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Category Archives: Prose Style and Substance
Confession: I don’t take notes
Here’s a fact about me and my writing process that I have long hidden from teachers and peers: I don’t take notes. Ever. I remember way back in sixth grade when my shame first came to light. In my school … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Prose Style and Substance
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Book Bros, First Edition
Just for fun! A little chat about The Great Gatsby with my brother John.
Posted in Book Review, Prose Style and Substance
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University of Virginia Piece on College Essays
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
the ethic of minimal self-reference
I’m struggling a bit with how to write this post, as I don’t want to inadvertently endorse the dogma of minimalism. The minimalist dogma is the constantly-evoked notion that doing less in writing is always doing better. Its origins are … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance
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I refute it thus! “Writing should always show, never tell”
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance
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/advice
So this is a very minor thing, on balance, but I see it enough to think it’s worth saying. In the realm of practical advice: if you have to insert a word or phrase to indicate that something you’re writing … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance, Style
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cautionary tale: composition-cognitive overload
“When this news came out, I said it would be best if the supposedly-iconic character DC was going to have come out was someone for whom the revelation that he or she was gay helped tie together things we’d always … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance
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cautionary tale: overly clever metaphor
“If Oklahoma City is going to become a great team, which is not in any way guaranteed but which is within their field of possibility, they’re going to have to get used to things being weird, and to dealing with … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance
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resource on the first person for students
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
cautionary tale: ultra-cliche
“’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
cautionary tale: irony
I’m with those people who feel that certain protectors of the essential term and idea “irony” often go too far. Certainly more things are ironic than the most cautious of its policemen are willing to entertain. But still, there’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance
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cautionary tale: em dashes
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
lessons from real rhetoric: rip off the Band-Aid
Woodrow Wilson’s speech asking Congress to declare war against imperial Germany and bring the United States into World War One is, in many ways, a remarkable document. I’ve taken several classes of freshman composition students through a rhetorical analysis of … Continue reading
Posted in Prose Style and Substance, Rhetoric
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