Book ref.: Metal Magic (Marcosson, 1949)

I used the Material Search link (also in the Writing Studio Blog sidebar) to get details for the following example reference citation. Please note the:

• Order of the author's names: Family, Given; 
• Sentence-like punctuation of the main elements with periods:
• Author, 
• Date, 
• Title, and 
• Source; and
• Use of italics and Title Case for the title and subtitle.

If you have any questions about how to write references for your book reviews, please ask them in class, or spell them [out] in comments on this post.

Reference

Marcosson, Isaac F. (1949). Metal Magic: The Story of the American Smelting and Refining Company. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co.

[115 words]

Links: Impactful Pet Peeves

On her blog about academic writing, Explorations of Style, Rachael Cayley suggested:

The perception among students that their writing problems primarily involve grammar means that they often view their path to improvement as both narrow and fundamentally uninteresting. Not to say that grammar is actually uninteresting (obviously!) but rather that students might engage more readily with the task of improving their writing if they conceived of the task as having a broader intellectual basis. Improving your writing isn’t just fiddling with technicalities and arcane rules; it is a matter of thinking deeply about your ideas and your communicative intent. Calling it all grammar can be both dismissive and uninspiring. 

(Links: Impactful Pet Peeves, ¶2 [via Blog this])

To help us all come to grips with the challenges at hand in this Writing Studio, I'd like to ask you to read and reflect on her ideas, and to post your reflections in comments on this post. Here are few questions to help you get started:

• Do you think grammar is interesting? Why (not)?
• Would you take a(-nother) grammar course, if you could?
• Do you believe weaknesses in your writing come mainly from poor grammar? 
• What characteristics of your writing other than grammar concern you? 
• What characteristics do you admire in the writing of others – that of your classmates, peers, or acquaintances (personal or scholarly)?

[228 words {including 106 in quotation}]

Paul Gilding: The Earth is Full! (TED Talks)

"It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things" (Paul Gilding).

The words in the Wordle (the graphic just below the video above) come from the transcript of Paul Guilding's TED Talk. What kind of impression do they and the video of his presentation give you? Please let us know by add a brief comment to this post.


Sources:

• Video – TED Talks, February 2012 (retrieved 2012.03.05)
• Graphic representation of transcript created with Wordle

[92 words]