A collection of inspirations, examples, problems, and solutions from the work of Writing Assessment Services (www.writingassessment.com). The acronym WrAsSe is the name of a little fish that cleans other fish and keeps them healthy, as Writing Assessment Services can do for student writers. The rest of the blog name is an affectionate bid for a connection to the Inklings, C.S. Lewis's group of writing friends. Please join me to "wrestle" with the challenges of writing and teaching.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Justifying Literature
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Student Sin
"From the Beginning of Time"
Stephen Hawking writes about the beginning of time, but few other people do. People who write “from the beginning of time” or “since time began” are usually being lazy. Their grasp of history is vague, so they resort to these broad, sweeping phrases. Almost never is this usage literally accurate: people have not fallen in love since time began, for instance, because people arrived relatively late on the scene in the cosmic scheme of things. . . . If you really don’t know the appropriate period from which your subject dates, you could substitute a less silly but still vague phrase such as “for many years,” or “for centuries”; but it’s better simply to avoid historical statements if you don’t know your history.
Thank you, Paul Brians, of "Common Errors in English." :-)