BR 1-03: Hairy Maclary (Dodd, 1983)

Another favorite story with animals!

"'EEEEEOWWWFFTZ!' said Scarface Claw" (n.p.).

Hairy Maclary is an animal adventure story from New Zealand (NZ). It was a gift from a friend from . . . , you guessed it–NZ! It's a great story for pronunciation practice because of all of the rhymes. My favorite line from the book, the quotation above (no page numbers), is a bit of a challenge to pronounce. Can you say that big word, and make it sound like a . . .  (a four-footed animal)?

Reference

Dodd, Lynley. (1983). Harry Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy. Wellington, NZ: Mallinson Rendel Publishers Ltd.

[106 words]

BR 1-02: The Cross-with-Us Rhinoceros (Bush & Geraghty, 1988)

Photo of book cover, 2014.04.17

"Poor Tilly was so scared she couldn't speak" (Bush & Geraghty, 1988, n.p.*).

This is a children's book that I've read again and again. It is a great story about four children who went out together and had an adventure. Like the last book I reviewed, BR 1-01: Dear Zoo (2014.04.16), this one features animals. The ending was surprising, but I'm not going to tell you what happened. You'll have to read it for yourself.

Reference

Bush, John, & Geraghty, Paul. (1988). The Cross-with-Us Rhinoceros. London, England: Hutchinson Children's Books.

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* This story doesn't have page numbers. If it did, I'd use "p. #" instead of "n.p." (no page number).

[117 words]

BR 1-01: Dear Zoo (Campbell, 1982)

I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet.... So they sent me a .... He was too grumpy! I sent him back. (Campbell, 1982, n.p.*)

Dear Zoo is a children's book. It is short and easy to read. It tells a story about animals coming from the zoo. There are little windows to open to see surprising things. If you like zoo animals, or easy books to read, I recommend this story.

Reference

Campbell, Rod. (1982). Dear Zoo. London, England: Campbell Books.

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* This story doesn't have page numbers. If it did, I'd use "p. #" instead of "n.p." (no page number).

[106 words]

A Rack of Start-up Labels

Between the hash marks below is a set of labels to add to new posts on individual blogs:

/////

books, brainstorms, drafts, essay prep., essays, fiction, free-writing, graphics, links, media, movies, non-fiction, outlines, quickposts, reviews, revisions, typing, websites

/////

(Source: The Writing Studio Blog, Start-up Labels, 2012.04.22; ...
[used with author's permission])

Some of the labels are required. For example, on book reviews, you will need to use at least three labels during 1st semester, including: "books, ...," PLUS, "fiction, …," OR "non-fiction, …" AND "reviews, …"  (all comma-separated values without quotation marks or ellipsis). You are welcome to use other suitable labels for book reviews as well, such as genre labels like "adventure, ..., " "history, ...," or "romance, ...," as long as they suit the content of your [book review] posts . 

For instructions on using the other labels, please see the Labels and Link Lists page.

Now, to jump-start your own label collections, please:

1. Add a labels gadget to the sidebar of your blog, then
2. Copy and paste the labels between hashmarks in the list above into a new draft post on your own blog;
3. Entitle the new draft post, "My Start-up Labels" (in title case without quotation marks);
4. Copy and paste the same labels into the Labels field on your draft start-up labels post; and
5. Publish your start-up labels post on your blog....

Once you've published your start-up labels post, with those labels in the label field as well as [in] the body of the post, the labels will show up in your Labels gadget. Later, when you label new posts or re-label previous posts, you will be able to quickly choose appropriate labels for required and other posts, rather than typing them all in [by hand].

[315 295 words]

Paragraph (¶) Breaks and Word Counts for Blog Posts

This snapshot shows how to separate paragraphs (¶¶), and where to put word counts in blog posts for course work.

For paragraph divisions, please enter two (2) line returns:

• The first return ends the paragraph you're composing;
• The second return creates a blank line between that paragraph and the next one for ease of reading.

Please note that there is no need for any indentation at the beginning of paragraphs. So do not enter spaces or tabs there. Also, if you compose your posts in a word-processing program that indents paragraphs automatically, please remove those indentations before you copy and paste your compositions into blog posts.

To put your word counts on the right margins of your posts, where they'll be easy to spot and add up, please: 

1. Type them in square brackets on new lines at the ends of your posts; then
2. Open the Alignment menu in the tool bar in Compose view, and 
3. Click on the icon for flush right alignment: 

[169 words]

A Few Command (⌘) Combo's for Macs

In this post, I'd like to point out a few Mac keyboard commands that may speed up your browsing and editing. To use them, hold down the command (⌘) key and press the second key once.

Browsing: Stop and refresh:

⌘ + "." (a period–without quotation marks) = stop loading

⌘ + R = Refresh or Reload

Those two commands may be useful if:

• a webpage you're opening doesn't open as quickly as it should, or 
• a document or webpage you're viewing may have changed recently.

Editing: Select, copy and paste:

⌘ + A = select All

⌘ + C = Copy selection

⌘ + V = paste here

In general, you can use the similar commands on other operating systems that have a control (ctrl) key instead of a command (⌘) key.

[136 words]