Even More Prose Revision Stuff

Presents for Me

Please turn in your Résumé Essays before you leave today.

Syllabus Quiz

I have FINALLY updated the syllabus quiz, so, if you took it, you got full credit. The gradebook has the official result because I couldn't figure out how to make 10 equal 50 any other way, so I just used Daddy's super overriding capabilities. If you don't know where the gradebook in Moodle is, I'll show you. I've hidden the course total section of the gradebook because it doesn't play nicely with the way I like to roll...I mean calculate grades.

Back to Revision Prose

I probably should have set aside 3 days for prose revisions and changed the name to better reflect our activities. Maybe "Prose Revisions, Word Choices, and Topic Sentences" would have been better. Who can think of a shorter title?

Let's jump on over to where we left off last class (2/2):

• Euphemisms
• Topic Sentences

Ready for Some 'Fun'

Is "Funner" a word?

How do we determine if something is a word or not? The reading (Tebeaux & Dragga Ch. 4) gives you some do's and don't's for word choice (pp. 55- 57), but why do some words work and others don't?

Don't ever let theory get in the way of real world contexts and your own common sense. Click below for the scanned dictionary entries:

• Fun

• Funner and Funnest

• Syllabuses

Words scanned from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1999. p. 472 and p. 1194, respectively. In fact, this is one of the dictionaries used in the Writing and Resources Center.

How about concision instead of conscieness?

For an in-depth discussion on the "proper" usage of fun, check out World Wide Words or Grammar Girl's Discussion. Remember, when it comes to word usage, it's not who says it, it's who hears it.

More on Word Choices

Let's think a bit more about word choice. Head on over to our Word Choice page for some discussion.

Writing For the User

Originally, I wanted you to do a mousetrap set of instructions, but I'm going to go ahead and drop that assignment (check the updated syllabus). Instead, I'd like for you to do a set of instructions on how to upload a webpage for UNCC students. I'll get to those specifications shortly, but for now let's go over Ch. 5 and 10 in Tebeaux & Dragga.

Per usual, I expect this will carry over to next class.

Homework and Future Work

Your Résumés and Cover Letters are due on Monday (2/14).

Your Prose Revision assignment (three paragraphs) is due on Wednesday (2/16).