For whatever reason, Instructure decided that it hates me.
I’m unable to enter grades for now, and attendance for last Thursday was erased. Before the grades page stopped working, I marked everyone as present for last Thursday. Please be honest and shoot me an email if you weren’t actually there.
Thanks and sorry,
Sarah
Thanks to all of you who have already put in your wiki hours and emailed me about it. You’ve got till midnight tonight to get that done. Try to email me before then if you can. You know by now that I’m pretty chill about late reporting—I figure you all signed the honor code; if you’re lying to me, your dreams will be haunted by Karl G. Maeser brandishing sidewalk chalk and shouting the thirteenth article of faith—but being able to enter lots of grades at once makes my job easier.
Here’s some advice from watching last semester’s class: start reading The World is Flat today if you haven’t started already! I did all the reading assignments on the syllabus last semester, and I know—this book is awesome, but it’s going to take you a while.
Do yourself a favor and don’t procrastinate.
Dr. K gave a great lecture about glue, meat, and mush words in class yesterday. But how, exactly, do you trim sentences down? Here’s a crash course.
I give 5/5 to posts that are correct. Some of you are consistently getting 5s—which you should feel great about. But many of your posts are like empty plots of dirt, to use a cliche metaphor. You keep your garden free of weeds, but could plant flowers there to take your writing from “good enough” to great. I challenge you to write me a patch of tulips: make your point in 200 words or less, keeping glue-/filler-/lard-/whatever-mental-image-works-for-you-words to a minimum.
Don’t be scared of apostrophes.
The popularity of Weezer >>> Weezer’s popularity
This is not right. >>> This isn’t right.
Axe qualifiers.
I’m pretty sure >>> I’m sure
Sarah really likes tulips very much. >>> Sarah loves tulips.
Ask every single adjective if it deserves to be in your sentence. Some do, some don’t.
The little brown dog >>> The dog
My roommate’s absolutely hilarious and very friendly fiancé >>> My roommate’s hilarious fiancé
Chop words that are common in speech but that you wouldn’t put in a formal paper.
Really, though, did it snow last night? >>> Did it snow last night?
So, March 30 will be a great day >>> March 30 will be a great day.
Use positives.
The room was not clean. >>> The room was messy.
I don’t agree with Card. >>> I disagree with Card.
Leave yourself out of the sentence.
I think MP3s are the devil. >>> MP3s are the devil.
Facebook, I believe, can be a big distraction. >>> Facebook can be a big distraction.
Now, let’s put these rules to work. Here are some examples from your blog posts. (Please don’t be offended if something you wrote is here; becoming a better writer requires a thick skin. Believe me, I know how it feels to have my writing torn to shreds.)
*I can definitely see that there might be some truth to that. >>> That might be true.
*The copyright system is in place to protect people. >>> Copyright protects people.
*Within ten minutes, a person can burn a CD with over one hundred songs, and not pay a dime for any one of them. >>> You can burn more than 100 songs in just seconds—for free.
*I think that most people are basically honest and will follow these laws if they can be brought to recognize the wrongness in not doing so.
>>> Most people are honest; they’ll follow these laws once they realize it’s wrong to break them.
*Our society has become one where average people like to watch commercially-produced movies using YouTube. >>> YouTube is popular.
I hope this helps!
I was really pleased with your latest batch of posts! I don’t know what caused the spike in grades, but speaking collectively and not individually, you did wonderfully this time around. Here were three of the best ones:
Having an opinion and articulating it well is an invaluable skill. Here’s a great example of how to do that.
Some of you struggle to keep yourself to one paragraph. Here’s proof that you can do a great job of thinking deeply and delving into real issues without a word count that shoots up into the thousands.
Who’da thunk it—current event-worthy stuff happens here at BYU!
Thanks to those of you who write consistently good posts. Here is a great example of how to express an opinion about a current event instead of merely recapping what happened.
Just so you know, I probably won’t even touch CS 404 till next Tuesday. It’s that time of semester when everything seems to be due on the same day. This means I’ll be retreating to my literary cave and banging out four papers this weekend. I can’t guarantee that I’ll check my email or be in the lab at all between now and then. So, feel free to email me if you need to, but know that I won’t respond right away. If you absolutely need something addressed before then, my phone number is on the class site and I won’t be weirded out if you shoot me a text.
Sorry,
Sarah
It’s ok to make me laugh. Being funny isn’t part of the grading criteria, of course, but it never hurts.
No, I’m not asking you to unfriend 10 people in exchange for free fast food or extra credit. Here’s the deal: Craig Millett is in charge of the Internet Safety Project Facebook page. He suggested that we change it from a group page to a fan page. This is a great idea, and we did it. However, I’m a little frustrated that the old group had grown to more than 500 members, but the new one has just 7.
This is where you come in.
I’ve messaged all the old group’s members, and I hope to see lots of them move with us to the new page. I’d like to bolster our numbers, though, by getting a whole slew of new members on the site. If you guys can build the group to 600 members, I will bring the class home-baked edible reinforcements of your choosing. If pride’s a sin, I’m guilty—I will unashamedly tell you that my peanut butter brownies are legend, and everything else I make is only slightly less decadent.
I don’t want to make you all feel like spambots, but really, if you become a fan and invite just 12 others to become fans as well, we should get to 600 in no time (and if lots of the old group members respond to my message, you’ll have even less work to do). Here’s the ISP fan page.
Go get ‘em!
A few of you emailed me with questions about book posts and such this week, and I didn’t get back to anyone in time to proofread blog posts. SORRY! I was out of town this weekend then had 150 essays to grade for a side-job I have, plus some articles to edit for a journal I volunteer for and a huge paper to write. Excuses, I know, but I feel like they’re legit ones.
Anyway. For those of you who didn’t get me to proofread your writing even though you asked me to, know that I graded a little less harshly than normal to try to compensate. Good luck with all your own papers, projects, and exams this week.
~Sarah
Ok! After a hundred indecisions and visions and revisions, I’ve figured out how I want to books page to work. I’ve added the new section on the wiki and got a list started on all but one of the book sub-topics. If you’re looking for a way to get your wiki hours in that doesn’t involve a ton of actual writing, helping me beef up these lists is a good way to go.
My apologies to whoever was working on the books page at the same time I was. In short, I was afraid that the edit-war we had going was terribly annoying—but I’m pretty sure it was worth it, after all. Dividing the long list into topics feels much better.
Still. Any input on the way the new section is set up would be more than welcome.
I know you don’t have CS 404 this week, but you may want to look ahead and start reading The Cuckoo’s Egg while the due date is still a ways out. I can almost guarantee you’ll find it more exciting than Elements of Style. (I thought Elements of Style was riveting, but then, I read usage dictionaries for fun. At least I know I’m a freak.)
Don’t forget to email me about your wiki writing by midnight on Thursday. And, last of all, here’s the Smallish Post 3 extra credit winner. 2TB = Lost of Family History
