The Elements of Style

Want a handy little book with gems of advice for plain, clear writing?  Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is just that book.  It actually has a long history.  It was originally written by English professor William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and he privately published it for use at Cornell University.  It was formally published in 1935.  Then one of Strunk’s former students, E.B. White (yes, of Charlotte’s Web fame), was asked to revise it in 1959.  It has been revised a few times since then, but it is one of the best little books on helping someone write clearly and accurately.

I was first introduced to it by my college professor, and I have found it practical and useful.  It also helps that it is a slim little book and not expensive. You can easily slip it in a book bag or leave it on your desk.  And of course, now it’s available online as well.

What advice does it give?  Well, for one thing it tells you to make every word count.  If a word is unnecessary to the meaning of the sentence, take it out.  It also says don’t use two words when one word will do, and it gives you clear examples, so you understand exactly what they mean.  There are sections on commonly confused words and commonly misspelled words, as well as sections on how to phrase things so that they are clear.  You can read through the book straight through or you can use the index and refer to the sections you need.

There are plenty of detractors of the book (here’s one: "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice") because of issues with usage, but those people are serious linguists who take the time to learn English in detail.  Most people will never reach that level of English grammar.  I find enough useful explanations that I still recommend it.  I think most students who struggle with writing, who would never consider studying English, are better off with it than without out it.  If you know of a good style book that is as short and concise as this one, please post here and let us know.

At Bartleby.com:  The Elements of Style 1918 Edition (if you want to see the original)

Cursive or Not?

Yesterday on the Today Show I watched a segment about cursive and what it said about one’s personality and how it is being taught in school.  The elementary school that my children went to taught cursive and then they moved on, and the children never used it again.  Now my children are both in middle school and the 6^th grade has then practice it again.  The 7^th grade requires them to write most of their responses and essays in cursive as do most of the 8^th grade classes.  The 7^th grade teachers last year told us parents that they thought cursive did a lot to improve children’s spelling and test scores.  They think it does a lot to improve children’s cognitive skills based on articles they have read.  I agree, but I thought I should look at what some have published on the matter.

An article in Junior Scholastics from 2006 says, “According to the College Board, the company that administers the SAT, this year's test yielded some surprising results. Only 15 percent of nearly 1.5 million students wrote their essays in cursive. The remaining 85 percent printed their responses. Who scored better? The essays written in cursive had a slightly higher average” (“Should Kids Learn Cursive Writing?”).  This article goes on to say that children should learn cursive even with the packed full curriculum that teachers must teach these days.

Writes Michelle Manafy in her article “Dreaming in TXT,” “A study released by Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham last November reports that a majority of primary school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produce superiorly composed assignments.”  She doesn’t necessarily agree, since she hated writing by hand and was taken to task in 5^th grade for horrible handwriting, but she at least acknowledges both sides.  I am not saying that everyone should be a superior writer or have beautiful handwriting, but I think there is something to writing by hand and in cursive whether pretty or not.

Some will say that with all the technology around that handwriting is less necessary than it once was.  That may be true, but I think that cursive does help with learning.  It does something in the programming of the mind.  I think there is something to learning a skill manually and then when it’s mostly mastered, it’s okay to use technology to make it more efficient. 

Take math for instance.  Children should still learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and then when they’ve mastered those skills, they can use calculators for the higher level math like algebra when it’s more important to put the equation together rather than show that you know how to multiply correctly.

I think writing by hand and then learning cursive and using it to write help with children’s development as writers.  Today, I mostly write on the computer, but there are times when I still write by hand.  Sometimes a computer isn’t handy or appropriate for what I have to write.  I have the skills to type, print or write in cursive, and I can switch quickly from one form to the other without so much as a thought. 

See How Much Plagiarism There Is on the Internet

There is a lot of plagiarism on the Internet.  Yes, I know my last blog dealt with how students plagiarized.  This one will show you how much is going on.

Try this exercise if you want to see just how much.  Go to Wikipedia.  Look up something scientific like “stem cell research.”  Then copy and paste a sentence from the article and put it in Google within quotations.  See how many sites come up with that exact same wording. 

For this blog, I search for “The practical definition of a stem cell is the functional definition—a cell that has the potential to regenerate tissue over a lifetime.”  My entire first page offered sites with the exact same wording.  In fact, I scrolled through ten pages, and all 92 results had this exact same wording.  Which one is the original?  I have no idea, but at least 91 sites plagiarized.  Who knows, maybe the original one on the Internet plagiarized from a print publication.

One exercise I have my online students do is find out just how many papers there are for sale.  An easy one you can try is Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.”  One search you can try is – papers “A Rose for Emily.”  Scroll through the first ten results, and you’ll see a variety of sties offering you papers for free and for a fee.  One site I see today actually tells you the grade you will potentially get for each paper offered. Plagiarism has become a business.

Why as a teacher would I post this information?  Won’t students go and use this advice on how to plagiarize?  Perhaps.  But as there are more ways for students to cheat, there are also more ways for teachers to catch cheating.  Most students will take this information and remember that they should not plagiarize and that there is a good chance that they will be caught.  I think education should involve the good and bad.  Students need to know what’s out there, even if they should not use it.

Ways Students Plagiarize

            Let me say first:  Most students are honest.  Still, we are in the middle of October, and I have already had at least one student who plagiarized his paper.  What a shame.  He could have earned a low passing grade if he had turned in his own work even if the quality wasn’t high.  Instead, he earned a zero, and now I will be watching him like a hawk.

            Plagiarism has become very easy in the age of the Internet.  The more that there is posted online, the more there is for people to copy.  But let me tell you one sad truth about plagiarizing: It takes as much effort to plagiarize well as it does to write the paper yourself.

            Here are some of the ways my students plagiarize:

1.      Copy and paste someone else’s whole essay/article into his paper.  This is the laziest method of plagiarizing, and there are two problems with it.  The first problem is that he is copying someone else’s writing.  What is the chance that what he is copying and taking credit as his own will match his style of writing?  Teachers learn styles from reading all assignments.  The second problem is that lazy plagiarist will not take the time to delete links from the paper.  Yes, I have caught students simply because the blue underline link was still in the paper.

2.      Copy and paste from a number of essays/articles into his paper.  While more effort has been put into this form of plagiarism, it still doesn’t work well.  Now the person has two or three or more styles of writing in his paper.  The result is a paper that often jumps around and changes styles from paragraph to paragraph.

3.      Copy and paste from a number of essays/articles into his paper changing just enough words to not get detected by automatic programs.  Most students do not do this well either because they insert words randomly without taking time to read and find the right words to substitute.  By the time a student does that, he might as well have just written the paper.  It ends up being about the same amount of time.

So, if you do have to write and you are nervous, then work through the nervousness.  Don’t plagiarize.  It’s not worth it, and you won’t get any better at writing by not writing.  Find someone to help you write.  If you are a college student, go to the writing center at your college.  Almost all colleges offer tutoring services in writing that’s included in tuition costs.

Izzy Is Finally Wired

I’ve been contemplating venturing into blogging for a long time.  What held me back was a theme.  I didn’t have a theme, and I felt that a theme is very important for a blog.  You see, I’m a dabbler.  I design Web sites and a whole host of other things that go with Web site.  I teach English at two community colleges.  I love trivia and learning all kinds of things – some practical but most not.  I wear a lot of hats and do all kinds of things.

I finally decided that if I waited to find a theme that fit me, I would never start a blog.  Today, I take the plunge and begin my blog. Maybe I’ll fill the blog with what I know – Web design and marketing, writing, and tips and tricks I find useful in life for whatever problem comes my way.

Welcome to Izzy’s Wired.