that you have trouble hearing.  Who isn’t empathic about that?

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Katie’s blog: ADHD and fatigue, part 1: when you can’t get your homework done

Posted on March 1, 2013 at 12:53 am by with

Recently a freshman undergrad with inattentive attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) asked, “How do I stay awake when I try to write my papers? I fell asleep again with my assignment last night, and now I’m running behind. This keeps happening to me.”

People with various types and degrees of ADHD find the condition makes it difficult to predict how they will function on a given day. The extremes of the spectrum range from “on” (functioning optimally) to “partially on” (functioning enough to do what is necessary in daily life) to “off” (barely functioning). The unevenness of symptoms can be terribly frustrating and makes it difficult to plan and carry out basic daily life activities.

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a child and adult psychiatrist in Sudbury, Massachusetts and founder of The Hallowell Center (a counseling and diagnostic center for people with ADHD and other conditions that affect concentration, attention, learning, and memory) and Dr. John J. Ratey, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, co-authored the 1994 groundbreaking ADHD canon Driven to Distraction. Eleven years later, in Hallowell and Ratey’s Delivered from Distraction, the authors bluntly describe the unevenness of symptoms in their checklist of “disadvantageous characteristics” of ADHD:

Inconsistent performance despite great effort. People with ADHD do great one hour and lousy the next, and great one day and lousy the next, regardless of the effort and time in preparation. They go from the penthouse to the outhouse in no time!

Some with ADHD hesitate to make plans when they are on. They worry that when it comes time to follow through, they will feel too off to deliver. If only symptoms came as predictably as a 9-5 Monday through Friday schedule.

Part of the unpredictability is the many variables that can affect the severity of symptoms that go with neurobiological conditions like ADHD.

ADHD risk management: Ounces of prevention
Below is a series of questions to ask yourself if fatigue is getting in the way of completing your assignments:

How interesting to me is my writing topic?
This question might sound dumb to you and painfully obvious, but people with ADHD tend to have special interests that captivate their attention, sometimes to the point of overfocusing on their special interests–and away from the task at hand. When people with ADHD must write about a topic they perceive as less interesting or uninteresting, writing can seem impossible. Most people find it more difficult to write about topics of lesser interest, of course, but with ADHD, the problem intensifies.

How much sleep did I get last night?
At least 7-8 hours per night is the recommended amount for adults, although for teens it is actually closer to 9 hours per night.

What did I eat today? Did I eat today? When did I last eat? How much protein did I eat today?
Blood sugar fluctuations can have a significant impact on ADHD symptoms. People with self-regulation disorders often “forget” to eat when they get involved in certain activities—especially enjoyable ones. When you start the day, a high-protein breakfast is best. Eat what some people might consider “dinner” foods when you first wake up. For example, reheat a chicken breast from last night’s dinner. The worst things to eat are bagels, cereals, and muffins (“muffin” is a euphemism for “cake”). Eating refined carbohydrates is the equivalent of taking a sleeping pill, suggests ADHD expert Daniel Amen. You will likely nod off.

How much water am I drinking?
Mayo Clinic recommends eight 8-ounce servings of water per day.

Have I been under more stress in school/work/my personal life lately?
Stress tends to make most chronic conditions worse.

Are my hormones fluctuating?
Hormone fluctuations can worsen any chronic conditions women already have. Some research has claimed that premenstrual syndrome can include approximately 150 different symptoms. I don’t doubt it.

Am I exercising?
When you exercise, you tend to sleep better. With good sleep, your overall functioning tends to stabilize. The worst part? Getting the motivation to start exercising. For people with ADHD, transitioning from one activity to another can be difficult and even disabling on some days. That’s why many people with ADHD cannot multitask (I should qualify:  Cannot multitask and get things right).

Do I have small “bursts” of energy within a day where I am calm, focused and clear minded?
If possible, do small parts of your project/write notes about ideas when you feel those bursts of energy. You may not remember your ideas later, so write them down when they come to you.

Am I eating foods that cause inflammation?
People with ADHD are prone to coexisting allergies and food sensitivities. Eating foods that cause inflammation can also inflame behavior. Our next post will outline specific anti-inflammatory foods that are recommended for people with ADHD (and other conditions that affect self-regulation).

Please visit our site for part 2 of ADHD and fatigue, when we follow up with more information and other concrete suggestions to help you manage symptoms of fatigue.

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