Today’s question

1. Today’s question • Name one of the two uses of an ellipse in a radio script. No extra credit for naming both. • As always, direct your browsers to www.cmat131.wordpress.com and click on “leave a comment” on the top post. Put your first and last names followed by your answer.

2. Podcast preparation CMAT131, Prof. Jeremy Cox

3. But first, some thoughts on 1st critique • To understand my proofreading marks, please see http://www.merriam-webster.com/mw/table/proofrea.htm • For many, the writing could have been tighter. Lots of throwaway phrases, unnecessary repetition. • Read aloud, then revise your first draft. • Transitions are important, but don’t waste a listener’s time by saying, “Another thing...” Just say it. • In future critiques, I will: • Ask that they be written as a radio script • Forbid the use of personal pronouns (i.e. I, me, we, us)

4. Common grammar mistakes • The punctuation goes inside the quote about 99.9% of the time. • Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside quotation marks. Example: My favorite show is “Downton Abbey.” • Question marks also go inside just about all the time. Example: The professor asked, “Does this make sense?” • Here’s the one and only exception: In the extremely rare cases when logic dictates. Example: How many of you agree with the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”? • The logic is that to put the question mark inside the quotes would wrongly suggest the “apple” sentence is a question.

5. Common grammar mistakes • The semicolon isn’t punctuation’s version of the wildcard. You can’t just put it wherever you want. There are two primary uses. • 1. To connect two independent clauses (a collection of words that can stand alone as sentences). Usually done when they are logically connected. Never use in conjunction with a conjunction (i.e. but, and). Example: The dog is sleeping; the cat is not. The dog is sleeping, but the cat is not. • 2. To use as a super-comma in a list. Example: The Orioles re-signed Adam Jones, an outfielder; Mark Reynolds, a third baseman; and Kevin Gregg, a reliever.

6. Common grammar mistakes • Miss the semicolon? Let me introduce you to a couple of its friends. First the colon, which has three main uses. • 1. To define or expand on. Here’s an example: this sentence. • 2. To set up a quote. The delegate raised a question: “How will the state pay for it?” • 3. To introduce a list. The following Orioles should be cut: Luke Scott, Felix Pie and Robert Andino.

7. Common grammar mistakes • Another friend of the semicolon: the em dash (as in the width of the letter “m.”) • To make one on your keyboard: For Apple, hold down “shift” and “option” and then the hyphen key. For PCs, hold down “control” and “alt” and then the hyphen key found on the numeric side of the keyboard, usually to the far upper right. • It’s pretty versatile so we’re going to need a whole slide to look at all the uses. • A couple quick notes: You mainly use it for informal writing. And it’s really easy to find yourself overusing dashes.

8. Common grammar mistakes • Em dash uses • To add emphasis. Example: You can’t find a good man in Texas — anywhere. • To signal an interruption. Example: We need to buy some things at the store — bread, eggs and butter — and then stop by the gas station. • Or to make an abrupt change of thought. Example: I wish you could meet Robert — oh, there he is now.

9. Sharpen your writing • Favor positive verbs over forming a negative one. • Negative: The police DIDN’T ALLOW the protesters to cross the bridge. • Why say in two words — and weak ones, at that — what you can say in one? • Positive: The police BARRED the protesters from crossing the bridge.

10. Sharpen your writing • Strike unnecessary dependent clauses and phrases. • Think of your sentence like a business. Each word costs you a dollar. In this way, you’re cutting expenses and not your precious thoughts. • Some easily cut words/phrases: • Period of time • Situation • Currently/Presently • Very • Most (but not all) adjectives and adverbs

11. Let’s “listen” to the master • “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.” — the beginning of “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway

12. Let’s listen to another • “And then the dispossessed were drawn west--from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.  Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand.  They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless--restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do--to lift , to push, to pull, to pick, to cut p anything, any burden to bear, for food.  The kids are hungry.  We got no place to live.  Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.” — from “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

13. And just this last one • “In certain latitudes there comes a span of time approaching and following the summer solstice, some weeks in all, when the twilights turn long and blue. This period of the blue nights does not occur in subtropical California, where I lived for much of the time I will be talking about here and where the end of daylight is fast and lost in the blaze of the dropping sun, but it does occur in New York, where I now live. You notice it first as April ends and May begins, a change in the season, not exactly a warming—in fact not at all a warming—yet suddenly summer seems near, a possibility, even a promise.” — from “Blue Nights” by Joan Didion

14. Onto your podcast script • Your assignment: Write a how-to podcast. • A “how-to” explains how to do something in a clear, step-by-step process. • You should explain at the beginning why it’s important for the listener to know how to do whatever it is you’ll be explaining. This is your chance to be lively and have a personality.

15. How long • Your podcast should last 4-6 minutes. • That’s an equivalent of 2-3 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12-point font. So make sure to pick a topic that will yield that long of an explanation.

16. Details • It helps to talk it out. Pony up to a partner and spend a few minutes brainstorming ideas. • Choose something you know how to do. • Help your partner figure out whether there are enough steps to fill a whole 4-6 minutes. • Once you’re happy with your topic, turn on Word and start typing. We’re going with the same radio script format as last week. (i.e. ANNCR, one column).