ETHOS - authority, LOGOS - reason, PATHOS -emotion
GRAMMAR AND SPELLING
GOALS FOR TUTORIAL
CAREER GOALS:
TUTORIAL PLANS
-- FINISH WRITING/EDITING OF NOVEL
- WRITE YOUR BOOK
WITH ME
- STRUNK AND WHITE, ELEMENTS OF STYLE
- EMERSON, "SELF-RELIANCE," PROSE
- FROST AND OTHERS, POETRY
WEEKLY SHORT ASSIGNMENTS
FROM MY ESSAY, BASED ON ELEMENTS OF STYLE
I. ELEMENTARY RULES OF USAGE
1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ‘s.
A dog’s life, Tom’s pen, and Charles’s paper are right.
Note that possessives of plurals that themselves end in s take only the
apostrophe, so we have: several friends’ birthdays. Plurals not ending in s do
take ‘s: the children‘s hour.
2. In a series of three of more terms with a single
conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.
This, that, and the other all qualify.
3. Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.
It is best, at least most of the time, to avoid
parentheses.
4. Place a comma before a conjunction introducing a
co-ordinate clause.
This is often done incorrectly, but it is important.
5. Do not join independent clauses by a comma.
This is also often done incorrectly; it is important to use
a semicolon instead or start a new sentence.
6. Do not break sentences in two.
Be sure. Not to. Or only rarely!
7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must
refer to the grammatical subject.
Trying to write well, you should heed this rule.
ESSAY, "SELF-RELIANCE," RALPH WALDO EMERSON
OPENING PARAGRAPH OF THE ESSAY (BROKEN INTO SENTENCES HERE):
I READ THE OTHER day some verses written by an eminent
painter which were original and not conventional.
Always the soul hears an admonition in such lines, let the
subject be what it may.
The sentiment they instill is of more value than any
thought they may contain.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true
for you in your private heart is true for all men,— that is genius.
Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the
universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost—and our first thought
is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.
Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest
merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books
and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light
which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the
firmament of bards and sages.
Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is
his.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected
thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us
than this.
They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with
good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the
other side.
Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good
sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be
forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
NEXT WEEK, MORE EMERSON AND
Poet ROBERT FROST, "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be
the Same”
SCHEDULE:
ASSIGNMENT:
10 POSSIBLE TITLES FOR YOUR NOVEL
100-200 WORDS ON WHY STUDY WRITING ENGLISH BETTER
NOTE: I TUTOR ON WYZANT.COM, AND THIS IS FROM MY NOTES FOR THE FIRST LESSON WITH AN AUTHOR WHO HAS A MANUSCRIPT FOR HIS NOVEL.
I published WRITE YOUR BOOK WITH ME through Outskirts Press, and you can reach me through WriteYourBookWithMe.com and douglas@tingandi.com.
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