See a large collection of writing handouts, including academic writing , creative writing, and business/professional writing.
Final grades are due tomorrow. My only unmarked assignments are just a handful of final projects with some components I couldn’t evaluate, mostly for some technical reason. It’s been a pretty rough semester, but I’m glad I started prepping for it in July, rethinking and reorganizing and rebuilding lesson plans and assignment sequences with a…
I’m stunned by the writing. Here’s just a sample: Outside the Clark County Election Center in Las Vegas, a news conference was interrupted by a hysterical man in a sleeveless tank that read “BEER BBQ FREEDOM.” “The Biden crime family is stealing this election!” he screamed over and over again, as if repetition would make…
Earlier today Trump tweeted that his campaign would hold a “Lawyers Press Conference at Four Seasons, Philadelphia.” He later specified that he didn’t mean the prestigious Four Seasons hotel, but rather an unrelated business “Four Seasons Landscaping,” which happens to be located next to an adult bookstore and near a cremation company. One imagines that…
Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.Things Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Trials and Tribble-ations #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 6) Trivial Time Travel…A former student working in SEO…
A new graphic for an existing handout, which I touched up a bit. When is the phrase “when asked about…” part of good news writing? Rarely. A journalist who uses the phrase “when asked about” (or a similar phrase) is carefully telling the reader, “I’m bending over backwards to make sure you don’t think I’m…
It’s striking to hear her audience erupt in laughter at the comedy bits in the opening scenes. I assume they didn’t know what they were in for! Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and…
In October 2000, I was blogging about The F. Scott Fitzgerald Short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (background; full text) A biography of Virginia Woolf The precarious status of English as a global language A call for papers for a special issue of Text Technology devoted to interactive fiction (I have a copy on my shelf…
Headlines are important. (Send an editor some love.)
I’m sure that whoever wrote this headline had no idea how it would look on my web browser, but if this were a print headline, I’d say the design was awful. Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.Things…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. When people start disappearing from the Enterprise without a trace, only Dr. Crusher remembers them. Some cringeworthy lines (e.g. “If there’s nothing wrong with me, maybe there’s something wrong with the universe”) still earn a facepalm, but I really enjoyed Gates McFadden as she Shatners her way through increasingly…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break The Federation faces war with the Talarians over a culture-shocked teenager who sees Picard as a father figure. The Enterprise detects faint life signs on a damaged Talarian ship. Of course they can’t just beam the injured directly to sickbay; they must first send an away team to wave…
I hoped this slide would appeal to my students as I taught them about pitching a news story. Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Visiting the #scienceofpixar exhibit @kaminsciencecenterThings Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Trials and Tribble-ations…
Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.Couples in successful relationships always use these 6 phrases: 'You'll grow stronger both…Students are trusting software…
Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …The daughter missed her graduation ceremony because she was performing in Kinetic Theatre'…This was a rough term. Still have a winter term course…
Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …The daughter missed her graduation ceremony because she was performing in Kinetic Theatre'…This was a rough term. Still have a winter term course…
Good news writing, and praise for Trump’s cool demeanor during a crisis, from : The Independent The large man in the grey suit interrupted Donald Trump. No one interrupts Donald Trump – especially at the White House. At his White House. Then the man turned his back to the television cameras showing the utterly surreal scene live around the…
Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.Things Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Trials and…
I regularly teach Flannery O’Connor, and assign a whole book of her short stories when I taught an American Lit 1915-Present course. Now that I’m teaching “American Lit 1776-Present” I keep her stories in rotation, but I have more material to cover, so I have to be more selective. O’Connor’s fiction contains many themes and…
Jerz > Writing > Technical Writing Tips Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …The daughter missed her graduation ceremony because she was performing in Kinetic Theatre'…This was a rough term. Still…
It seems that an unusually high percentage of links I posted to my website in July 2000 no longer work, but here are a few links that I could find via the Wayback Machine: The guy who invented the “pet rock” won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for really bad writing. Humorous courtroom transcripts Q: All…