Clarity is the difference between writing to yourself and writing to someone else

November 20, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Audience-focused writing, Clarity

A few semesters ago, I had an out of town engagement on the first day of class, so I sent an email to all my future students introducing myself and giving them a writing assignment to work on before the “second” day of class. The majority of students answered my questions eloquently, used correct format for an email to an unknown superior, and generally impressed me with the writing skills they would be bringing to our class. However, not all of them exceeded my expectations.

The language of business

October 26, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Communication

One of my students recently sent me this article:

Writing Habits

October 17, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Business Skills, writing

Recently, I’ve been reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The ideas in it are fascinating. Basically, a habit is a routine that happens in response to a particular cue and leads to a particular reward. Habits are shortcuts for our brain, ways of transforming everyday tasks into automatic ones. In Duhigg’s book, he explains how it works and how certain people and companies have used this built-in system to improve or create new habits.

Formal writing

October 02, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Business Skills, Formatting, writing

“Formal” means having form, relying on conventions, following established etiquette. It is not a synonym of nonsense, complicated, thesaurus-like.

Titles

September 18, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Business Skills, Audience-focused writing

When we write to people we don’t know, we have to consider what to call them. Should we use their first name? First and last name? What about their title?

Clarity

September 14, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Clarity

One of the biggest challenges with written language is communicating our ideas effectively to a reader who is not present. When the message is accurately transmitted, written language is amazing. But when the message is inaccurately transmitted, fury encourages us to blame the other person, writer or reader, for the mistake.

More Real World Grammar

August 31, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Grammar

The sign below is posted at a pool at a campground. Can you find at least one error?

Real World Grammar

August 21, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Grammar

It's been a long summer filled with family, friends, and travel, but very little writing. The best writing moment of the whole summer appeared in a facebook post from someone in my newsfeed:

Real grammar: clarity

May 14, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Grammar, Clarity

Recently, I've started keep track of some of the real world mistakes that I encounter. I thought I would share a few.

Keep reading

March 27, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Reading

My students are just starting to work on a big project. To begin, they have to choose a topic. One of the groups had chosen the very broad topic of literacy and technology. Narrowing it down, they talked about how computers could be used to increase reading comprehension, they talked about developing apps to teach people how to read more effectively or faster or offering speed reading classes to high schoolers, they noted how people are reading a lot of short things but not very much long stuff.

Thank yous

February 25, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Communication

Apparently, Americans are the most overly polite people in the world. At least, that's what my European friends have always said. I do think we are particularly trained to say our please and thank yous, but at some point, I might agree with the Europeans that we overdo it a bit.

Writing well is hard (for everyone)

February 01, 2014 by Jenny Morse in Business Skills, Communication, writing

I've been teaching writing for almost 10 years. I've had a lot of students. The ones who succeed feel challenged and work to surpass that challenge. They recognize that writing requires practice, and they work at it.

Punctuation and meaning

December 18, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Grammar, Punctuation

It's almost the holidays and I've been too overwhelmed with final grades (and students begging for better grades) to think of something to write. But a few years ago while at a poetry reading that was taking place in an awkward industrial space that forced the reader to stand in a corner lit primarily by the familiar white and red "Fire Escape" sign, I thought of this mini lesson on grammar.

Writing and education

December 13, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Grammar

Middle school used to be called grammar school. Did the name change lead to the reduced emphasis on grammar or did we stop teaching grammar and therefore change the name? Chicken? Egg?

The colon

November 07, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Grammar, Punctuation

Not that one. I'm talking about the one in written language. The colon is a tricky punctuation mark. Somehow, someone got it into everyone's head that the colon is best used before a list. Well, it can be used before a list, but only under certain conditions.

I myself have learned something

October 10, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Grammar

Intensive pronouns. I was aware that reflexive pronouns are the ones that use "self" (that's the reflexive part), but I had never heard of an intensive pronoun before. Apparently, an intensive pronoun is when a reflexive pronoun is used to emphasize the subject and his/her accomplishment, as demonstrated by the title of this post.

Specific Examples

October 03, 2013 by Jenny Morse in writing

Young writers seem to think that everything is better when it doesn't say anything at all. They like poems that could be anyone, anywhere, feeling anything:

Three reasons people like bullet points

September 26, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Formatting, Audience-focused writing

We have become an informal culture. CEOs wear hoodies to work. We text, chat, facebook, and use all sorts of other intimate communications with strangers. The constraints and conventions of society have changed.

For most of us.

Punctuation

September 05, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Grammar, Punctuation

Today, maybe it's the overcast sky or the numerous requests I've had recently for proofreading, but I find myself thinking about punctuation. We don't use punctuation when we talk--most of the time--and we still manage to understand each other, so in some ways punctuation may seem extraneous or cumbersome. However, when we use written communication, we don't have access to all the signals we have for spoken conversation.

Pre-packaged multiple choice test tools rant

September 02, 2013 by Jenny Morse in Correctness

I have never used multiple choice tests or quizzes in my teaching. As a student, I found multiple choice to be excessively easy. I didn't learn anything from doing it; it was a simple identification, or maybe a very brief treasure hunt. In any event, multiple choice seems lazy to me as a teacher and a student and not a very good indicator of anything at all.