I am happy to report that I have finally dug my way out from under a mountain of student essays and climbed back up to the desk to write some posts.  Sorry for the mid-week hiatus.

As I was examining grammar handbooks for the next installment of Writing Power’s Proper Usage Guide, I came across a thought-provoking characterization of the difference between “can” and “may.”  I was surprised to discover that Diana Hacker’s Writers Reference, usually a bastion of fine distinctions, adopted a fatalistic tone about can/may. 

Hacker argues that the line between “can” and “may” has grown faint, and that the usage difference is now largely maintained in formal writing situations.  (In case you’re curious, “can” concerns ability, while “may” deals with permission.  Can I lift this heavy bag?  May I borrow five dollars?)

So why has Diana Hacker given up on can/may?  What’s next - shrugging at between versus among?  Does it matter?

Since I’m an English professor, you may expect me to say, “yes, it matters!  Hold the line lest we descend into chaos!”  But that’s not my perspective, and I’ll tell you why.

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Technorati Tags: grammar, prescriptivism, writing rules

 My students typically get into a bad place about their writing style right about now - at midterm.  Gripping their temples, they moan, “This is pointless.  It’s stupid.  You know what I meant.”  Just a couple of weeks ago, they had (somewhat glibly) assured me that they were eager to learn how to write with a more powerful, lively, specific style.  Now that they have had a taste of how difficult stylistic issues can be, and how deeply ingrained in their prose wordiness is, they’re frustrated.  Quite understandably.

Revising to improve writing style can be a tortuous - and torturous - process.  All too often, we fix one style error by creating another.  Or we can’t think of a different way to phrase our ideas.  Sometimes, we don’t even understand the wordy, jargon-filled prose our earlier selves drafted.  It’s enough to make a writer want to give up.

But my students are not giving up.  They are turning on the assignment instead, demanding to know what’s so great about active voice or what’s so wrong with “due to the fact that.”  I find this feistiness encouraging, because it means that they are questioning assumptions about writing.  They are thinking critically, even if their goal is nothing more noble than trying to worm out of the hard work of stylistic revision.  They need a manageable sentence revision strategy to get them started.

At this point, I introduce the class to my favorite sentence revision technique: Richard Lanham’s Paramedic Method of Revision.  It’s simple to understand, easy to do, and effective. 

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Technorati Tags: blog writing, Paramedic Method, Revision, writing tips

 Writing Power is proud to present the following compendium of tips on proper usage.  This is a list of some of the most commonly misused words and phrases in the English language.  In order to compile it, I consulted some of my favorite writing handbooks:  Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference, John Trimble’s Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

back up, backup: The former is a verb; the latter isn’t.  You should back up your computer files.  If you get into a fight, I will back you up.  Backup can be a noun or an adjective, as in I made a backup of my files.  I used to be a backup singer for Dionne Warwick.

bad, badly:  Confusion over these words is the flipside of the good/well controversy.  In general, bad is an adjective while badly is an adverb.  There are a few twists to this one, though, which I explained in detail in my Good Well Ugly post.

being as, being that:  Both of these phrases are the kind of vague jargon-speak that has infected our culture.  Neither is useful.  Substitute “because,” or restructure the sentence.

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Technorati Tags: blog writing, grammar, usage, writing, writing tips

 Writing Power is proud to present the following compendium of tips on proper usage.  This is a list of some of the most commonly misused words and phrases in the English language.  In order to compile it, I consulted some of my favorite writing handbooks:  Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference, John Trimble’s Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

allude, elude:  There are two things to note about the usage of allude.  First, a person can only allude to something indirectly.  To allude is to hint at something rather than make a direct reference.  Therefore, it is not correct to use allude as a synonym for refer.  Second, don’t confuse allude with elude.  To allude is to refer to something indirectly.  To elude is to evade detection or capture. 

allusion, illusion:  Allusion is the noun form of allude (see above.)  As such, an allusion is an indirect reference, especially to a literary work, mythological subject or cultural referent.  An illusion is something that tricks the mind or senses, a misperception, as in an optical illusion. 

a lot:  two words.  Always.  There is no “alot.”

amount, number:  To decide which to use, apply the “countability” test.  As the sentence is written, is the quantity countable or not?  If it is, use number; otherwise, use amount.  For example:  The zoo has a large number of elephants who consume an enormous amount of food.  You can’t count “food” - you could count bananas, or buckets of food, but that’s not the way the sentence reads.  You can, on the other hand, count elephants.

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Technorati Tags: blog writing, grammar, grammar tips, usage, writing, writing tips

   Writing Power is proud to present the following compendium of tips on proper usage.  This is a list of some of the most commonly misused words and phrases in the English language.  In order to compile it, I consulted some of my favorite writing handbooks:  Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference, John Trimble’s Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

Why would you want to consult lists like these?  Because by and large, spell check programs won’t catch these errors.  These words are not misspelled; they are misused in context.  Want to punch up your writing’s sophistication and accuracy quickly and easily?  Pull up this list the next time you’re wondering which word you should use.

a, an:    These are both indefinite articles.  When do you use each one?  The rule is actually pretty straightforward: a goes before a consonant sound, while an goes before a vowel sound.  A writer, an essay.  Notice that I said consonant or vowel sound, not consonant or vowel letter.  For example, even though the word honest begins with the consonant h, the h is silent.  Thus, the word begins with a vowel sound: an honest day’s work.  Since words in which an initial h is pronounced begin with a consonant sound, they would use a, as in a hopeful look. 

accept, except:   This is the first of many sound-alike word pairs that can play havoc with a writer’s mind.  Accept, which is a verb, means “to get, approve, or receive.”  Except means “exclusive of, excluding, or but.”  I will accept all forms of payment except personal checks.  Caution: in more formal parlance, except can be used as a verb meaning “to exclude.” 

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Technorati Tags: blog writing, proper usage, usage, writing, writing tips

 It’s excitable, it’s dramatic, it’s useful it’s - the dash.  The dash is a peculiar punctuation mark.  Many of its uses are duplicated by the colon, but the dash’s zippy panache gives it an advantage in some cases. 

However, the same flair that makes the occasional dash delightful also makes the overused dash dreadful.  Consider these tips next time you’re writing in order to spice up your writing with a judicious sprinkle of dashes.

First, a few formatting details, courtesy of my favorite writer’s handbook, Diana Hacker’s  A Writer’s Reference.  To form a dash, type two hyphens together without spaces.  You can also use an “em dash” function if your computer has one.  To be rigorously accurate, I must tell you that Hacker states that dashes should not have spaces before or after them (291).  This is a rule that I regularly violate.  I just think it looks weird. 

Dashes and I have had a checkered relationship.  At a certain point in college, I found that my ideas were calling for more complex sentences.  However, the specifics of grammar and punctuation were a bit hazy, and I wasn’t in the habit of poring over handbooks in those days.  Unfortunately for my professors, I churned out run-on sentences in every variety I could muster.  And when I was feeling particularly dramatic, which was often, I used dashes where semicolons and colons should have gone. 

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Technorati Tags: blog writing, dash, dashes, grammar, writing, writing tips

 Semicolons are one of the most feared punctuation marks around.  They’re an inexplicable mix of a colon and a comma, and they justifiably intimidate many writers.  How does one use this strange tool?    

Using semicolons can add an air of sophistication to any writing: because they’re so mysterious, semicolons are impressive to those who don’t know how to wield them.  Kind of like a samurai sword. 

But semicolons are more than fancy-schmancy punctuation.  When used confidently and correctly, semicolons give you a range of options for connecting your ideas together in a clearer, more exact manner.  And clarity and precision represent true sophistication, which impresses experts and novices alike.  After all, a fine samurai sword is likely best appreciated by samurai, don’t you think?

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Technorati Tags: editing, essay writing, semicolons, writing, writing tips