Writing Workshop Group - TOEGTW Exercise Discussion: Please Read First Post

[Glen]

...did you write out a plan?

No plan. I felt a bit remiss when I saw everyone else had planned :0(

In fact reading through the posted exercises and discussion I've realised I didn't meet the exercise critieria. It asks for ten sentences - I only used six. I got the idea of using the self-referential subject and just launched into it.

I was impressed with your plan and how it translated into the para. It made me think about how the plan is a useful technique for sketching out how to write.

It reminded me of another technique (I forget the source) which I think the author called "writing down the page" or some such. Just spillling thoughts, words, sense impressions, ideas etc onto the page and using that as a framework for your writing. The power is in separating the structure from the syntax - allowing your brain to focus on one thing at a time.

 

[Vertigo]

Moonbat re my ch13 exercise: you are quite right about the positioning of the linking words and in particular the last sentences would maybe have been better written as:
"Therefore they must work harder preparing for these finals."
Or maybe put the link emphasis onto the finals instead of the students:
"These finals, therefore, require hard preparatory work from them." or "...from the students."

However elsewhere in the paragraph my main linking mechanism (as Glen noted) was the 'master plan':

...including quizzes, pop quizzes and examinations; both midterm and final.
Qizzes deal...
Pop quizzes are...
Examinations are...
The midterm...
The final...

As Glen also observed the different techniques definitely result in a different tone of voice. This plan approach is certainly more formal whereas the linking words approach is more informal. Which is probably one reason why the latter reads a little easier (another being that I simply haven't made it flow better ).

Glen, on your thoughts:

I think it would be very difficult to limit the size of posts here because we are inevitably doing a lot of quoting and sometimes of largeish (good word that) passages. Maybe try and keep the posts, less quotes, below 200. I've probably blown that already!

Threads for each topic is what I would have preferred however I think that could look a little like we are trying to take over the Workshop sub-forum Buhhaha! If we end up with a separate sub-form for this kind of workshop then I think that might be a good approach.

Larger groups I'm not so sure about. They will generate more exercises and more reviews. Imagine 12 people submit 12 exercises and then all 12 posts reviews of 11 exercises each.

I shall try and take a look at the new exercises that have been posted shortly.

Oh by the way Springs, what's with the apostrophe in "your's" you do l ike those apostrophes don't you!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh, Chrispy is going to have so much fun reading mine when we get to the apostrophe unit. I will weep buckets at the effort of grasping posessive apostrophes in public.... I think they are always going to be my blind spot but I'm still working at it. I think I meant your's as in yours is, but that would be yours's, which is, I'm sure complete gobbledegook.

 

[Vertigo]

It reminded me of another technique (I forget the source) which I think the author called "writing down the page" or some such. Just spillling thoughts, words, sense impressions, ideas etc onto the page and using that as a framework for your writing. The power is in separating the structure from the syntax - allowing your brain to focus on one thing at a time.

He does talk about a similar technique earlier in the book in ch5 pg25 "Finding Topics by Free Writing or Brainstorming". Though as the title suggests he is using it to find topics rather than structure. I actually tried something similar to this recently using a dictaphone and just blabbing away into it. A bit chaotic but it did result in phrases and sentences that were possibly more natural than I might otherwise have written them.

Note: I'm not worrying too much about double posting in these threads. Apart from anything else it helps break up the mammoth posts!

 

[Vertigo]

Oh, Chrispy is going to have so much fun reading mine when we get to the apostrophe unit. I will weep buckets at the effort of grasping posessive apostrophes in public.... I think they are always going to be my blind spot but I'm still working at it. I think I meant your's as in yours is, but that would be yours's, which is, I'm sure complete gobbledegook.

Hehe - I knew you'd love that one Springs! Here:

Your's
Though you may see your's written even by native speakers, it is incorrect. Yours should never have an apostrophe.

The Bottom Line
The idea that yours needs an apostrophe comes out of the fact that on virtually every other word, 's indicates possession, so English speakers sometimes think yours should be spelled your's. However, this is always incorrect - yours is the only correct spelling.

By the way did anyone notice that I completely forgot The Judge's excellent advice and created this thread with discussion in the title instead of something like review! But never mind I think this is where most of the discussion is likely to take place.

 

[TacticalLoco]

I'm more than a little relived to see that everyone has done something silightly different, as some of you know I'm using a different edition of the book so assignments may vary a little. Anyway I got my chap 12 work up and will get 13 up soon.

I think you all have done well and so have nothing to add to the crits so far. I just need to keep playing catch up at the point.

 

[Vertigo]

To continue my reviews:

Choccoweeble ch12

As you said yourself; possibly a little long. But, like Aber, I didn’t get lost, so it was clearly well structured; each point leading on naturally from the previous one. Possibly it would have been better to just have one sentence on the methods and then more detail could have provided in following paragraphs and those paragraphs introduced in the same way you introduced your sentences; Firstly, secondly etc.. The same criticism as Moonbat put to me might also be applicable, in that some linking words are buried in their sentence. So, for example: “The only way of breaking out of this cycle is economic reform…” could be “This cycle can only be broken through economic reform…”

Glen ch12
I liked the pace of yours Glen (and the subject ) however I thought it maybe lacked linking words (which of course you could justifiably argue was the topic of the next chapter anyway!). After the intro you make three major points beginning with “To create…”, “To attract…” and “Each sentence…”. Maybe the last of these is somewhat different but they might have benefited from the master plan approach to introduce them.

TacticalLoco ch12
I like this, it was concise and informative. My only real grumble was the sentence starting “The Govenor and state Republicans….” That ‘state’ doesn’t seem right there and as the preceding point began with “The Democrats…”, I think it would work better as “The Republicans and the state Govenor…” or maybe “The Republicans, along with the state Govenor,…” Placing “The Republicans” at the front pairs it better with the earlier point.


Glen Ch13
Strangely in this example you shifted from your usual snappy style to a rather more long winded one. Of course we are having to work with someone else’s words here which makes it tough, but you actually seemed to introduce extra words. For instance “…arrange makeup sessions to take the quiz.

Abernovo ch13
I thought this worked quite well with a couple of ‘buts’. Your third sentence beginning “One type,” didn’t feel quite right somehow. Maybe just punctuation: “One type, the pop quiz, is…” But there is also an ambiguity there: one type of quiz or test? Also in the “It is important” sentence (which I actually found the most jarring in the piece’s original form) I think placing ‘therefore’ at the beginning of the sentence makes it flow a little better.

Sorry, over 200 again. It will be kind of difficult to keep to that limit unless I do each review as a separate post.

 

[Abernovo]

Thanks, Vertigo. I was referring to types of quiz, as I see it as a pop quiz. I can see how that could be ambiguous. Something to work on.

'Therefore.' Aargh! I thought about using it, but I use the word too much sometimes and I decided against it in this case. I should have trusted my instincts.

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks, Vertigo. I was referring to types of quiz, as I see it as a pop quiz. I can see how that could be ambiguous. Something to work on.

'Therefore.' Aargh! I thought about using it, but I use the word too much sometimes and I decided against it in this case. I should have trusted my instincts.

I don't think it was a major ambiguity because, as you say, it is very quickly cleared up by 'pop quizzes'.

Actually you did use 'therefore' it was just the position I was commenting on, I would have put it at the front rather than the middle of the sentence. I use 'therefore' rather a lot myself. Here's a wiki page on some common conjunctive adverbs which has a couple of alternatives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunctive_adverb

 

[Glen]

...you actually seemed to introduce extra words…

I did. The constraint of trying to retain the original words meant, for me, that I had to introduce additional words to make it clear. I would have preferred to assign the original piece to the bin, and start afresh.

Please don't worry about the 200 wd thing. I was just sharing some ideas I'd worked with before. You're right. I don't think they would work here.

 

[Vertigo]

...I would have preferred to assign the original piece to the bin, and start afresh.

Yeah there were a couple of bits where I felt the same

 

[Vertigo]

I cheated a little with the restatement exercise in that I took a recent post of mine and adapted it . I will try and take a closer look at the posted submissions and comment on them but I don't think it will be until tomorrow (dinner is calling now).

Actually I have a bit of a problem with the restatement stuff, although it may just be a terminology thing. To me restatement means to say the same thing several times in different ways. But all the examples in this chapter seem to be saying different things in the same way. This seems to me more like the syntactic patterning from ch13.

 

[Vertigo]

A few comments on the submissions for chapters 14 and 15.

Ch14a
Seems like none of us were too impressed with the piece we were commenting on for this one!

Ch14b
I had difficulty with this topic so my comments will probably reflect that! Springs’ restatement seemed to be within two of the sentences, “Finished, complete, en finato” and “fly, little WIP, fly” maybe I’ve missed some, but is this restatement? I’m not sure. If I’ve got it right, I think Glen had it quite well: “They need water”, “Early and plentiful drinking of water”, and “water supplies” (not so sure about that one). Moonbat uses the repeated word technology in much the same way that the book example on pirates use the phrase “there were pirates” but again I’m not sure if Moonbat’s quite makes it as restatement. Aber’s seems to use explore in much the same way again but maybe with more variation in form making it less repetitive. I really did much the same in my own, except that I introduced the dart gun and then subsequently used ‘it’ or ‘they’ to avoid monotony but then does that mean I didn’t achieve restatement at all? I’m not really criticising the entries here, I suspect the problem is that I struggled to nail this idea down for myself.

Ch14c
I think Moonbat is the only one to have tackled this one, and seems to have done it fine! Although, again, I had problems with this idea as well. The book says that an illustration is one of several possible cases, whilst specification covers all the cases. However, how can you say all the cases have been covered? Again I struggle to see the difference!

Ch15
The material on comparing and contrasting I found much more straightforward (thank goodness!).

I thought both of Springs first two were organised around the points of difference. In the first I think you should have fully discussed all the points about Abendau before moving on to present the contrasting points for Dignad, ie. organised around subject not the points. Both of your paragraphs seemed to deal with one point of difference between each and then move on to another point of difference. I think Glen’s (slightly vitriolic!) comparison showed the two techniques better. Though I notice he didn’t go on to show the similarities (maybe there aren’t any J). I actually found the difference between the two techniques, organising around subject or points of difference/similarity, quite interesting. I’ve never consciously done this before and the two approaches do seem to shift the emphasis between the subject and the points.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yes, apologies, this was rather rushed in between getting the wip ready to submit. I will pay much greater attention this week.... promise. (brain dead tonight, though, long day at work, not helped by the kids waking me at 3.30 when I had a 5am alarm call...)

 

[Vertigo]

Don't you just love the sweet little things?

 

[Glen]

I've posted my response to the exercises for Ch 16. I'm the first in, I believe; and I have also brought an apple for the teacher.



I think we took a couple of weeks for Chs 14-15, so will we use this week for Chs 16-17? Ch 17 looks at first glance like a long haul, but its mostly examples of the same thing, and at the end we have made it through a whole section – the expository para.

I find 16 B) a bit weird to write. As usual I did not read the question properly and did the whole thing with both reason and effect linked together. I had to split them out.

That made it a good, challenging exercise, but I can’t think of how I would actually write that way for real. Any thoughts?

 

[Vertigo]

It does seem like we've slipped a week. I've been up to my eyes in stuff and am guilty of not getting the exercises done yet for 16-17.

I must admit I found both these chapters a little less applicable to creative writing. Sure you have to do cause and effect but I think the approach tends to be a little different for creative writing. In the same way 17 also seemed a little less applicable. I suppose in fantasy and SF there is a need to define words that people won't know ('cos we made 'em up!) but the Analysis and Qualification bits seem less useful to us. Maybe that's why we've been so quiet this time!

I will try and get something done in the next day or so.

I am particularly looking forward to the next section on sentences as I think that looks really useful.

 

[Glen]

Slam, dunk, chapter 17 exercises posted. Hurrah!

I wasn't sure about Ch 17 C) - identifying the qualifications. It will be interesting to see what others make of it.

 

[Vertigo]

I was't much clearer than you on identifying the qualifications Glen! It all seems so clear until you try to apply it.

Also I notice that I must be in your socially challenged category of walker

 

[Glen]

lol. my theme came from the book - he suggested we discuss a solitary activity, like hiking. Well it may or may not be. I reckon he's the kind of fellow that takes to the hills with a stout stick, his pipe, a flask and is glad to leave the world of poorly written prose and misused apostrophes behind him.

I'm not averse to a bit of solitary hiking myself.