20 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays Infographic Higher Education Infographics 20 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays Infographic 20 Useful Words and Phrases for Top-Notch Essays Infographic Being inspired and following some basic rules of writing may not be enough to create an outstanding essay. Your great ideas can be ignored and underrated if your vocabulary is poor. Instead of “and” try to use: FurthermoreLikewiseSimilarlyAs well asWhat’s more Instead of “but” try to use: On the other handThen againHaving said thatHoweverYet For general explaining try to use: In other wordsTo that endThat is to sayYo put it another wayIn order to Instead of “for example” try to use: For instanceLet’s sayIn particularTo give an illustrationMarkedly Via: essaypro.com Embed This Education Infographic on your Site or Blog!
How Typography Can Save Your Life — Pacific Standard How Typography Can Save Your Life What words look like matters — in some cases, a whole lot. By Lena Groeger After decades of silently shouting at the top of its lungs, the National Weather Service recently announced that it’s going to stop publishing its forecasts and weather warnings in ALL CAPS. Beginning May 11, for the first time ever, we’ll start seeing mixed-case letters. The weather service’s caps-lock habit didn’t happen entirely by choice. For type nerds everywhere, this is a triumphant typographic victory the likes of which we haven’t seen since Massimo Vignelli re-designed the New York City subway sign system. In the case of the weather service’s all-caps type, it’s the font version of the boy who cried wolf. Now that the weather service can use ALL CAPS sparingly — as a tool to highlight real danger — the public is more likely to pay attention. “We realized we could still use ALL CAPS within products to add emphasis, such as ‘TORNADO WARNING. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
No, No That’s Not How You Say It – John DeVore – Medium Americans talk funny. We don’t think we do, but we do. We’re usually too busy talking at or over or directly through each other to notice. Every so often, though, we stop long enough to listen to one another and then laugh and point. The middle-aged Persian woman I hired to teach me how to drive made fun of me when I mispronounced Cahuenga Boulevard. I had just moved to Los Angeles a few months prior from New York City, where I considered myself a native despite the disagreements of many native New Yorkers. Her teaching method was an unorthodox form of politically incorrect mockery. I was a stranger in her city but my advanced age and inexperience amused her. During one lesson she said, “You people are good drivers.” You people? She shrugged. Because of her I passed my driver’s test, got my first license to operate a motor vehicle, and then proceeded to not drive for years. Here’s the truth about food in L.A.: it’s pretty good. But it’s not as if Los Angeles has no roast meat sandwiches.
Ten of the most commonly confused words in the English language The English language is full of confusing words and overlapping meanings, which can make ensuring (or should that be insuring?) that you’ve picked the right word for the right context a minefield. The differences between some of these pairs of confusables just need to be remembered, like canvas and canvass. Others have clever tricks and features that can help tell them apart – like the fact that, although something can be unfortunate, it can’t be unfortuitous (because a fortuitous event can be either good or bad). And others, like the 10 listed here, become easier the more you know about them, as delving into their histories can help to remove any confusion... 1. According to Oxford Dictionaries, around 1 in every 3 records of the phrase “bated breath” in the Oxford Corpus is spelled incorrectly, as “baited.” Baited with an I is the same bait that you use when going fishing. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. If something is horrible to look at then it’s grisly, not grizzly. 7. 8. 9. 10.
13 writing habits that are making you look bad 13 writing habits that are making you look bad Are you making some of the following mistakes? They might be making you look like a goose or worse, you could be coming across as a real jerk. You might be surprised what people will glean from a poorly chosen punctuation mark! 1. rofl will i c u l8r @ d bbq? When texting became a thing that you could do on phones, the only way to write words was by pressing numbers on the keypad multiple times to get a single letter. That’s not okay anymore. Rule: Even if you’re on a smartphone, keep internet slang to a minimum. 2. Can you please turn the air conditioner off at the end of the day???? Are you using more than one question mark in a sentence? Rule: Use at most one question mark per sentence and two per paragraph. 3. I can’t believe they just did that!!!!!! You sound like an overexcited minion with a cocaine habit. And if you’re using multiple exclamation marks to convey your anger? 4. Why are you yelling at me? 5. 6. Thanks… Insert, 7. 8. 9. 10.
Punctuation in novels Punctuation in novels When we think of novels, of newspapers and blogs, we think of words. We easily forget the little suggestions pushed in between: the punctuation. But how can we be so cruel to such a fundamental part of writing? Inspired by a series of posters, I wondered what did my favorite books look like without words. Yes, the contrast is stark. Want to see more? As I mentioned above, the difference between these novels is stark. Blood Meridian is short sentences. Here is a comparison of some other books — notice how large a break A Farewell To Arms was from the past. Punctuation does more than simply carve out a space for words. And yet these sentences are made up of smaller clauses: Faulkner is not actually much of an outlier compared to other novels. Writing can be beautiful because of the words an author chooses to use: but it can also be beautiful because of the choice of punctuation. Update: At Brian B.’s suggestion, I transformed the punctuation into a heatmap.
Use Humor to Teach Your Students About Careful Communication One of the most important social and emotional (SEL) skills students need is clear communication. But in an age of Twitter, emojis, and auto-correcting iPhones, it is too easy to make very serious errors. The Newseum in Washington D. C. is a must-visit for all middle and high school students who care about news, journalism, history, photography, free speech, and clear communications. At the Newseum, among many other exhibits, they display examples of communication errors in news headlines (a.k.a. An Activity for Students Taking a look at these bloopers can be instructive for students, as well as fun. For each of the headlines below, ask your middle and high school students: To figure out what the real message was supposed to be How the headline could have been re-written as an example of clear communication Debrief and discuss with them the importance of: Checking their work beyond spellcheck Asking others to read their work for clarity The proper use of punctuation and grammar The Headlines
Online language – What does it look like? - Inspiring learning It’s an exciting time for online language – it’s been an evolution from the beginning of communication on the internet in the 1960s, the development of ASCII through text speak and into tweets, instant messages, Snapchats, status updates, memes, likes and omg, lol… This new language is creeping into all aspects of our lives whether we socialise on Facebook, text our kids and grandkids, or email for work. Our digital capability skills, knowledge and experience has to be broad and flexible – and part of this involves understanding and communicating using new kinds of language. Image from: Pixabay.com There are many different forms to this language and I have divided them into four main ones for this blog. Among many fascinating and surprising things I found was that Moby Dick has been translated into emojis. Here is one of my quiz questions: what do you think this sentence means? A second creative and exciting form of online language is acronyms. (You can read sections of the PhD here )
Allow me to womansplain the problem with gendered language | Arwa Mahdawi | Opinion She is a #Girlboss. She is a mumtrepreneur. She is a SheEO. He is a manterrupter. Much of this is feminism’s fault, naturally. Neologisms such as girlboss and SheEO are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, of course. The same is true of the manifold vocabulary for manshaming. Language reflects and reinforces social norms; ungendering language is an important part of solving sexism. Earlier this year, Kosztovics called for the UK to follow Sweden’s lead in a video on the BBC. Perhaps the most success around fixing semantic sexism has been had by the increase of “they” being used as a singular pronoun. We are more aware of the problems of gendered language than ever and, as the use of the singular they demonstrates, we are taking steps to fix it.
The art of modern writing Learning to write is one of the fundamental skills we gain from our time at school. Writing is one of the cornerstones of learning and we devote significant time and energy towards its mastery. Skilled writing is a mark of an educated individual and a skill required for academic success. But in the modern world what makes a skilled writer? What has changed about writing and what literary skills should we focus our attention on. Clearly writing has changed since the time of Shakespeare. On social media, we share the most mundane events of our lives publishing our every passing thought for the world to see. Some of us do try to cling to the traditions of quality writing and the beauty of the ‘Queens English’. Why write a page when a paragraph serves as well? Clearly writing is not what it once was but not a lot has changed in schools. This does not mean that the skill of the writer is diminished only that it has changed. By Nigel Coutts
Where's Me a Dog? Here's You a Dog: The South's Most Unusual Regionalism Here's you a dog! (Photo: A_Peach/Flickr) Regions of America have their own grammar, just like they have their own vocabulary. Ohioans, for instance, call the wheeled conveyances used in grocery stores "shopping carts," rather than shopping wagons, carriages, buggies, or any of the other terms used around the country. And if that shopping cart gets dirty, in Ohio, it doesn’t need to be washed; it needs washed. Sometimes, grammatical variations are obvious to the ear: the “habitual be” of African American Vernacular English–as in "we be showing off" or “who be eating cookies?” “New words are being created all the time, and they’re easy to spread,” says Jim Wood, a visiting lecturer at Yale University. Compared to vocabulary and accents, the regional variations of English grammar in America have not been studied much. This discovery began with a blog titled “Here’s you a blog,” which Larry Horn, one of the project’s founders, had come across. Where's me a bae?