WSBlog Bedtime + Best Biblio's and PFs

Eight years I plugged away at chronicling, filtering, modelling, showcasing, recycling, reflecting, and reviewing in posts for students on the Writing Studio Blog (WSBlog). During that time, I learned a lot about blogging with students, and there have been several satisfying advances in Blogger blog affordances as well, for example the advent of pages, and the threading of comments on posts.

Blogger renamed widgets gadgets, and baked many new ones in, which made them easy for casual bloggers such as English-as-an-additional-language learners to use. The link roll on the WSBlog has grown to almost a page in length, and the label cloud, to almost a page and a half (actual size). Embeddable external-source gadgetry like Cluster Maps and Flag Counter indicate[s] that the WSBlog had over 7,000 (perhaps not unique) visitors in the four years up till November 2014, and that there have been well over 18,000 page views since August 2010.

Though I'm relatively certain that those aren't the largest numbers in the blogosphere, they're large enough to reflect on with a certain degree of satisfaction. Regrettably, however, RSS services that colleagues and I had adopted to concatenate feeds of independent learner blog entries for inclusion in our teaching blogs went the way many free or inexpensive services do, and workarounds never quite made it back to the stage of single feeds to display posts from multiple blogs in now standard RSS gadgets–so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Before I put the WSBlog into suspended animation (from which it might snore itself awake from time to time), I'd like to do one more little bit of showcasing–this time not for students in successive cohorts, but rather for those in classes which finished meeting last month. They sat exams on January 28, 2015.

To wrap things up for now, I'd like to point out to class members and their near-peers a few of the best bibliographies–modified APA-style lists of books that individual students reviewed, and the most reflective portfolios (PFs) in pages that students added or linked to their blogs.

• Students, please remember that if you aren't logged in to your university accounts, Google documents and spreadsheets stored on the university site will be invisible. 

• Please also note that for the PFs themselves, the writing before, between and after the iframes was more important than the activities and progress represented within the iframes.

Without further adieu, ...

Best biblio's (book listings):

1. Takahiro's, 
2. Nana's, and
3. Rina's (includes a good first go at a movie listing, too); and 

Best PFs:

1. Misaki's
2. Miri's and Nana's (tie), and
3. Kazuyo's.

Many thanks to all!

[445 words]

More Practically Perfect Predecessors' Portfolios

As you are developing your own portfolios, I'd like to ask you to do the following. Please:

1. View the slides in the presentation embedded below, 
2. Follow the instructions on slide two and slide three, and 
3. Review the portfolios that you find via the links on slide four. 

Then please return to this post, and add a comment explaining which of your predecessors's portfolios you think is the best from each section (§1A and §1C), and why you think so.

Thank you in advance for you cooperation.

__________
Note: This post reuses and revises text from a previous post (Practically Perfect Predecessors' Portfolios, 2013.07.13) with the original author's permission.

[110 words]

Practically Perfect Predecessors' Portfolios

As part of preparation for creating your own portfolios, I'd like to ask you to do the following. Please:

1. View the slides in the presentation embedded below, 
2. Follow the instructions on slides two and three, and 
3. Review the portfolios that you find through the links on slide four. 

Then please return to this post, and add a comment about which of your predecessors's portfolios you think is the best from each section (1A and 1C), and why you think so.

Thank you in advance for you cooperation.

[90 words]

Stars or stories? A Rough Outline

This post displays a rough outline of points to consider in planning and drafting your comparative movie reviews. The topics listed below came from maps prepared in both classes. The second option, comparing the same stories told and retold in different movies, didn't get any takers this time. So this outline focuses mainly on the stars, that is, on the same actresses or actors performing in the two or three different movies that your teams have chosen.

There are three things I'd like each team to consider while re-reading this outline from classwork last week:

1. This is not a complete outline for any particular review; it's an aggregate. Topics that you didn't announce in class may be just as important as some of those represented here, or more so. For instance, examples of genres and settings in this outline are just that, examples. You'll need to tailor topics that you chose from this outline to suit the movies that you're reviewing.
2. It isn't necessary to cover all of the points in this outline in your reviews. For instance, you needn't cover stars['] other roles, or lives outside acting. Similarly, some of the stars you'll be focusing on may not have won awards for their performances in the movies you've chosen. So please decide for yourselves whether any particular type of content will complement or support your comparisons of stars' roles, or detract from your reviews of the movies themselves.
3. The order and arrangement of topics in your reviews may well differ from those in the outline below. These are just the ideas that you and your peers shared with the class. You should consider arranging these and other topics you cover in ways that make it easy for readers to follow your ideas as you develop your reviews from one paragraph to the next.

If you have concerns or questions about possible content or organization for your joint movie reviews, please spell them out in comments on this post, activate the option to receive follow-up comments by mail, and feel free to respond to your classmates and peers in follow-up comments as well.

[438 words, including 78 in the outline]

Class notes: Nov. 28 classwork, group work, & homework

Yesterday was a big day in Writing IV, as those of you who attended will recall. Yet, as I have learned to expect, it was also a day on which there were technical challenges, not the least of which (for me, at least) was display of class notes on laboratory monitors.

The screenshot below, an enhanced version of my class notes, more or less reflects board work and general instructions from class yesterday. Square brackets enclose enhancements in this retrospective, or responses to questions in one section of the class or another.

Screenshot of enhanced Nov. 28 class notes, 2012.11.29

Essay prep. posts, as well as previewing, actual viewing, or reviewing of the movies that teams choose, are essential components of the homework assignment for this week.

Please click on the graphic above to get a closer look, or zoom in on it in your browsers. Then, if you have any questions or concern about the classwork, group work, or homework in that outline; please spell them out in comments on this post before the end of November.

Last but not least, I'd like to ask you again to share what you learn from posts on the Writing Studio Blog with your classmates and peers. Thank you in advance for your continuing cooperation.

[187 words]

Best Essays: Self-Assessments

This post recap's a message sent to viewers of the Best Essays: Self-Assessments workbook. In square brackets toward the end of the message are a couple of minor revisions (a clarification and a correction).

Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:59

Best Essays: Self-Assessments

Hello everyone (§§1A & 1C + assistants):

Thank you for your cooperation yesterday in submitting self-assessments of your best essays to date, especially those of you who submitted the Best Essays: Self-Assessments form only once. I closed the form for additional markup and sorting this morning.

On the left most spreadsheet in this Google workbook (sheet 1: 2011-12_1st-20110601), I've marked redundant entires with dark blue backgrounds across rows. Red backgrounds in individual cells flag failures to follow instructions when entering data, for example:

- more than the last five digits of student numbers, 

- blog titles or URLs instead of blog handles, and

- line returns within paragraph text entries.

Please note that most of those undesirable and unnecessary line returns within paragraphs are residuals of copy and paste clippings _from paragraphs on your blogs_, many of which still contain large numbers of undesirable and unnecessary line returns within paragraphs. So please revise previous posts, and remove unnecessary line returns within paragraphs. Then remember to enter line returns only between paragraphs, and then to enter two, to create white spaces between paragraphs.

Most important, however, are the entries that I've flagged with green backgrounds, which reflect growing awareness of distinct qualities of your own writing. In a nutshell, among the qualities you've mentioned are:

+ audience appeal,

+ ease of understanding,

+ grammatical accuracy

+ grammatical complexity,

+ informativeness, and

+ self-expression.

Please review items 8 and 9 (important qualities, columns J-K [at present]), and tell us in class next week (June 8, 2011) of any other qualities of your or your classmates' [and] peers' writing that you are able to distinguish from this data collection, or through links in it. Please also prepare to identify the topics of the weakest paragraphs in your best essays, and explain what their weaknesses are.

Thank you again for your cooperation. PB

If you have concerns or questions about this message, please spell them out in comments on this post, or voice them in class next week. Thanks.

 [382 words]

Paragraphs for Review in Google Spreadsheet

In this post I'm going to reflect upon and amplify work done online and in class in recent weeks. While I hope that you check your gmail regularly for course-related announcements, a recent reply to a two-week old message shook my confidence that all of you do so. For that reason, I'm posting these notes here, rather than relying completely upon another Google spreadsheet mail notification (forthcoming).

Those of you who reviewed paragraphs in the Google spreadsheet to which you posted them in November may have been unaware of general comments that I had added to row two before class last week (December 3rd, cells 2A-2I). In order to view lengthy comments there, when text wrapping was off, you would have had to double-click in each cell. For example, about titles, I wrote:

Please use accurate and catchy titles! There are confusing, inaccurate, and unnecessary alphanumeric code prefixes in this Title column [column E], for example: MR2-01 and Essay2-02 (no spaces before numbers). There also are titles that reflect assignments, but not the content of particular essays. However, please don't change titles here, unless you already have changed the title of your essays on your blogs, and are copying and pasting the revised titles in here. Titles should reflect content, theme, and focus. Accurate labels, for example, "essays" (... [three] Ss and one A), "movies," and "reviews," should suffice to convey other information instead of code (the exception to this rule is post titles for book reviews, for example: BR 2-01, ... -02, ... -03, ..., BR-12: [+ short book titles]).

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2E)

Since the focus of that data collection was weakest paragraphs in best essays as of November 19 (BestEssays_Self-Assessments form, item 3.e.), I am going to reiterate and amplify the follow-up questions from the spreadsheet that I announced in class on December 3rd, here, where there are layout options unavailable in Google spreadsheets (automated numbering and bullet points added, below):

1. Is what you've posted a paragraph?
   
• If not, why not;
  
• If so, how so?
  
• [In other words, what constitutes a paragraph?]
  
2. What is the topic of the paragraph [that you felt was your weakest]?
   
3. Is the topic [of that paragraph] defined in the first sentence (topic sentence)?
   
4. Does all other information or opinion in the paragraph develop and support the topic?
   
5. Is there any information or expression of opinion in the paragraph unrelated to, or ... [which does not directly support], the paragraph topic?
   
6. Does the paragraph end with a sentence that reflects the topic and content of the whole paragraph?

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2I)

The purpose of question one (above) was to explore your definitions of paragraphs, in particular, to discover what you had learned about paragraphs from other courses. If you can remember or retrieve a definition of paragraphs from Writing I or II, please share it in a comment on this post.

Question two (above), as we found in one class on December 3rd, also can apply to single sentences that some students posted for the weakest paragraph item (spreadsheet, column I). Once you identify the topics of sentences in question, they can serve as foci for paragraph development. In the first example below, the pronoun "It" reflects the topic from the initial sentence, "home page" (spreadsheet, cell 26I). In both examples below, the phrasing suggestions in square brackets introduce supporting reasons the authors could use to develop their sentences into paragraphs:

• ¶6 Let's go to this home page! [It is very interesting, because….] (26I)
• ¶6 I think French is more difficult than English [for three main reasons. First, French....] (32I)

Questions three through six (above) indicate weaknesses common in novice writers' paragraphs, and can serve as general guidelines for paragraph development. I say guidelines, rather than rules, because even experienced writers occasionally diverge from them. For example, in short paragraphs, concluding sentences may be unnecessary to maintain readers' attention, especially if following paragraphs start with topic sentences, and comprise topics that are closely related to preceding ones.

I'd like to close this post with thanks and an invitation. That is, first, with thanks to the students who explained their weakest paragraphs in class last week. I appreciate your efforts to share thoughts about your writing in a language other than your vernacular. Next, to students whose writing did not come to the fore as examples in class last week, I extend this invitation to identify what you see as major weaknesses of the paragraphs that you posted to the Goggle spreadsheet in November. A good place to spell out those weaknesses would be in the new column K on the spreadsheet, where we can all read and compare them. Finally, thank you all for your cooperation in our writing studio, both in class and in various online venues.

[811 words]

Essay Map: Composition Tool for Short Essays

I've written this short piece in Essay Map to re-explore its advantages and rediscover the kinds of output available at the end of the process. Basically, there are three main advantages of preparing an essay this way. However, output options are few.

Visualization
Visualization is a powerful tool for realizing your objectives. With desired outcomes in mind, paths to achievement may clear. Essay Map helps you see the end from the beginning, and back again.

Organization
The purpose of this mapping tool is to show beginning writers ways of organizing and supporting their ideas. Although thinking is rarely if ever linear, conventional writing is. Organizing and supporting main points help readers understand writers' thoughts.

Facilitation
Paths on the map are easy to follow and retrace. Though Supporting Details frames lack topic specific headings for main ideas, an Essay Map enables you to review your introduction, main ideas, and supporting points with a few clicks as you are writing.

Essay Map makes it easy to collect and organize content for essays. The writing paths are easy to follow for step-by-step development of your main ideas. Though the displays are narrow, you can retrace your steps anytime, and review your entire map before you finish. To capture output, you need to print from the "Review my map" frame (and retype), or copy and paste text from individual input frames. Nevertheless, this is a cool tool for composing short five-paragraph essays!

[242 words]

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Revised in Blogger

Comment Chops for All [+ A Scavenger Hunt]

This post consolidates comments that I've attached recently to individual blogs, comments which apply, in general, to many more of your posts. I hope you will consider all of the suggestions in these three comments, reflect on them carefully in light of your own writing habits, and take them to heart in all of your blogging endeavors.

You may note that I am quoting liberally from my own writing (with permission;-), and making it clear in context (this explanation) and through layout (ellipses, block indentations, italics, and references; below) that I am using long quotations in this post, yet avoiding self-plagiarism. If you would like to see the passages that I'm quoting in their original contexts, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt (A Scavenger Hunt, below)

Book review content and organization, and word counts

Would you please review Mr. T's Book Review Recipe for advice regarding the content and organization of book reviews? Rather than retelling the stories you read, your writing should reflect your choices of books, your thinking about the books you choose (before and after reading them), whether you recommend them to your classmates and peers, and why. You also need word counts on every post.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Titles, introductions, keywords, and vocabulary references

When you write several hundred words about any topic, it's really important to be clear about what it is going to be in the title, and in the introduction, too. There [in yours] you suggest, ....

It also is important to incorporate white space in your texts, between the paragraphs, to help readers find your main points quickly and easily. Even with a computerized search, I didn't find ... [a keyword from your title] in your post. Perhaps you can find ... [that keyword] in the Visual Thesaurus... [, which] I've listed on the Writing Studio Wiki (Vocabulary References), and displayed at the foot of the Writing Studio Blog.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Grammar, spelling, and links

I wonder whether you have grammar and spell-checked this rewrite in a word processing program (OpenOffice, NeoOffice, or Word), and whether you know how to make URLs into active links in blog posts and comments. If something you've written gets flagged during a thorough grammar/spelling check, and you're not sure how to revise it, please ask in class.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

A Scavenger Hunt

If you would like to review the comments that I've quoted (above) in their original contexts on classmates' and peers' blogs, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt to find them. There will be a small prize for the first student in each class who informs me in class precisely whose blogs and which posts (blog handles, titles, dates, and times) display those comments on them.

[459 words, excluding title]

Thank you! No further nominations, please!

Thank you for reviewing all of your active classmates' blogs, and for all of your nominations of best reviews written as fourth essays (Best Reviews 1.0 (2008), 2008.06.04). I'm closing nominations now, approximately twenty-four hours after opening them. I will disregard nominations posted after 09:00 today (JST), and notify you of the finalists as soon as I can digest all of the feedback that you have provided. Thanks again.

[70 words]

Best Reviews 1.5 (2008): Most Visually Appealing

To nominate blogs for Most Visually Appealing, post comments this post. In your comments, include:

1. the author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. the title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself), and
   
3. your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it.

Thank you.

[3 words
not used in
previous quickpost]

__________
Note: This note is to deflect criticism concerning copying, modifying, or plagiarizing my own work. In this post I reuse and create a derivative of content from (a) previous post(-s) on the Writing Studio Blog. I do so in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 License at the foot of this blog.

Best Reviews 1.4 (2008): Most Interesting

To nominate blogs for Most Interesting or Unusual, post comments this post. In your comments, include:

1. the author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. the title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself), and
   
3. your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it.

Thank you.

[2 words
not used in
previous quickpost]

__________
Note: This note is to deflect criticism concerning copying, modifying, or plagiarizing my own work. In this post I reuse and create a derivative of content from (a) previous post(-s) on the Writing Studio Blog. I do so in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 License at the foot of this blog.

Best Reviews 1.3 (2008): Most Informative

To nominate blogs for Most Informative or Opinionated, post comments on this post. In your comments, include:

1. the author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted)
2. the title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself)
3. your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it

Thank you.

[4 words
not used in
previous quickpost]

__________
Note: This note is to deflect criticism concerning copying, modifying, or plagiarizing my own work. In this post I reuse and create a derivative of content from (a) previous post(-s) on the Writing Studio Blog. I do so in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 License at the foot of this blog.

Best Reviews 1.2 (2008): Easiest to Read

To nominate blogs for Easiest to Read, post comments on this post. In your comments, include:

1. the author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. the title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself), and
   
3. your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it.

Thank you.

[3 words
not used in
previous quickpost]

__________
Note: This note is to deflect criticism concerning copying, modifying, or plagiarizing my own work. In this post I reuse and create a derivative of content from (a) previous post(-s) on the Writing Studio Blog. I do so in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 License at the foot of this blog.

Best Reviews 1.1 (2008): Best [Post] Title

To nominate blogs for Best Title, post comments on this post. In your comments, include:

1. the author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. the title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself), and
   
3. your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it.

Thank you.

[52 words]

__________
Note: This note is to deflect criticism concerning copying, modifying, or plagiarizing my own work. In this post I reuse and create a derivative of content from (a) previous post(-s) on the Writing Studio Blog. I do so in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 License at the foot of this blog.

[+ 55 words]

Best Reviews 1.0 (2008)

Today you will have an opportunity to nominate five reviews written to fulfill fourth essay requirements this semester. You may nominate one review for each of five categories ( below), and you may nominate your own review for no more than one of them. The categories open for nominations are:

1. Best Title [of post, rather than blog],
2. Easiest to Read [and understand],
3. Most Informative or Opinionated,
4. Most Interesting or Unusual, and
   
5. Most Visually Appealing [best layout].

To find blogs to nominate:

a) browse each of the blogs in the list for your class,
b) locate the fourth essay on each blog, and
c) make sure it is a review that meets all of the following ... [requirements]:

• The review has a short, catchy title;
• It is at least 400 words in length;
• It includes no copied or machine translated content;
• It consists of at least five paragraphs five sentences in length; AND
• It has at least two labels, one of which is "essays" (the plural form, spelled accurately [emphases added]).

To nominate blogs for each category, post comments on the corresponding Writing Studio Blog posts [1.1 - 1.5: see links, below]. In your comments, include:

1. The author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. The title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself, for accuracy), and
   
3. Your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it, for:

If you have questions about the nominating process, please post your questions in comments on this post. Nominations themselves must be on the corresponding post for each category.

• Best Reviews 1.1 (2008): Best Title [of post, rather than blog]
  
• Best Reviews 1.2 (2008): Easiest to Read [& Understand]
  
• Best Reviews 1.3 (2008): Most Informative [or Opinionated]
• Best Reviews 1.4 (2008): Most Interesting [or Unusual]
• Best Reviews 1.5 (2008): Most Visually Appealing [best layout]
  

Comments on the essay posts are optional, but nice. [Please feel free to comment directly on classmates posts after class.]

[337 words
{including additions in
square brackets ("[...]"), above}]

WSB 1-02: Points to Remember While Blogging

The purpose of this post is to highlight a number of suggestions that I've made in the course of recent visits to students' blogs. I would like you all to pay attention to each of these points as you write on your own blogs, and as you comment on those of classmates and peers.

The list below covers seven plus items. These are examples, explanations, and illustrations that you ought to take on board as lessons for yourselves.

0. Language Setting

To learn English yourself, and to accommodate blog visitors who want to learn and to use English, too; I urge you to switch your blog settings to English. If you are in the A class, you should consider this a requirement for an A.

The remaining points are organized very loosely from fundamental to fine-tuning, or general to specific if you prefer.

1. Pointers regarding blog designs,
2. Suggestions for creating more posts,
   
3. Notes about word counts put on every post,
4. Suggestions, nay requirements for titles and labels,
5. Ways to respond to multiple comments on posts,
   
6. Inquiries leading to citation of sources, and
   
7. Strategies for correcting comments.

• Blog designs and readability issues

As I dropped by to see how you're coming on your book reviews, I noticed that the text color you chose for your review of Another World is almost impossible to make out against the dark background from the blog template that you've chosen. If you are keen on using dark colors for text, you should choose a template with a light background to make what you write easier to see and read.

While most ready-made blog templates respect these general design principles with automatic text colors, some of you obviously like to play with the colors yourselves. If you do, please remember that the opposite is also true. That is, if you have chosen a blog design with a light or white background, you should choose black or dark text colors if you are going to change them.

• Creating more posts

If you are shy of posts (Isn't everyone?), or you desire to push your skills, extend your writing, catch the interest and satify the curiosity of blog visitors, below is an example of a few steps you can take to do so. In this case, I'm talking about spring-boarding from a list of ideas in one quick post or typing speed trial post, to get a handful (or more) separate posts started.

... Which places did you enjoy visiting the most?

Why don't you write separate blog post[s] about at least one place in each prefecture. That would get you started towards the 60+ posts you need for Writing III this semester.

While you're at it, why don't you add a few pictures to give all of your readers a sense of what they're missing when they sit in front of a computer instead of heading out on the road again?

• Word counts on every post for Writing III and IV!

This point, in particular, gets the good news, bad news treatment - first the good news scenario:

Thanks for excluding the lyrics from your word count.

If you include in any post more than a few words of which you are not the author, please exclude them from your blog post word counts. Do remember that we require word counts (in square brackets, at the lower corner next to the sidebar) on every post for Writing III and IV.

Now for a not-so-good news scenario:

I hope you enjoy the holidays, too, and even get some blogging done during them. One thing you really need to do is add word counts to all of your posts for Writing III. Please don't wait any longer to start counting! [emphases added]

• Requirements for titles and labels on all book reviews
• (and sharing the wealth!)

Hi ...,

I'd like to ask you to do me three favors:

1) Would you please use the key string + number prefix that I've explained in class, and spelled out in WSB 1-01 in the title of all of your book reviews: past, present, and future? That will make them easy to find in your archive.

2) Would you please label all of your book reviews with at least these two labels: "books" and "reviews"? Then they will show up in various searches.

3) Last, but not least important, would you please ask [cajole/remind/tell] all of your classmates and peers in courses that I teach to do the same?

Cheers.

• Ways to respond to similar comments on different posts

Here I suggest creating a new post to respond to comments on two different posts, by three different people.

I've been wondering the same thing, as has Rick, who commented on your April 16, 2008, reading habits post.

Why don't you make a new blog post that explains to everyone how to do it, and then point out the new post in responses to comments here and there?

I'll be waiting to read your follow-ups.

Easy follow-up comments such as, "Please see my new post (Short Title..., date [+ link])," will inform return visitors, as well as those who have chosen to get mail notification, where to look for answers to questions or responses to ideas that they've posted in comments on your blogs.

• Queries about sources leading to citations

Where did you get the definitions of the words [that] you listed at the end of BR 1-07: Snow Games?

If you are using any content at all from other sources, you must mark it clearly, and spell out where you got it. For example, I've formatted all of the comment clippings in this post as block quotations, and italicized them so they stand out from the original text of this post. Now I'll spell out, in general, where they're from.

All of the comment citations in this post are from the same type of source, namely comments that I've posted on individual students' blogs recently. I wrote them myself, and I grant myself permission to collect and reuse them here for teaching purposes (:-).


Correcting comments after you've posted them

If you notice glaring errors after you hit the orange publish button, either on purpose or by mistake, it is possible to correct them. However, in Blogger, the only way you can do it yourselves makes a mess of the blog spaces in which you have left comments, at least until blog owners tidy up behind you.

So it is always better to preview your comments, editing them repeatedly if necessary, before you publish them. Here, unfortunately, are two examples of what I did after I failed to follow my own advice.

Example One

Oops, I made a mistake in my previous comment, but there was no way to edit it. So I've copied, pasted, and corrected it here:...

Do you know how to make word counts align with the... [right] margin, to make them easy to spot at a glance? If not, please ask in class, and I'll show you.

Please note that the two italicized and indented passages in Example One show that I'm making a quotation of a previous quotation. The series of periods (...) show where I've trimmed away unnecessary or incorrect wordings, and the square brackets ([...]) show where I've added or corrected wording. I suggest that you try to avoid this at home, folks, unless you really have to, to make a point.

I'm a paid professional, but I still make mistakes! Below is another example, with more of my self-corrections.


Example Two

I guess I am too anxious to get out; I typed two mistakes [three, actually (I've just found one more)] in the first paragraph of my previous comment, and then hit the publish button instead of the preview button....

Anyway, here is what I posted earlier, cut, pasted, and corrected in this new comment (I hope I get it right this time):

Hey ...,

It sound[-s] like you had a nice road-trip this spring. How many friend[-s] went with you[?]...

Although I went back to my original comments on each of those posts and trashed them, only the blog owners can trash them completely. So what I've left in my tracks on a couple of students' blogs looks like this:

Comment deleted

This post has been removed by the author.

May 3, 2008 2:00 PM

and this:

コメントが削除されました

この投稿は投稿者によって削除されました。

2008/05/03 15:28

Sadly, those left-overs break the flow, and take up space on lists of comments attached to blog posts. If the blog owners themselves wish, they can remove those left-overs completely and finally from their blogs. If you find comments removed by their authors on your own blog, please do all future visitors a favor and trash the comments completely. Cheers.

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Shrek it is - view now, review later!

This is a cross-post of a gmail message that I've just sent to students in the Writing Studio this semester, in Writing III-1a and III-1c (original date: April 26, 2008 09:35:26 JST). I'm cross-posting it to the Writing Studio Blog in hope that it will come to your attention at least as soon as, if not sooner than, it would in gmail:

Hello, everyone in Writing III-1a and III-1c, I hope you are outdoors enjoying this fine weekend!

This message is an important one, so please let you[r] classmates know that it's in their gmail queues as soon as you've finished reading it. It has to do with the next essay assignment, which is due about a week from today (Course Calendar). There are three plus one things that I'd like you to realize right away.

0. The movie that everyone in Writing III-1a and -1c is to review for the next essay assignment is Shrek (see follow-up comments on the Writing Studio Blog, ... [We are] doing Shrek!, Thursday, April 24, 2008).

1. You do not need to start writing your review of the movie Shrek until next Wednesday, in class. As a matter of fact, you should not start writing a review until we plan (outline) the essay together on April 30, 2008. If you feel an uncontrollable desire to write on your blog between now and then, which you should (;-), please blog about anything other than Shrek.

2. To get ready for writing a review, you must watch the movie (again, if you've seen it before) BEFORE class next Wednesday, because we will not watch the movie in class. It is a very good idea to watch it with classmates and friends, with the English soundtrack and English subtitles switched on.

3. Talk about the movie (see item 1, above) with as many people as you can BEFORE we meet on Wednesday. The more people with whom you talk about Shrek, and the more English that you use while you are doing so, the better.

I plan not to send any more gmail messages like this, so please get in the habit of browsing the Writing Studio Blog and Wiki several times a week, and checking for new posts, comments, and updates. See you on Wednesday, if not online before!

Cheers, ... [signature removed, PB]

If you have questions about this movie review assignment, please share them (and answer them for one another) in comments on this post.

Image from: Internet Movie Database

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Typing Practice: Recommendations from Pukman

Rick suggests:

Try Power Typing for typing practice. I recommend the Frequent Words 1, 2, and 3 exercises.

Also, please try Go to School 4!

(Pukman @ WinK: The Community...,
Typing Practice, 2008.04.24)

After you try those out, feel free to drop back by here and leave a quick comment saying what you think, what you like (or don't) about online typing practice tools.

View Original Article

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Blogged with the Flock Browser

Next Up: Movie Reviews

To get you started thinking about the next essay assignment, I've collected links to three movie reviews for you to peruse. The short list below is organized in reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest.

After you've read those reviews over, we'll brainstorm in class to come up with ideas for types of content to include in your own movie reviews. If you finish reading these three examples early (perhaps before class), you can use the label "movies" on SaaaE's blog (sidebar, left) to find other examples.

1. The Curse of the Golden Flower (Rick, 2008.04. 18)
2. Toy Story (SaaaE, 2007.10.10)*
3. Sean Bean in Sharpe adventure films (pab, 2007.04.12)

__________
* Note: For her portfolio, SaaaE selected Toy Story as her best movie review (WEI, §§1.o-1.2, 2008.01.30).

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