a starship captain must have nerves of steel, good interpersonal skills, and the ability to use superfluous commas

Indoctrinated early in my schooling with the casual rule that a comma goes where you would naturally pause or take a breath, I need only confess that I became an avid Star Trek fan at age 7 for you to imagine the havoc wreaked by this well-intended advice. I have written papers that William Shatner would have delivered with glee. In the "Punctuation of Phrases and Clauses" section of Kolln, I experienced a sharp and unpleasant desire to find and double-check the worksheet I made for my students about the usage of commas and semicolons. To my great relief, the examples I gave them do not betray my weakness. With this exception:

My brother, Zachary, a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers.

I wanted to make sure they understood that when I said a comma sets off inessential (or nonrestrictive) information, I meant from the sentence’s perspective and not theirs. However, this sentence stands alone. Who knows how many brothers the writer has? Especially in a sentence used to illustrate something, I feel like the extra comma just clutters things up and encourages extra commas. 

My brother Zachary, a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers. 

Not the prettiest sentence, but cleaner. If I *am* just dying to have that third comma in there, it might look something like this: 

One of my brothers, Zachary, who works as a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers.

BONUS!

Far more upsetting that steering a bunch of freshmen –who probably ignored me anyway- slightly wrong, was this sentence that I included in a paper I delivered at the Louisville Conference (Nick, can you ever forgive me?): 

Old: Even after Florence dies, Dowell is not unhappy, free of his invalid wife, and looking forward to the possibility of remarrying. 

New: Even after Florence dies, Dowell is not unhappy; free of his invalid wife, he looks forward to the possibility of remarrying.

A Final Reading from the Book of John

I have always had a tendency to be longwinded, especially in my writing.  My sentences tend to have lots of clauses so that what could have been two or three short sentences often gets crammed into one.  (In part, I blame my addiction to the semi-colon, which lets me get away with this much more than commas do.)  Below we find two sentences of particularly massive proportions.

Fielding’s ire is particularly aroused by those writers (particularly stage dramatists), who in the final act of a play will spontaneously reform characters who have hitherto been “notorious Rogues” and “abandoned Jades” with no other reason than that the end of the play is approaching (307-308).  It might be argued that Tom Jones himself is reformed over the course of the novel, but Fielding is at pains to make the transformation as gradual as possible so that although the Tom Jones of Book II and the Tom Jones of Book XVIII differ, we do not witness any shift from notorious rogue (if that title can appropriately be bestowed on Tom) to noble gentleman.  

First, there's a bone-headed comma mistake in the first sentence. I blame the parantheses for not making me notice it right away.  Second, I have a relative clause within a relative clause, which is just plain ridiculous.  The second sentence seems to be in good shape but is overly long because I've linked two theoretically independent sentences with a "so that."

Fielding’s ire is particularly aroused by those writers (particularly stage dramatists) who in the final act of a play will spontaneously reform “notorious Rogues” and “abandoned Jades," justifying it only by the approaching end of the play (307-308).  It might be argued that Tom Jones himself is reformed over the course of the novel, but Fielding is at pains to make the transformation as gradual as possible.  Although the Tom Jones of Book II and the Tom Jones of Book XVIII differ, we do not witness any shift from notorious rogue (if that title can appropriately be bestowed on Tom) to noble gentleman.  

I fixed the comma mistake and ditched the "who have hitherto been," thus turning what was a relative clause within a relative clause into a single relative clause.  In the interests of economy, I have also used a participle phrase at the end of the sentence to tighten up the structure at the end.  I've also chopped up that second sentence into two sentences, which makes it easier to digest than it would be in one big chunk.

I think that these changes make the text flow better.  In the future, I'm going to try to avoid cramming so much stuff into each individual sentence.  One major step will be breaking my addiction to semi-colons; although I didn't use any in this selection, they lead me unconsciously towards large, unwieldy sentences.  (And yes, I am well aware of the irony of using a semi-colon in a sentence about not using semi-colons.  It worked well there.)

I Heart the Dash-- Ruth

Ruth, an intuitive grammarian, had trouble coalescing what she learned from Ch. 9. A red pencil, a pile of crossed out sentences, a few beads of sweat upon her brow—the detritus of a grammar exercise.

Old:
In contrast to male bodies, the female body seeps, weeps, often overflowing its container. It is both an open void that can be penetrated and a dangerous boundarilessness which threatens to engulf everything.

New:
The female body, in contrast to the male body, often overflows its container. Both an open void capable of being penetrated and a dangerous boundarilessness—the female body threatens to engulf everything.

Notes:
Picking up one of Kolln’s earlier points about using sentence subject placement effectively, I revised the first sentence to place the female body as the primary subject rather than the male body. It seems entirely appropriate in a paper discussing the feminist grotesque that the female body would be the focal subject.

Though Kolln did not discuss the proliferation of useless verbs in Ch. 9, she did make a similar point about the proliferation of modifier nouns. In the spirit of this injunction, I cut seeps and weeps seeing as the verb “overflowing” captures both of these ideas. This makes this sentence much tighter to read.

Though I am a big lover of the dash, I most often use it in pairs to offset information in the middle of a sentence. I decided I’d experiment with using the dash to offset a sentence appositive. I didn’t actually realize that the end of this sentence “engulfs” the meaning of the first part of the sentence, but I believe it does. Off-setting with a dash served to greatly emphasize the female body’s power of permeability.

Ch. 9: Choosing Adjectivals
Adjectival-a modifier of a noun, referring to function.

Participle phrases sound a little odd to me, but I’d like to try one by replacing one a previously used sentence in the paper. The movable participle seems to best pertain to the various ways the following sentence can be constructed (I’m going to change it because there’s a lack of information).
Original: The cover song is the offspring of artistic influence
Alteration #1: As an offspring of artistic influence, the cover song often maintains many movements made in the original.
Alteration #2: By repeating many of the movements made in the original, the cover song becomes the offspring of artistic influence.

I came across the section about sentence appositives during this reading, which I love using in my writing in general. I looked through my paper to see what I could find (some are simpler than others):
• Harvey claims that each encounter has the ability to subconsciously change the identity of culture. This implicates that the members of the given culture must operate similarly—thereby rendering meaning utterly subjective
• When the cover is written, further cultural residue has amassed around the occurrences that may (or may not) have driven the original song to be conceived—instead it is a response, a retort even.
However I have other uses of M-dashes, which I believe I see more frequently, that add information to the sentence rather than summing it up: “The second version came about in 1988 when former member of The Velvet Underground, John Cale, heard the song and asked Cohen to see the collection of verses—of which Cohen chose to send him only 15.”

Tessa's Chapter 9 Post

I took a passage from my critical writing paper, which seemed a bit clunky and bland and unsophisticated, and tried out a bunch of Kolln’s chapter 9 strategies. Vote for the one you like best. Sorry, the period for voting by cell phone has ended, so you must respond via blog.

• OLD: Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language. Slavin isn’t the only writer to utilize this strategy. Aimee Bender, Stacy Richter, and Judy Budnitz, among other contemporary magical realists, have done the same in their own fiction.
• NEW: Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language. She isn’t the only writer to utilize this strategy. Aimee Bender, Judy Budnitz, Stacy Richter—they all have entered strange realms through the magical keyhole of metaphor. (As Kolln says, an opening appositive series is certainly dramatic, and who doesn’t love drama (201)?) (What do you do to parenthesis within parenthesis? It seems like the English language should have a rule to deal with that.)
• NEW: Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language. She isn’t the only writer to utilize this strategy. Entering strange realms by passing through metaphor’s looking glass, Aimee Bender, Judy Budnitz, and Stacey Richter join Slavin on the magical realist, illness narrative train. (hmm. I think I’m mixing my metaphors here; plus the end of that sentence is a bit of a mouthful
• NEW: Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language. Joining her in use of this strategy, Aimee Bender, Judy Budnitz, and Stacy Richter also enter strange realms in their own illness narratives through the use of metaphor. (hmm. The end of this sentence, with its ending prepositional phrase, also sounds clunky.)
• NEW: Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language. Other contemporary magical realists—Aimee Bender, Judy Budnitz, Stacy Richter—also utilize the strategy of metaphor to great effect in illness narratives of their own.

I’m voting for the orange sentence. It doesn’t have the dramatic flourish of some of the other sentences, but it seems the cleanest and clearest of these four options. What do others think? Would it really be terrible to let that looking glass metaphor go? I mean, how can you beat a sentence talking about use of metaphor that actually itself is using a metaphor?

5/30 Chapter 9—Choosing Adjectivals

Here is a sentence from my most recent draft that has a lot of commas [that] I’m not sure are working correctly.
(Is the above sentence a case where I don’t need “that”? I’ll rewrite it this way: “I’m not sure that the many commas in this sentence from my most recent draft are correct.” Well, this change doesn’t lead with the introduction of the thing/the sentence, so the prepositional phrase “from my most recent draft” makes the sentence a little clunky. Looking back at Kolln, I see that she says {I just started that phrase with SHE, but realized that I am the one looking back} that “that” can be omitted if it doesn’t cause any confusion (197)).

Anyways, back to this sentence!:

OLD: “For this study then, I focus on the rhetorical strategies, or perhaps more appropriately the rhetorical peculiarities of History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, as it was published.”
NEW: “For this study then, I focus on the rhetorical strategies—or perhaps more appropriately, the rhetorical peculiarities—of the crafted, published version of History.”

In this change, I wanted to emphasize the rephrasing of “rhetorical strategies” to “peculiarities”, so I set off this appositive (is that what we’d call it? Peculiarities modifies or further defines the object “strategies”) with a dash instead. Kolln says that the dash or colon puts emphasis on the appositive, which is what I wanted to do here. As for that last phrase—“as it was published”—I’m not sure if it would need to be set off with that comma, but I’m thinking it doesn’t. However, I wanted to change it because in the old version, this is where the emphasis lands. Since I am trying to move past readings of History that don’t use the published version, setting off that phrase keeps it too separated. So I moved the adjective published before the noun and added "crafted" (for emphasis and repetition I’m trying to weave into the paper throughout) and set them off with a comma so it’s clear that they both are independently modifying “version.” I like this change quite a bit, though I’m not sure if I need that comma between “appropriately” and “the.”

***I found this chapter to be difficult to read; I thought there was no chance I would be able to spot this stuff in my writing without pouring over the chapter. It's crazy that in writing the first sentence of this post that I was suddenly aware of the way it was going together and questioning automatically if it was 'right' or the most effective it could be. Sweet.

Bad Sentence Habits

Old:
Weimann also brings in an interesting post-colonial perspective to the idea of identification of the other; he asserts, via Cheyfutz, that instruction is colonization, colonization instruction (53). He refers specifically to the direction given to Adam and Eve by the angels before they leave Eden, but I think this reading is also relevant to Eve as the Other to Adam. Walker points out that Eve is unaware of the gendered terms which we recognize as feminine (being post-Fall humans); she is instructed, indoctrinated into understanding her role by God (519). Instruction is given freely throughout Paradise Lost, but is most powerful when teaching Eve her identity within the hierarchy of the Garden.

New:
Weimann introduces an interesting post-colonial perspective to the theory of Other-ing. He asserts, via Cheyfutz, that instruction is colonization, colonization instruction (53). Although Weimann refers specifically to the angels’ directions to the fallen couple upon their dismissal from Eden, this reading is relevant to Eve as the Other to Adam. Instructed and indoctrinated in understanding her role by God, Eve is unaware of the gendered terms that we recognize as feminine (Walker, 519). Given freely throughout Paradise Lost, instruction is powerful when teaching Eve the details of her identity within the hierarchy of the Garden.

Commentary:
I usually have some misgivings about my personal punctuation system. This is mostly because I am prone to concocting long sentences abounding with proliferating prepositional phrases and adverbials/adjectival phrases. First, I tried to identify strangely yoked sentences, highlighted in pink. The structure of this paragraph was striking once I had done my highlighting; the paragraph involves four sentences, 1 and 3 are linked together with a semi-colon and 2 and 4 are linked with a comma and then the conjunction but. I started by putting a period at the end of the sentence in place of the semi-colon because the following information could stand alone more effectively. In sentence 3, I noticed another which phrase, and changed the vague which to the determiner that. I also used a movable adjectival phrase to replace the semi-colon that I would normally have used. The most useful revisions were done in sentences 2 and 4, where I tried to emphasize my point about Adam and Eve with the use of the first person. After our discussion yesterday in class, I have become more aware my pronoun use affects my authority, so I changed the but-plus-I sentence to use the passive voice and tried to break up some of the prepositional phrases. I’m not sure this reads the way I want yet, although substituting a few referents helped. I also tried to apply some power verbs from our last reading, but couldn’t think of a way to change all of those is linking verbs. Again, I love this book.

Nick's Second.

So with the holiday and all, I totally forgot to do this on time. Sorry.

This is from the intro to an essay I wrote last year. The instructor told me I used too many prepositions, and to prove this, circled every one on the first page. I was then advised not to use so many. I'm trying to sum up and expand on something that Margaret Atwood told me once in a Q&A after a reading.

Original: That is to say, it seems to me, that the great cultural works of the past not only influence the structure of the present moment, but that also the present moment, informed by the confluence of multiple traditional texts, dynamically alters how individual traditional texts are interpreted. An understanding of this perspective of influence is extremely useful when considering Atwood's own body of work, which can be characterized by nothing if not by her overt intertextual references to, it seems at times, the entire Western canon.

Revised: Because Atwood's body of work seems to intertextually reference most of the Western canon, understanding her perspective on influence greatly informs examinations of her body of work. Her response implies a reciprocal relationship between the present moment and the texts through which that moment is read. Our understanding of the present, naturally, is influenced by the texts we have read, but the meaning we take from texts is also influenced by our present experience.

I started a sentence with 'because,' because I'm usually very hesitant about that, and tried to break up the long strings of subordinate and prepositional clauses. I also used the first-person, which I am usually hesitant about as well. In addition, I reordered some parts so that the end of sentences emphasize my main points, and so that the information has better coherence (because I still remember last week's lessons).

Here is a passage from the critical writing draft I submitted last week. It comes right after the interview quote from Slavin.

Old: These comments make the rationale for Slavin’s authorial decisions abundantly clear. Because metaphor was able to capture the emotional pain of dealing with a loved one’s illness most clearly and aptly, Slavin literalized the metaphor through a magical twisting of reality in order to translate her experience into language.

After reading Kolln, I paid close attention to my verb choice. Kolln says that a “well-chosen verb not only heightens the drama of a sentence and makes its meaning clear, it also sends a message to the reader that the writer has crafted the sentence carefully, that the idea matters” (145). The verb in the first sentence “make clear” seems wimpy. In fact, the whole construction of the first sentence seems clunky and verbose. In the second sentence, I’ve got that pesky “to be” construction that Kolln warns us not to overuse. And the prepositional phrase “in order to” gives the second sentence what Kolln calls an “ungraceful rhythm” and a “lack of focus” (153). Here’s how I reworked those two sentences.

New: Slavin’s comments elucidate her authorial decisions manifestly. Since metaphor
captures the painful experience of enduring a loved one’s illness so aptly, Slavin exploits the power of metaphor, literalizing it through a magical twisting of reality. Slavin thus transforms what seems inexpressible into language.

Verb Usage and Voice

I am glad I am not the only person who realizes that they do not always "practice what they preach." I also constantly mark up my students' papers with comments such as "poor word choice" and "remove passive voice." In my own writing, however, I find myself using passive voice much too often and picking verbs that do not produce the strong impact that I really want in my papers. Here is an excerpt from my first draft I submitted for workshop as an example:

Proletarian literature uses the focus of the destitute and desperate to show the failings of a capitalist society. One major recurring motif of proletarian literature is violence. Violence is oftentimes used to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.

In this passage, I use the same verb twice in three sentences and the second and third sentences slip into the passive voice for some unknown reason. After reading chapter seven in Kolln, I revised these sentences by picking better verbs and placing the second and third sentences in the active voice. Here is my revision:

Proletarian literature utilizes the focus on the destitute and the desperate in order to demonstrate the failings of a capitalist society. The motif of violence recurs throughout proletarian literature. Proletarian literature often employs violence to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.

In my humble opinion, simply picking more specific verbs and changing the last two sentences into active voice make the passage more focused and more interesting to read.

a...of prepositional phrases

"Awkwardness is not the only problem--nor is it the most serious. The sentence that ends with a long string of prepositional phrases often loses its focus" (Kolln 153).

Chapter Eight was incredibly enlightening to me because I very seldom think about adverbs. Inspired by the epigraph above, I am playing with Kolln's concept of "the proliferating prepositional phrase." I am most guilty of proliferation when writing about theory (dun, dun, dun). I hereby declare war of the word: of. Let's see this in action!

OLD
Walker’s poem, in its dual reliance on a collective Appalachian identity and a rejection of racial limits on that identity, relies on both a collective conception of Appalachian identity and a disruption of that concept.

In its redundancy, the focus of the sentence is lost. Kolln suggests that we pay close attention to which words/phrases are stressed in order to better understand what information is extraneous. Here, I am looking specifically at my repeated use of “of”: “a rejection of racial limits”… “a collective conception of Appalachian identity”… “a disruption of that concept.” First, how else might these phrases be phrased?

NEW
A rejection of racial limits… rejects racial limits
A collective conception of Appalachian identity… relies on the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular
A disruption of that concept… disrupts that concept

Not surprisingly, my revisions rely on strong verbs rather than “a…of” phrases.

NEW
Walker’s poem simultaneously reinforces and rejects the idea that Appalachian identity is collective and singular.

Of course, now I need a follow-up sentence which justifies that claim more thoroughly!