Everybody Needs an Editor! (repost)

This post first appeared here in November, 2008. I am going to re-post select items from long ago as I enjoy them and hope you will, too.  Since I posted this I read Christopher Buckley's very moving Losing Mum and Pup, which suggests that perhaps WFB was indulged and not edited sometimes when he should have been, especially in the last years. CRM

Let me start by saying I admire William F. Buckley, Jr., and was sad at his passing. We have subscribed to National Review Magazine since before we could afford it, as I am fond of telling people. But I have a love-hate relationship with WFB's writing. He is famous for his impressive vocabulary, and that is kind of fun, but I think he writes some of the worst sentences I have seen in print. In the excerpt below describing the religious background of the Reagans' son Ron, who became an atheist in his teens, the first sentence is perfectly fine, but I'm not sure what he means by the second. Does the "it is popular" suggest that the belief so described is faulty? What risk are people assured of being eliminated? Which people?

We do not need to assume that a familiarity with history recalls the Ninety-Five Theses of Luther, or the causes of the Thirty Years’ War. It is popular in quarters of young America to believe that deference to individual religious inclinations eliminates any risk of submitting to indoctrination.

The next sentence, in the next paragraph, is also fine. But the final sentence is just poor, violating my teacher sensibilities about the need to enliven prose and to use more active verbs and clear nouns, and not to turn verb phrases into noun phrases. Note WFB's use of the passive voice, which has its place, but in sparing doses:

When Ron Jr. went on to reject his father’s political positions, ruing the Reagan presidency, it was not necessarily the result of alienation from the family per se. Weight by the son to his father’s principles is here given, here withheld, after thought is paid to them, cursory or profound, and how they figured in the allegiances of the parent.

From The Reagan I Knew, by William F. Buckley, Jr.
At the National Review website November 26, 2008

So how would YOU fix that last sentence? Here is my try, preserving much of the language of the original:

The son thought-- sometimes cursorily, sometimes profoundly-- about his father's principles and about how they figured in his allegiances, and he gave them weight or withheld it accordingly.

I still don't like it much, though, so here's another try, with more freedom of vocabulary:

Ron Reagan watched his father's principles at work, especially in his allegiances, and, with a teenager's alternating deep and shallow thought, respected or cast off those principles accordingly.

So can you do better? I probably can, though the exercise shows me that WFB's words "principles," "allegiances," "figured," "weight," and "accordingly" were very carefully chosen! :-)

Are there some famous writers who just don't appeal to you--people whose writing leaves you looking around bewildered, wondering what you're missing?

What Revision Can Do

Revision is one of the least-appreciated parts of the writing process, but it is so important that every student should be required to revise.  However, revising without guidance is just about as frustrating as getting the favorite old assignment: "Now just take out a piece of paper and write whatever you want to!" Instead, students who need to revise need to know WHAT they need to revise.  A good evaluation can show the way.



I have just posted at Writing Assessment Services a file that will give you a peek into the process I have done with just one student, in just one course, in just this last school year.  Check out the file here, and note that I'm remodeling the site, so it's inconsistently spiffy just now.

Here's a taste of what the file includes.  First the original conclusion, and then the new one.  I think you'll see a great difference!

Original

All in all, soccer is the most entertaining sport there is.   It is suspenseful and ever changing.  There are plenty of other reasons why soccer is well liked, but without a doubt this reason is the most appropriate one. Whether it is the cultural background, or simplicity of rules, soccer is currently favored by numerous individuals.

Revised

In conclusion, it is the rarely made goals, required teamwork, and the ever-changing possession of the ball that makes soccer an entertaining and suspenseful sport for everyone.  When compared to basketball, soccer games do not have as many points flying around.  This makes soccer suspenseful, and easier to follow.  When compared to swimming, soccer is more of a team sport.  This makes soccer a good learning experience for younger player.  Compared to football, soccer is more unpredictable and ever changing.  Yes, hockey games have rarely made goal, baseball is a team sport, and basketball is unpredictable.  Nevertheless, all these aspects together make soccer the best for anyone interested in sports.   

Many thanks to Elizabeth Siddiq for allowing me to share her hard work!


In case you missed it, get the whole file here.

"The Generosity of Criticism"

Judgment leans back in its chair and, exerting the bare minimum of energy, points a thumb up or down. But critique leans forward in its chair, poised and attentive, heeding and contemplating, digesting and imagining.

--Daniel Coffeen, in "The Generosity of Criticism," * on Thought Catalog


Thanks to Rachael Webster for this piece.


*Note: noxious ad and a bit of language at the source

Welcome to Summer!

At last I'm done with the teaching year at Veritas Press Scholars Academy online, and I'm ready to spend some time developing Writing Assessment Services for you.

Wouldn't you like some help learning how to do what I do -- evaluate writing?  That's part of what I have in mind.

Wouldn't you like some actual instruction to go with my tutorials -- visuals and audio?  That's part of what I have in mind.

Wouldn't you like some freebies? That's part of what I have in mind.

Stay tuned!

Detail Mather's

A fun punctuation lesson from catalogliving.net .

Grammar Funnies

Here are some grammar funnies I want to save:

The Writer's Den:  "Grammar," quoting a piece in Physics Review Letters, of all things, in 1979! Ancient history! (And the year I went to college.)

My favorites:

12. Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
21. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
22. It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
23. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
26. Last but not least, lay off cliches.

HT: Todd Harris

A Sentence Exercise--Modifying Phrases

My local high school students recently had an assignment adapted from Brooks Landon's Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft. Learn more from my post here.

In this particular assignment they were to use modifying phrases to create a sentence with this structure:

They sat down at the table, he _________,
his _________, his ________,
she _______,
her ________, her ________,
the table _________,
its __________, its __________,
the overall scene suggesting ____________.

The real danger of this sentence form, which some have discovered, is falling into the temptation to make independent clauses out of the modifying phrases, like this:

They sat down at the table, he pulled out the chair for her so she could sit down, his eyes marvelling at her black silk dress, his cheeks reddening with cmbarrassment realizing that he had missed a button, she buttoned the button for him, her cheeks were reddening with a warmth of love, her eyes glancing him over, the table set before them, its layout perfect, its craftwork without flaw, the overall scene suggests that they are in love.

I really like the little story created in this scene, but those verbs need to be changed to "pulling," "buttoning," "reddening" (without the "were"), and "suggesting." For the remaining samples, I've made small grammatical corrections.

This student was hungry, I think:

They sat down at the table, he cutting the turkey, his face in solemn concentration, his hands working back and forth thoughtfully, she patiently waiting for him to be done, her plate covered with stuffing, her napkin in her lap, the table weighed down with food, its highly polished surface covered with an elaborate tablecloth, its size a little big for the two people, the overall scene suggesting Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's a very different atmosphere with the same setup:

They sat down at the table, he with his feet crossed on its top, his hands laced behind his head, his gray eyes glaring at her, she angry as a wet cat, her arms crossed over her chest, her black eyes returning his daggers, the table seemingly unaware of the tension, this candlelit dinner fitting a romantic occasion, its rich settings contrasting the duo's shabby clothes, the overall scene suggesting an ill-matched couple's nightmare.

And this one uses the scene to suggest a whole story:

They sat down at the table, he grinning mischievously, his boyish face lit up, his blue eyes twinkling, she patiently serving him food, her tired face lined with care, her heart loving her little boy, the table almost bare, its chipped surface holding only two slices of bread and some cooked vegetables, its marred carvings indicating past wealth, the overall scene suggesting a recent war.

This exercise is an example of how creativity can work within the strictures of formulaic writing, the structure exercising students' grammatical skills and resourcefulness. These sentences might not translate well into the context of a full paragraph or story, but each provides good material from which to work in editing to a better result. It is much easier to start with something than to start with nothing.

Inspiration for Writing Instruction

Thanks to Andrew Kern for the link to the Geneva School (Winter Park, Florida) newsletter, which contains an article, interview, and writing samples from the 7th-8th program in writing. The team approach used at Geneva is similar to what I have done with hybrid courses and evaluation arrangements across the country. The instructors introduce a lesson, grade the students' responses to it, and provide opportunity for the students to receive individualized consultation on the work that they have produced. Evaluation is critical to effective writing instruction, and I am glad for the opportunity to participate in this crucial part of a good education.

Delightful, inspiring.

"The Write Stuff," by Reid Buckley

Thanks to my friend Martha Spotts for pointing me to this great article. It's so much fun when eloquent people rant and rave over things I like to rant and rave over. A taste:

Not once in their educational lives had they been taught to impose order on chaos, that being contrary to the central dogma of liberal-arts education in our country today. There is no such thing as choosing, as distinguishing between the false and the real, discriminating between good and bad. The cost of this heresy to our nation is beyond calculating: for two generations our businesses, professions, universities, and politics have been populated by moral illiterates who reject reason.

Warning: frank sexual language in one spot

Student Sin

One of my students transgressed an English teacher's arcane commandments in a paper I am evaluating today, and I knew another English teacher out there would have a clever way of glossing on the point:

"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.

See “today’s modern society.”

Thank you, Paul Brians, of "Common Errors in English." :-)

Credit Where Credit is Due

Well, golly.

I never realized I was misquoting when from time to time I brought up the little snippet that Elisabeth Elliot talks about the necessity for Christians to live "a long obedience in the same direction." It's so . . . EE . . . a thing to say, bracing and insistent. She says it here, in pretty much the kind of context I think of when I think of it.

But I just discovered she didn't originate the idea.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book by that title, and a "search inside" at the Amazon site shows that he gives credit where it is due.

I'll give credit where it is due--here is where I discovered who originally said it:

“The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” - Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil

Now I'm sure EE is just more educated than I and assumed that others knew the source and that she didn't need to give it, but from now on I'll be saying "Elisabeth Elliot and Nietzche agree . . ." Or maybe not.

The Power of Words

It takes my breath away when writers do it well. In this passage quoted at the blog First Things, three co-authors labor to bring forth this beautiful passage--beautiful on many levels:

[A Newsweek columnist and editor together are] speaking . . . in familiar tropes and fused-phrases and easy clichés. They’re trying to convey a feeling, really, rather than an argument: Jesus loves us, love is good, homosexuals love one another, marriage is love, love is loving–a sort of warm bath of words, their meanings dissolved into a gentle goo. In their eyes, all nice things must be nice together, and Jesus comes to seem (as J.D. Salinger once mocked) something like St. Francis of Assisi and “Heidi’s grandfather” all in one.

This little passage refers to the use of language as a tool, then demonstrates how it is being done in a particular instance, then comments on the effect, helping us identify it for ourselves with a reference to other cultural referents. To understand the paragraph we need to know Heidi's grandfather AND St. Francis AND Salinger AND what tropes are. (Or at least we need to be able to link on to how tropes might be like fused-phrases and easy cliches--that's how readers cheat.) Reading this passage and enjoying it is like meeting someone we realize will be a fast friend very soon--we have so much in common!

Please use the link above to explore the post from which I have drawn, and from there then the review from another publication, as well as the original article.

Jack Lynch, My Hero

I had occasion today to refer to a favorite resource, Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Writing, incorporating "Getting an A on an English Paper," and I am eager to draw it to your attention.

Here's a taste:

Rules: There ain't a rule in the language what can't be broke. The so-called rules of English grammar and style were not spoken by a burning bush; they're just guidelines about what's likely to be effective. If you learn to treat them that way, you'll live a happier life. To that end, read my entry on Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammars. . . .

Jack Lynch is a man of good sense, firm principle, and gentle wit, and he says a number of things the way I wish I had said them. Browse his entries and enjoy!

Everybody Needs an Editor!

Let me start by saying I admire William F. Buckley, Jr., and was sad at his passing. We have subscribed to National Review Magazine since before we could afford it, as I am fond of telling people. But I have a love-hate relationship with WFB's writing. He is famous for his impressive vocabulary, and that is kind of fun, but I think he writes some of the worst sentences I have seen in print. In the excerpt below describing the religious background of the Reagans' son Ron, who became an atheist in his teens, the first sentence is perfectly fine, but I'm not sure what he means by the second. Does the "it is popular" suggest that the belief so described is faulty? What risk are people assured of being eliminated? Which people?

We do not need to assume that a familiarity with history recalls the Ninety-Five Theses of Luther, or the causes of the Thirty Years’ War. It is popular in quarters of young America to believe that deference to individual religious inclinations eliminates any risk of submitting to indoctrination.

The next sentence, in the next paragraph, is also fine. But the final sentence is just poor, violating my teacher sensibilities about the need to enliven prose and to use more active verbs and clear nouns, and not to turn verb phrases into noun phrases. Note WFB's use of the passive voice, which has its place, but in sparing doses:

When Ron Jr. went on to reject his father’s political positions, ruing the Reagan presidency, it was not necessarily the result of alienation from the family per se. Weight by the son to his father’s principles is here given, here withheld, after thought is paid to them, cursory or profound, and how they figured in the allegiances of the parent.

From The Reagan I Knew, by William F. Buckley, Jr.
At the National Review website November 26, 2008

So how would YOU fix that last sentence? Here is my try, preserving much of the language of the original:

The son thought-- sometimes cursorily, sometimes profoundly-- about his father's principles and about how they figured in his allegiances, and he gave them weight or withheld it accordingly.

I still don't like it much, though, so here's another try, with more freedom of vocabulary:

Ron Reagan watched his father's principles at work, especially in his allegiances, and, with a teenager's alternating deep and shallow thought, respected or cast off those principles accordingly.

So can you do better? I probably can, though the exercise shows me that WFB's words "principles," "allegiances," "figured," "weight," and "accordingly" were very carefully chosen! :-)

Holistic Scoring Rubric

I elected not to include the following information on the new version of my web site, as it has probably been updated in recent times, and I do not do too much with GED preparation now. However, these guidelines are sound ones very similar to those used for the SAT and ACT exams, too. I hope you find them useful!

GED Scoring Guidelines

These guidelines were supplied to me in the 1990s by an instructor for the then-extant AOL Academic Assistance Center. Jane (Teachitall@aol.com) taught GED preparation courses in her community and was a great help as I designed [a GED prep course I used to teach online]. Most standardized essay exams are graded holistically by a small committee according to guidelines like these. I have seen similar ones for statewide exams for middle school and high school,
the CLAST exam, and two community colleges in Florida and California.

The following is quoted from the Scoring Guide section of the GED Teacher's Manual.

Upper-half papers make clear a definite purpose, pursued with varying
degrees of effectiveness. They also have a structure that shows
evidence of some deliberate planning. The writer's control of the
conventions of Standard Written English (spelling, punctuation,
grammar, word choice, and sentence structure) ranges from fairly
reliable at 4 to confident and accomplished at 6.

(6) The SIX PAPER offers sophisticated ideas within an organizational
framework that is clear and appropriate for the topic. The supporting
statements are particularly effective because of their substance,
specificity, or illustrative quality. The writing is vivid and
precise, although it may contain an occasional flaw in the conventions
of Standard Written English.

(5) The FIVE PAPER is clearly organized with effective support for
each of the writer's major points. While the writing offers
substantive ideas, it lacks the fluency found in the 6 paper. Although
there are some errors, the conventions of Standard Written English are
consistently under control.

(4) The FOUR PAPER shows evidence of the writer's organizational plan.
Support, though adequate, tends to be less extensive or effective than
that found in the 5 paper. The writer generally observes the
conventions of Standard Written English. The errors that are present
are not severe enough to interfere significantly with the writer's
main purpose.

Lower-half papers either fail to convey a purpose sufficiently or lack
one entirely. Consequently, their structure ranges from rudimentary at
3, to random at 2, to absent at 1. Control of the conventions of
Standard Written English tends to follow this same gradient.

(3) The THREE PAPER usually shows some evidence of planning, although
the development may be insufficient. The supporting statements may be
limited to a listing or a repetition of ideas. The 3 paper often
demonstrates repeated weaknesses in the conventions of Standard
Written English.

(2) The TWO PAPER is characterized by a marked lack of organization or
inadequate support for ideas. The development may be superficial or
unfocused. Errors in the conventions of Standard Written English may
seriously interfere with the overall effectiveness of this paper.

(1) The ONE PAPER lacks purpose or development. The dominant feature
is the absence of control of structure or the conventions of Standard
Written English. The deficiencies are so severe that the writer's
ideas are difficult or impossible to understand.

Web Writing

I am currently rewriting my web site for Writing Assessment Services, and though it is not a good time in the school year to be doing this, it is necessitated by AOL's wrongheaded determination to evaporate all member web sites by the end of this week. The only notice I got was a banner on the top of my site that I saw when I happened to go there a couple of weeks ago! Boo, AOL!

Anyway, I first created my site back in 1995-96, using a bit of html code from Fritz Hinrichs, bless his heart, after he encouraged me to take my services on to the infant Internet. I was at that time expert at signing on and off of AOL quickly so as not to use up my precious monthly minutes, but soon came unlimited time online and a whole new world was born--cyberspace! I laboriously typed in all that "href" and the letter "A" within pointy brackets and so forth (and learned how to use copy/paste efficiently), and my web site was born. Thanks, Fritz!

Over the years since, I have incorporated tables and a few graphics and shopping cart buttons and several things like that, but usually kept everything streamlined, using old pages as templates for new ones. But suddenly I've been dumped from AOL and it's time to start fresh with some new technology. I spent hours and hours investigating hosting and templates and software and found myself at the bottom of one decision tree with a few scattered apples, including a free limited subscription to Soholaunch. When people have asked the last couple of weeks how I'm doing, I mostly just give a big exasperated sigh.

But I want to try to explain.

Writing is hard, especially when you have a Purpose for it, and an Audience, and Money is involved . . . so many expectations!

Html is interesting but dizzying, and it has come far, including through translations like Java and php and things like that, and I can't do it from the keyboard anymore. But templates are limited, and Soholaunch's templates are not as flexible as I want to be, and my aspirations for flexibility go beyond my capacity to make use of the flexibility. I can override the templates, but I haven't figured out quite where and how to do so.

So here is what this kind of writing is like:

You know how to play chess? Not the basic way I play it, one move at a time, but with foresight into the possibility of each move, the potential future moves of the other guy? Each move I make with this new writing task has many future implications--will a site viewer be frustrated at the lack of information, overwhelmed with the plethora of it? Do I have too many choices, or too few? Can a visitor find his way to what he wants? Have I made the connections as clean and clear and intuitive as possible? How can I win? How can I keep from losing in a shameful way?

Well, now, imagine playing chess on the Enterprise, with that multi-level chess board, three-dimensionally? That's what this kind of writing is like. Not only do I have to do all that strategizing and organizing, but I have to do it within the limited compatibility of Word and the Soholaunch template, the "dynamic" but still constraining three cells across the page that Soho allows me, and the mystery of what it will look like once I hit the "preview page" button. If you go visit my site, stand in awe and wonder at the arrangement of icons near the bottom of the home page. No, they're not quite ideally spaced, and you've seen better, but it took me the better part of two hours to make them look that good.

Even something as simple as menu items, and sub-menu items, is dizzying. Soholaunch does not allow for more than one instance of any menu item. So even though a visitor to the "Schools" page might want to know the same things about "Evaluations" as a visitor to the "Home Schools" page wants to know, only one of them can get the sub-menu item "Evaluations" if my main menu has "Schools," "Home Schools," etc. on it. So that's why the main menu that appears on each page has "Evaluations," "Courses," and so forth on it. Then the sub-menu for the home page takes you to special pages for Schools, Home Schools, etc. Trouble is, where do I put a sub-menu for, say, "Client Comments?" Is that a Credentials matter, or a Link, or what?

So I spend a lot of time thinking, and I put links within the text on each page so you can still get to the pages the menu and sub-menu won't reveal while you're on that page.

So I'm playing chess, which I'm not any good at except against pre-pubescent normal kids; and three-dimensionally, with strategies needed both for each level and for the interactions of the levels; and look again at my opponent--the extremely logical Mr. Spock! I am Dr. McCoy, in the background, with the wild look in my eye.

I do it all for you, dear readers. Please feel my pain.

Meeting the Famous (and a rule for Real Writers)

From the interesting blog Soul Shelter comes a little tale from a writer about meeting a more-famous writer. The famous one has a run-down little structure in which he Writes, but we don't find out about that until the end of the piece, and in that little shelter is a closing piece of wisdom for all writers or aspirers to important things. You'll have to click the link to read it. :-)

This entertaining account reminds me of one of my favorite topics from my teaching days at Auburn University. Students had, in preparation for an end-of-term exam, read a journalist's account of a breakfast in the presence of Abraham Lincoln. The journalist gave a close description of Lincoln's now-familiar odd looks and just the sort of detail we'd want to know about the President in an article such as the journalist wrote. However, the original was edited down significantly, to leave out the "disrespectful" parts (the parts about how unattractive the man was--though the journalist described him with real restraint and awe). That editing itself is an interesting study. But to the assignment . . .

In the exam period, a timed writing, I asked each student to write about a famous person he or she had met. One had been hit in the leg by the erring golf ball of a famous golfer and got a dinner invitation as a result. A good proportion of the tennis team happened to be in the class in which I first gave this assignment, and two different students had met John McEnroe (notorious bad-boy tennis player at the time). For one student McEnroe performed as expected, ranting at reporters outside a locker room. But for the other--female--he was a charming and unrecognized companion in a long line for a soda at a tournament. When they got to the stand, he bought her drink for her and then walked away, and only then did she hear someone nearby say, "Hey--that's John McEnroe!" I had a great time reading those essays!

So I commend to you the assignment for students to write about meeting someone famous. Marlon Brando once offered my mother a stick of gum when she was a teenager. I once had novelist Larry Woiwode to Sunday dinner. . . .

Friday Funnies: Diploma Duh

It's worth only a little chuckle, but it's time for bed, so here you go:

Diploma Dustup

What is an "A" Paper?

I have on the "Client Comments" page of my website the following testimony:

"Thanks for your evaluation of T's paper. Once again, you reinforced (sometimes in the exact words I had used) what I thought of his paper. You really are wonderful! ;-)" [And regarding another student in that family, whose paper is among those in Noteworthy Papers from 2001-2002 Students ...] "I must tell you that your evaluation (a grade of 'A') was met by leaps of joy (literally) and whoops of 'Wow! Wow!' Such is the esteem with which your opinion is held around here. :-) "

The "A" student is now in a difficult humanities discipline in graduate school and has shown in his academic work over the years that he is truly a gifted student, and a diligent one as well. The mother is a dear long-distance friend of mine who teaches writing, too, and I would love to have my children in her classes.

All of that is to say, I do not give A's easily, and even the ones I do give are almost always A-minus if it is early in the year, because there is ALWAYS something that can be improved. To me an A paper is one that does everything it was supposed to do (a B paper) with additional style and depth and excellence that just lifts my heart as I read it. If I can be surprised or delighted by something in the paper, and that is consistently integrated into the whole, that paper might come to an A grade, even with a couple of serious grammatical errors! (Well, maybe an A-minus in that case.) My husband testifies that at Clemson University about 1980 a very strict code required that any paper with one major error (comma splice, s-v disagreement, runon) could earn no higher than a B-minus, and two of those errors resulted in a failing grade. I'm not quite that strict.

But for those who aspire to an A, consider it is with me a badge of high honor indeed. The A-plus paper is one I would have been thrilled to have written myself, and I have one or two of those each year, too.

I really cannot say it better than Jack Lynch does in "Getting an A on an English Paper."

Friday Funnies: My Own Students' Bloopers!

I have always meant to keep a collection of student funnies from their papers but have made only the tiniest beginning. Today I share the first file:

One student, in a report on knitting, referred to a “copulation of scarves” and a delightful “verity of scarf patterns.” (2007)

Another student warned, "Many corporal people try to cheat their way to the top of the corporal ladders." (Essay on Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Tale,” 2007)

It's kind of fun when an error makes a whole new sentence concept: "Make sure it leaves and impact." (2008)

Finally, an opinion on true expertise: "The idea of different traits in life, is that a handful of individuals are epically good at them." ( 2008)