Incomplete sentences. It's a problem i admit i may have.

This has been an awesome week. Had a Geo midterm, think i did fairly well on. I'm so glad that Chelci gave us an extra week to perfect our papers. Here's a site i found interesting for the grammar post tonight.

http://www.pvc.maricopa.edu/lsc/faq/eng/enggraer.htm

10 tips for keeping writing professional?

Just a few fun things to check over before completing a paper.

#1: Plan your writing

Before you actually start to write, put some thought into what you’re going to write. First, determine your purpose and your primary audience. Decide what information you need to give your audience — and what information you don’t. Figure out the best way to convey your message. Focus on being objective and convincing so that your message appeals to both the receptive and resistant members of your audience.

#2: Do your homework

Research your topic so that you aren’t just relying on opinion. Collect and analyze data. Incorporate visual aids (charts, graphs, tables, photos, etc.) when appropriate.

#3: Write drafts

Don’t expect perfection in the beginning. In fact, your final product will be much better if you start by cranking out a crappy first draft. As writer Anne Lamott observed, “All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” Concentrate on the content of the writing, and be sure — above all — that it is accurate.

#4: Revise for style, correct grammar, and spelling

Writers who fail at this step lose credibility with their readers. Buy a good grammar handbook and dictionary and use them whenever you’re unsure about punctuation and spelling

#5: Choose effective wording

Use language that is concise and familiar rather than verbose and academic.

Examples:

Use, not utilize; shortage, not paucity. Avoid clichés, slang, and buzzwords.

#6: Watch out for commonly confused words and phrases

Many words are easily mixed up, such as:

• accept/except
• advice/advise
• affect/effect
• its/it’s
• lay/lie
• passed/past
• personal/personnel
• moral/morale
• sit/set
• real/really
• your/you’re
• their/they’re
• theirs/there’s

Learn to use these words correctly and double-check to make sure the wrong form doesn’t get by you.

#7: Be precise

Use specific, concrete words.

Examples:

Three, not several; boat or car, not vehicle. Watch out for words such as recently, substantial, a few, and a lot. Try to be more exact. Give your reader a specific mental picture of what you mean.

#8: Write concisely

Businesspeople are too busy for wordy writing. Keep your reports, memos, and other business documents as brief and clear as possible.

#9: Avoid redundancy

Many repetitive phrases can be tightened into one word.

Examples:

History, not past history; plan, not plan ahead; sum or total, not sum total, to, not in order to.

#10: Vary your sentence structure

Mix up simple, compound, and complex sentences. Use both short and long sentences to keep your writing interesting.

etc.. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=110

Moving beyond our argumental culture

"The Roots Of Debate In Education" In reference to your last question, I do believe that Tannen Moves beyond simply arguing a point in this essay. She actually does cause you to engage in a higher order of critical thinking. The first example i found to be true was in the section, Sharing Time: early Training in School; in this section she tells a story about The boy who had been given the volcanic rock by his mother. Tannen makes it clear that the teacher was trying to enforce formal rather than recreational knowledge. However, I have to argue the fact that yes this observation may be present, but Tannen can't relate the teachers behavior to question the child's object in a formal/ educational matter, but it could also could be due to a natural curiosity. It seems any time someone is acting as a communicator, we as the listeners engage in asking questions. We as society want to know all the facts, not just the ones presented. Point being, I don't believe that it is an educational influence to be taught to speak in a focused explicit way, i believe that is part of a role society places on us.
I enjoyed reading the section, Believing as Thinking; It went well with our lesson in class last week, when we dealt with the court case. By having us split into groups and tell us what part of the case we were for or against begun to open up ways for us to play the believing game. We had to use different methods to come up with ideas and facts that supported the case we were arguing. I agree with Tannen, she explains in a more in depth manner that we do shut out ideas or arguments that we don't agree with. We sometimes tend to be hard headed and not see all sides or points of views to an argument.

Compound Sentences.

A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by either a coordinating conjunction, conjunctive adverb, or a semicolon. This site explained that. Click here,

http://www.towson.edu/ows/sentences.htm#COMPOUND%20SENTENCE

"I wanna be average" By Mike Rose

Mike Rose is obviously very praiseworthy as a teacher. This may come from his strong opinions and books he has published that are found interesting by many. In the beginning, Ken Harvey is presented to the author as his first sense of his awakening. It is humorous , seeing at how simple Ken's statement needed to be to give Mike Rose his new outlook.
The author illustrates that, " Bullshit, of course, is everything you -and the others- fear is beyond you: essay, tests, academic scrambling, complexity, etc. This comes as a strong statement. The use of logos stands out. By capturing one's attention and trying to get the logic out of what we might consider minute tasks.
"Membership on the track team covered me." This statement illustrates to me a confident luxury he feels he had. Not having to worry about classes you felt you were not interested in. It is still hard for me to grasp the fact that we have a school system set up this way. Education is excellent, but required on certain subjects is disagreeable with in my personal opinion. Through the use of pathos,the author does an excellent job at describing his fathers condition. At any age its hard to to witness family and elders age.
I could not help but laugh when he describes how he had no idea what "entrance requirements" were. That's pretty much how i felt on graduation day. I knew college was a must and i would make it there when i was ready. He really shows a lot of joy, and enhances the use of pathos to express his excitement when he realizes with MacFarlands help he can make college a reality.

That vs.Who vs. Which

I was looking up grammer errors that were commen mistakes in papers. I found this, I t wa snever really a prblem, or at least one in which i ever would have thought as. I guess i just use whichever word comes into my head first when writing a paper. But check out this site!
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.asp

Michal Moore...4 or Against!

Even though i don't agree with the way Michael Moore states some of his facts, just because the way he goes about presenting things is a little demeaning towards many people. But i have to agree that what he says about our education system is completly true. parents are putting their children in the hands of our schools sytems and teachers. Its a scary thing knowing what children could or lack there of be larning for these so called educated teachers. I'm sure everyone one of us can recall a teacher who stood out to us, maybe lend the extra helping hand or just had a few good methods of teaching. I for one could not be more blessed in first grade when myteacher actually had me stay after school to work on my reading. I guess you could say i was not a quick learner, still to this day not the best. But i am grateful to her for doing more than what was required. In like manner, our counrty should be doing more to boost our nations knowlege as a whole. People in America either are completly for or against what Micheal Moore presents. Liberal people seem to be one his band wagon. And republicans take what he says offensize. I look at it as, it's one mans point of view. Whatever he says is just opening our eyes to viewing things from a different perspective or as someone who supports and is a voice to the things some americans actually believe.