Thlog: Week 2

So the second week of Writing 2 has come to an end. As I suggested in my PB1B meme — “One does not simply do thlogs on a Thursday” — I’ve fallen into the ordeal of procrastination over this MLK long weekend. Whilst reading Z’s email about the formatting of a thlog, I realized I’ve been trying to write too academically and perhaps not personal enough. Maybe it’ll be good for me to “fart” out some words onto the page and actually enjoy writing this. So here goes.

Monday we began class with the daily writing tip/strategy: the oxford comma. To me, the oxford comma is one of those ‘things that I’ve never paid much attention to, only to one day realize that I’ve been doing it the wrong way’. It’s sort of like realizing that the hole in a soda can’s tab is actually so that the straw doesn’t float up. 

Silly me. Although Z explained that either having no comma, or a comma before the “and” is grammatically correct, the oxford comma mentally separates the second to last and last words. I’ll definitely be using the oxford comma from now on, so thanks Z for the helpful writing tip!

We followed the comma with the affordances and constraints of a ‘hard copy’ and a ‘blog’. Personally, I much rather writing/using a hard copy of something, because the information sticks in my head more, and I feel more comfortable with having a physical piece that I can doodle all over. Then again, we do live in 2016, so maybe I should start blogging more… 

On Wednesday we visited the phenomena of hyphens and dashes and how/why/when to use them. Since Wednesday, I’ve been experiencing The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon — where  people who just learn or notice something start seeing it everywhere. I’ve been noticing hyphens and dashes in pieces of writing a lot more than I usually would have had we not learnt about them on Wednesday. They’ve appeared in all different kinds of settings including class, emails, news articles, and Facebook. I’m really glad we touched base on hyphens and dashes, because I honestly have never really understood the difference between the two. Just for my personal reference: a hyphen is used to connect two words, and can be used as one meaning. Whereas dashes emphasizes a pause rather than a period.

I have tennis practice directly prior to our Writing 2 section, so often find myself starving and dreaming about food.

 It makes matters worse when we hold class discussions and exercises about our favorite food restaurants in IV. This particular exercise involved writing a description on our favorite restaurant in IV and why. The most commendable descriptions involved ones that not only described, but gave evidence as to why the restaurant was the best in IV. The three best descriptions all had one thing in common: they all appealed to the audience. 

Following through to next week: I’m not too sure how this WP1 is going to turn out. I’m actually looking forward to writing it, probably because I’ve picked a genre that interests me. We’ll see how it goes!

J