November 22nd, 2007

Correct Writing Demands Respect

I’ve been meaning to post this for ages. It’s a list of quotations from the materials that I used this past summer to teach basic writing skills. My students were elementary-school kids who had recently immigrated from South Korea, so it’s super-simple stuff. Shockingly relevant. It’s funny how these basic facts of words-on-pages, things I should scoff to be reminded of, are not actually how I think of my writing, at least not very often.

–What is a paragraph? A paragraph is a collection of sentences connected to a single idea.
–No matter how well you write, you are not likely to create a perfect paper the first time you sit down to write.
–Ask yourself whether all of your sentences and paragraphs make sense.
–Adjectives that tell what kind, how many, or which one can be used to add information to sentences.
–Adverbs that tell how, when, or where can be used to add information to sentences.
–Vivid verbs help your readers form a clear picture of the action.
–Some stories seem so real that we believe they could actually happen.
–Writing is about making decisions. As the writer, you decide what to include and what not include.

I could stand to approach English as a new and difficult language more often, I think.

C’mon/belly up /to this brand new language
RR