Text Book Review

 This week I'm going to be reviewing the textbooks we read for class this semester and give a little bit of background on the ones that I recommend. 

The Workplace Writer's Process by Anne Janzer was a good read. 

The main audience is writers that want to improve but feel stuck where they are. This book clears up some of the myths of writing and provides clear instruction for ways to improve their skills and manage their time effectively. It also tells the reader now to stress out over their work, writing takes practice and effort, you'll get there, and I think I appreciated that message the most. 

The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson was just okay.

I don't want to be rude but if I'm being honest I never understood the purpose of this book because it doesn't really teach you about typos. The authors are crossing the country acting as though they are heros on the hunt for typos and act as though they are saving the greater good because of it. And it talks about each typo as though it were so obvious to begin with. 

The language of this book could not have been more flowery and it felt like a riddle just trying to understand some of his wild phrases and complex imagery. It's basically an oddly fictional sounding, non-fiction novel. The audience has to be someone bored and really invested in the idea of weirding people out with their hero complex and over enthusiasm for grammar, (which I found I have less of than I previously thought). It had visuals of the typos, I appreciated that. And if you have to read it, I would suggest a buddy to read it with so you can have a good laugh. 

A World Without Whom by Emmy Favilla is amazing.

I felt that this book had the greatest impact on my writing. Favilla is the Buzzfeed Copy Chief, so I already know she has experience I can trust. And Favilla's tone was so normal and that of a regular human being. I loved that it was both professional without being convoluted. There was some colorful language here and there in the name of the natural tone, but the tips were so straight forward, so the audience is probably at least high school writers and above. If just tells you that language changes often and there are many ways to do the same thing, so be flexible. And it tells you to be direct with political correctness. For example, 'dark skinned' could just be offensive, it's okay and probably best to refer to their skin color as 'black.' 

I would definitely recommend this book. In fact, please read this one. It's so packed with clear and important information.

Editing is Everything

Perhaps it is my ADHD, but I have always had the hardest time editing my own work. I agonize over just starting it for days, because what if it's not perfect? But that'st the thing, there could always be something you could potentially do different to your work. The main things is to get the basics down and get over a fear of editing. It's okay if your paper or story isn't perfect the first time, that's what the first draft is for!

Here's 4 steps of editing inspired by Anne Janzer talks about in her book, The Workplace Writer's Process 113-114).

1. Objective

What is your main message of your writing? Is your point coming across? Are the plot points coming through? What is the purpose of writing this piece and does your writing fulfill that purpose? This has to do with writing structure and content, make it loud and clear for the reader.

2. Flow 

This is how your language sounds. How does your piece flow? Do your points connect? Are there transitions that make sense? Are your sentences written clearly for your audience? This makes the piece easy to read and your points easy to follow. 

3. Details

Grammar time! Clear up your comma splices, and your spelling. Place all punctuation in the proper place. Make sure your data is accurate. Check your tone for your piece. 

4. Proof reading

This part is so helpful, read your work out loud. Have someone else read for you even, you've been working hard on this piece and there are likely still a few mistakes still hidden that you may have missed since you've been staring at it for so long. This fine tunes all the above steps.

Editing can be tedious but it is so worth it for that perfect professional paper you've been after.

Anticipating Antecedents

 I have a friend (shocking, I know, stop) that once told me about a story she wrote that was in the first person. But the story had 7 points of view, that means 7 individuals all trying to tell their story at the same time. But the different people and point of view isn't what made it confusing, she said what made it confusing is the fact that they were interchanging mid paragraph and she could rarely tell who was talking. My friend really the story but she couldn't tell what was happening with some of the pronoun antecedents. The pronouns in a sentence have to agree with the antecedent in order to know who is talking or what the subject of the sentence is.

Lets make some examples so we know how to fix those.

As John and Sherri watched the ducks, Sherri assumed they liked them very much. 

Who did the liking in this sentence? It's unclear, two "they's" in a row can be confusing. We don't know, but if we get a little more specific with pronouns like this:

As John and Sherri watched the ducks, they assumed the ducks liked them very much.

See what we did there? Now the antecedent and the pronouns agree in the sentence so we can tell that it is the ducks that like John and Sherri.

Another example is object pronouns. Object pronouns (obviously) belong to objects but they also need to agree in a sentence in order for it to make sense. But when you aren't specific they can sometimes be confused with regular pronouns:

He set his alarm so he would wake up in the morning he did. 

Let's see, there are too many pronouns so if we specify:

Jason set his alarm so he would wake up before his Dad did.

Now we know that the second he was Jason referring to himself and and his father. 

So make sure you have your pronoun antecedents agree with each other, so that your readers will agree that your writing is great.