Assignment #5- Grammar Police

1. "Walk In's"- Corrected: Walk Ins

2. "Sunday's"- Corrected: Sundays 

3. When I first saw this poster, I thought the phrase "tender loving care" was incorrect and that it was an eggcorn for the phrase I normally heard, which was "tender love and care." However, I looked up the phrase online and was surprised to find that I was the one with the eggcorn and that it is actually correct. However, the lack of commas in this poster still make it very dramatically incorrect and unappealing. 

4. "Gallons of water is"-Corrected: Gallons of water are 

 

5."Thru"-Corrected: THROUGH 

6."Wedensday"-Corrected: Wednesday 

The "One Thing" Week 5- I FINALLY GET IT!!!!

After numerous years of being "taught" the difference between active and passive voice, I finally understand it. I can't believe I let myself lose points on almost every paper I've written over the past few years because of something so simple.

From the lesson this week, I learned that there is such a big difference between telling someone something and teaching someone something.

I have learned that active voice is: Subject, Verb, Object

For example- Andrew threw the ball (rather than passive voice, The ball was thrown by Andrew).

I think that when students assist in the teaching, rather just the teacher lecturing, it helps to make learning more effective. I know it helped me when in class, multiple students gave their explanation of active voice before we were actually given a definition and example from Kim Young.

This week was very helpful to me.

Assignment #4- Poster Problems

Semi-Colon? 

Oxford Comma

Oxford Comma

Thru? 

The "One Thing" Week 4- The Perfect Pronoun

In my writing, I tend to use pronouns very nonchalauntly and not put very much thought into them. After this week's lesson, I know I need to be more careful. If used correctly, pronouns can be great, but if not, your readers may not be able to make sense of what you're trying to say. For example, the sentence I just wrote would be much more confusing if I had used ambigous pronouns:

"If used correctly, they can be great, but if not, they may not be able to make sense of what your trying to say."
 
There is no way for readers to know what "they" is referring to, and this sentence essentially becomes useless. As a journalist, none of your sentences should ever be useless. An important tool I learned this week for checking your pronouns is this; look at your sentence backwards, identify the pronoun, if the noun directly before the pronoun is the noun to which the pronoun is referring to, your pronoun is being used correctly, if not, change it.  

The "One Thing" Week 3- Comma Coma

This week in class, a quote was said that I really enjoyed:

"Popping in a comma can be like slipping on the necklace that gives an outfit quiet elegance." 

 I felt instantly attracted to this quote because it combined two of my favorite thing: fashion and grammar. This quote made me look at commas in an entirely new way. Rather than thinking of the comma as a necessary part of a sentence, this quote makes it seem as if the comma is an accent piece, pulling it all together, which I suppose is what a comma does, I had just never thought of it that way before.

The "One Thing" Week 2- Get To The Point:

For the past three semesters, I had been studying as a Creative Writing major. Switching to Communication, I quickly learned that the writing style I had just recently become accustomed to, needed to change. Writing as a journalist, your mission is to get the point of your story across in the most quick and accurate manner. I learned this lesson while completing assignment #2, where we had to write one sentence that described the life of someone, based on the obituary that individual wrote about themselves. When completing this assignment, I used the word "loquacious" to describe my individual. When reading this out loud to the class, I realized that the majority of my classmates did not know the meaning of this word. This taught me an important lesson about journalism, you essentially have to write at a sixth grade level, one you can be sure that your entire audience will be able to understand, or else your meaning will get lost. Journalism is less about your language and more about your message, and while I am used to very vocabulary oriented style of writing, that kind of writing will no longer benefit me, and I am happy to have learned this lesson sooner, rather than later.

The "One Thing" Week 1- Literally Illiterate:

During the first week in class, I became more aware of a serious issue that I have, and as a journalist, it is a habit that needs to be broken. We went through a PowerPoint presentation in class which listed common errors that writers encounter, one of these errors was the improper and overuse of the word "literally," a literary crime which I am guilty of committing over and over again. Being a college student, when I'm not sitting in class, I'm engulfed in all kinds of social media, be it Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, I frequent them all. Because of this, I have become accustomed to phrases which include the excessive use and misuse of "literally." Just to name a few, "I'm literally dying," "I literally can't even" and "I'm literally obsessed." After discussing this with the class, I have realized that I'm never "literally" doing any of the things that I claim to be "literally" doing. Now that I have become more consciously aware of my issue, I will literally never make this mistake again…