Category: Writing Issues
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How to Write a Sentence in 4 Easy Steps
During my years teaching basic English at Columbus State Community College, I often felt bewildered by the inability of some students to write even one simple sentence. They would write fragments or run-ons, or worse, just string a series of words together that — to them — made sense but not to anyone else. As…
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The Danger of Hyperbole
A few years ago, I wrote a blog, emphasizing how risky it was for writers to use “inflexible” words such as always, never, and certain. Such words, I argued, “anchor the writer or speaker to a fixed position from which there is no escape, no backtracking.” An inflexible word could be especially harmful if used…
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Help! My Book Has (Maybe) Been Pirated!
In most novels, right after the title page and before the first chapter, you’ll find the following statement or something similar to it: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, now known or hereafter invented, or stored in a database without…
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Words of Victory
It’s over. The Ohio State football team’s painful losing streak to Michigan ended at four games last Saturday with the Buckeyes posting a 27-9 victory in Ann Arbor. In celebration of that happy event, this blog will analyze the meanings of four words associated with victory, starting with victory itself followed by triumph, conquest, and…
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When No Words Are Needed
When she was about six or seven years old, my daughter Rachel needed her tonsils removed. Her mother and I took her to Columbus Children’s Hospital (now Nationwide Children’s Hospital) for the surgery and the overnight stay that followed. Not long after Rachel had been taken to her room, I went back to our car…
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A Second Look at Synonyms — Part II
In my last post, I focused on words that are considered synonyms even though they have slightly different meanings. Subtle but potentially important differences were noted between recall, remember, and recollect as well as between jealousy and envy. In this post, we’ll focus on three more sets of synonyms where the words don’t quite have…
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A Second Look at Synonyms — Part I
In elementary school, we learn that synonyms are two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses. True enough, although in fact, there are very few synonyms that have exactly the same meaning. There are usually slight differences in the…
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Summarizing My YA Novel
As I look over my previous blog, which focused on five guidelines to follow when summarizing a piece of writing, it occurs to me that it may be simpler to summarize another writer’s composition than your own. For one thing, you can’t avoid using the author’s words in your summary, since you are the author.…
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The Keys to Making a Good Summary
Several days ago, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) made political history by speaking over 25 hours on the Senate floor, falling silent only briefly to take sips of water from a bottle. As a writer and former public speaking instructor, I considered a question that probably few others considered: How would you summarize his speech? Emily…
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Affect/Effect and Other Commonly Confused Word Pairs — Part III
It wouldn’t be too difficult to write a blog exclusively on the confusion that often arises over whether to use affect or effect in a sentence. But before taking on that challenge, let’s look at two other word pairs that are sometimes confused. Device and Devise Device is a noun that typically refers to a machine,…