Category Archives: Popular & Digital Writing

quote for the day

Posted on 8 December 2012 by Freddie

“Schoolchildren who are asked to trace early overseas voyages on identical outline maps are likely to become absentminded about the fact that there were no uniform world maps in the era when the voyages were made. A similar absentmindedness on … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing, The Discipline | Leave a comment

University of Virginia Piece on College Essays

Posted on 25 July 2012 by Freddie

One of my favorite resources that concerns writing the college admissions essay– an annoying task– has recently disappeared from the University of Virginia website. Written by Parke Muth, a UVa admissions officer, the piece discusses what makes for an effective … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing, Prose Style and Substance | 9 Comments

inherent difficulties with mainstream comic books

Posted on 23 May 2012 by Freddie

I posted a comment on the indispensable blog by Alyssa Rosenberg at ThinkProgress that I’d like to expand on. The post is about DC’s plans to out one of their major characters as gay. I said in the comment that this doesn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing | 5 Comments

quote for the day

Posted on 2 May 2012 by Freddie

“If you’re new around here, this is how the script goes: I damn“The Avengers” with faint praise, observing that the (supposed) culmination of the long, laborious Marvel Comics movie franchise is a competent but pointless popcorn entertainment that’s being wildly overpraised … Continue reading →

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resource on the first person for students

Posted on 24 April 2012 by Freddie

A webtext I wrote for the online journal Writing Commons has survived the peer review process and been published. WC’s webtexts are designed as resources for students to develop their writing and multimedia compositions; mine considers the effective use of … Continue reading →

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the Atlantic‘s war on the university

Posted on 5 April 2012 by Freddie

I could, if I felt like it, take this latest anti-university screed from the Atlantic apart. Laura McKenna’s piece is one of the most tired, cliched articles I’ve read in years, a collection of the classic warmed-over complaints about ivory … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Popular & Digital Writing | 4 Comments

hypocrisy goes both ways

Posted on 3 April 2012 by Freddie

So you can file this one away as random, picayune, pointless, of interest to almost no one, etc. Years ago, when it came out, I read the book The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg. The book was an (at the time, … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing | 3 Comments

cautionary tale: ultra-cliche

Posted on 2 April 2012 by Freddie

“’I ended up with a dream job,’ he says from behind a desk decorated with a massive grizzly skull and a glass statue of a bear. But the last few months had been more like a nightmare.”– Jessica Grose, in … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing, Prose Style and Substance | 1 Comment

fan culture and the rage of the enfranchised

Posted on 1 April 2012 by Freddie

Pop culture has become inescapable. I have no historical context with which to compare the current dominance of pop culture in our media, so I will restrict my consideration to its status today. I can only say that, if you … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing | 7 Comments

my issues with Twitter

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Freddie

Serial pedant and curmudgeon Jonathan Franzen has come out against Twitter, and engendered the typical reaction. I don’t agree with Franzen on almost anything, despite our shared anti-Twitter stance, and would not define Twitter’s problems in the same way as Franzen. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing, Tech Stuff | 1 Comment

cautionary tale: em dashes

Posted on 5 March 2012 by Freddie

Via this post on Splitsider, I read this interesting account of the State’s doomed move to network television. Written by David Lipsky, it’s a well-researched piece of immersive journalism, one made rather poignant with the benefit of 16 years of distance. … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular & Digital Writing, Prose Style and Substance, Style | 6 Comments

most e-textbooks will probably never look like the demonstrations

Posted on 22 February 2012 by Freddie

Which isn’t, I’ll hasten to say, a big problem. Last week, I was invited to a bull session about a new, tablet-based ebook version of a writing textbook. The publisher had asked the authors to get creative with brainstorming; they … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Popular & Digital Writing, Tech Stuff | 5 Comments

strange criticism

Posted on 4 February 2012 by Freddie

John Holbo, in the lead up to an enjoyable dismantling of Ross Douthat’s views on the Catholic hospital birth control controversy, paraphrases a curious criticism of Corey Robin’s Reactionary Mind: Some reviewers have complained that Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind seriously overreaches … Continue reading →

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