Red Pen Pedestrian

Adjective Clauses, Part 1: What the Hell is an Adjective Clause, Anyway?

January 29, 2019

As writers, we’re often called upon to describe people, places, and things. I’ve written before about noun phrase appositives, which are handy little structures, but they aren’t the only tool for the job. If you’ve got a passing familiarity with the parts of speech in English — thanks to the education you received in your formative … More Adjective Clauses, Part 1: What the Hell is an Adjective Clause, Anyway?

Bust Through Writer’s Block Like a Boss With This One Simple Activity

January 17, 2019

The hardest part of writing is the writing part. I’m not kidding. Getting started? Sometimes it feels impossible. And when you do start, sometimes you hit a wall. If you’ve had this happen to you — if you this happens to you a lot — you’re not alone. As Anne Lamott writes in “Shitty First … More Bust Through Writer’s Block Like a Boss With This One Simple Activity

Sentence Combining with Subordinating Conjunctions

December 12, 2018

Some writers don’t join their ideas. Each idea ends up in its own sentence. The writer doesn’t use coordinators. The writer doesn’t use subordinators. The writer doesn’t make transitions. This makes the sentences seem “choppy.” The connections between ideas are sometimes unclear to the reader. In this post, I’m going to focus on subordinating conjunctions, … More Sentence Combining with Subordinating Conjunctions

Noun Phrase Appositives

September 23, 2017

I remember having precisely one high school English teacher who purported to “teach grammar,” and did so from a text that was thicker than a fist and duller than a rolling pin — the kind of book that wields the rules of syntax like a blunt instrument. Now, this was a long time ago, so … More Noun Phrase Appositives

Level Up Your SFSU Library Game With These 8 Tips

August 22, 2017

New to SFSU? Not sure you’re taking full advantage of what the library has to offer? Check out these eight library features! … More Level Up Your SFSU Library Game With These 8 Tips

Sentence Combining With FANBOYS

March 4, 2017

When a writer fails to join sentences, it’s a twofold problem: the writing is choppy, making it less pleasant to read, and the connections between ideas are invisible to the reader, making it hard to construct meaning from the text. This kind of problem isn’t uncommon in student writing, but luckily, it’s a problem that can be solved using a variety of sentence combining tools.

In this post, I’m going to focus on the FANBOYS. … More Sentence Combining With FANBOYS

Your Friend the Thesis Statement

February 24, 2017

Sometimes…you are called upon to write a thing. Sometimes…the thing will have a central idea. Sometimes…you’ll want to make that central idea very clear to the reader early on in the thing. In these times, the thesis statement is your friend. So What the Hell is a Thesis Statement, Anyway? A thesis statement tells the … More Your Friend the Thesis Statement

Righting the writing wrongs of the world.