Blog post #3

During the last two lectures we’ve focused on pronouns and adverbs. When working with pronouns, I found it TREMENDOUSLY useful to repeat the difference between subjective and objective case in sentences. I didn’t know how or when to use “whom” before it was explained during class on Tuesday. It’s used when asking about the objective in a sentence, i.e. “Whom are you calling”. In this question, “you” is the subjective case because “you” is calling, while whom is the objective case because it is referring to who the subject is calling to. Another example is “The tiger ate whom?” The “tiger” is the subjective case while “whom” is the objective case.

Adverbs are describers which modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. The word-class which it is often confused with, adjectives, modify nouns and other adjectives. To determine whether a word is an adjective or adverb, check if it can be moved around in the sentence. “The soup was hot” can only be written that way. If I try to move it around “Hot was the soup”, or “The soup hot was”, it becomes what was referred to in class as “Yoda syntax”, after Yoda from Star Wars. Adverbs, on the other hand, can be moved around. “THE MAN CLIMBED EFFORTLESSLY TO THE TOP” (Effortlessly, the man climbed to the top. The man climbed to the top effortlessly. The man effortlessly climbed to the top). This demonstrates how the adverb “effortlessly” –which describes the verb “climbed” –can be moved around in the sentence.

In last weeks blog I was unsuccessful in my attempt of incorporating the parenthetical dash into a sentence. The sentence does not make sense when I remove the dashes, which is a criterion for using it. A correct way of using the parenthetical dash is “During WWII, Norway was occupied by Germany–who attacked using blitzkrieg–from April 9th 1940 to May 8th 1945.

I don’t fully understand the use of colons; does the content before the colon have to be a complete sentence, but what comes after does not? I remember it was discussed in class, but I don’t remember the specifics. Further, why is a comma not strong enough to splice a complete sentence?

Blog post #2

During the first two weeks of class, I’ve learned how to use semicolons and dashes. Previously, I’ve not used semicolon or dashes in my writing because I didn’t know where or how to use them. Now I understand that semicolon can be used to link two independent clauses that share a common thought. The independent clauses can be individual sentences. An example of using semicolon is “John practiced his chemistry skills all weekend; his effort paid off on the test the following week”. Another way of using semicolon is to separate a list of items that includes commas, i.e. “Petter Northug, Norway; Axel Teichman, Germany; Vincet Vittoz, France”.  To be honest, I don’t see the purpose of using semicolons in writing. Why not just use a comma, and follow up with an “and” before the next independent clause? It would make it easier for the average person who’s reading the text and the author would not have to think twice about formulating the sentence.  

Dashes are used to emphasize something in a sentence. There are two kind of dashes, Em ( − ), which are used with words, and En (-), which are used with numbers. “Alan goes to school in Minnesota−it can get very cold there in the winter” is an example of the first, while “The price range was $5-$10 for the shirt”. Although I did not know there were two different kinds of dashes, I can remember noticing different sizes during my reading sometime in the past. Now that I understand the usage of the Em dash, I’ll pay more attention to what is being said when I see one as it is intended to grab the reader’s attention.

I enjoyed reading Linda Christensen’s article about her experience with English and ideas on how to teach it to school children. My own experience is not as terrifying, but I recognize the stories about spending hours memorizing grammar rules and not being able to explore or incorporate it into my writing. I think most students dread the grammar classes because it is taught in a poor way. If it is taught correctly–GRAMMAR CAN BE FUN–and teach students life-long lessons. By involving students the way we were in class, it will easier for them to remember how a certain rule works by creating a more conductive environment for learning.

Some of the examples of colon usage in our text book, More Nitty-Gritty Grammar, don’t look right to me. I understand that because they are in a text book they are most likely correct, but I don’t like the way they look. Similar to the semicolons, I don’t understand why comma can’t be used in place of the colon. There are times I see the benefit of colon, such as before a long quotation or when listing time. When listing names, such as the example of which athletes dominating track and field, I’d rather use a comma because I feel it creates a better flow in the text.

What I want to work on Spring 2011

Over the course of the semester I would like to improve punctuation usage, understand when to use which tense, and expand my vocabulary and incorporate it into my writing. By improving punctuation usage my sentences will flow and communicate better. I often find myself being inconsistent with which tense I’m writing in, and it further causes me to spend time thinking about it in stead of focusing on what I’m trying to say. Because I grew up with English as a second language, my vocabulary has room for improvement. I’m continuously learning new words, but in order to take my writing to the next level I need to start using those words instead of playing it safe.   

Created a blog!

I successfully created a blog for Eng 326. This is my first blog and I hope it will be a fun experience.