Lessons learned on the job, part 1

If you have aspirations of being a publicist, spell things correctly. If you do not have aspirations of being a publicist, don’t put your name as a contact on the press release form. Once upon a time, I was given a (very poorly written) press release by a local woman. The woman spelled at least … Continue Reading

I miss you

Poor blog. I have neglected you because of real-life stuff: graduating college, moving to a new apartment, et cetera (pssh–like that stuff matters). On the bright side, I’m starting a new internship tomorrow (eek!) and it should provide lots of fodder for posts about writing, editing, reporting, and the like. Until then–

Vox: Getting press coverage

My friend Vox wrote an excellent post this morning on getting mainstream media to pay attention to issues that don’t get enough coverage. Not only that, but her guide includes tips that any writer who wants to break into newspapers can use. Examples: Write a lede that is one or two sentences long and says, … Continue Reading

The rise of lolcat

I can has grammars??? I admit it. I’m addicted to lolcats. I love the damn things, stupid as they are. What I didn’t realize is how much information is already out on the tubenet on the grammar of lolcats. A little background: Lolcats are a fairly recent internet meme involving the captioning of cute or … Continue Reading

Worth Reading: Excellent profile by Hank Stuever

Hank Stuever of the Washington Post wrote an excellent profile of Bob Barker , who is retiring in June, for yesterday’s paper. I was entertained, amused, and wowed. It’s not all sunny and smiles, of course, but there’s a wonderful exuberance in the writing. I wasn’t familiar with Stuever’s work, but I’ll be on the … Continue Reading

DC government caught plagiarizing

Washingtonpost.com District of Columbia mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has been caught plagiarizing. Oops! Victor A Reinoso, the deputy mayor for education, lifted phrases and ideas from other school districts when compiling a 31-page plan to improve the performance of students in DC schools, according to the Washington Post. The paper reported that 32 percent of … Continue Reading

Let’s look at commonly misspelled words.

I’ve analyzed the search terms that have been sending people my way over the past few weeks. Most of them fall under these three umbrellas: Avoid grammar errors Check your paper for plagiarism Good writing Apparently, you people just want me to help you cheat on your homework. That’s fine. This post should help anyone … Continue Reading

Thomas Lux’s Virgule

In a complete departure from my last post, and in honor of the Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival this weekend, a poem. It’s technically about punctuation rather than words, but I love it nonetheless. Virgule Thomas Lux What I love about this little leaning mark is how it divides without divisiveness. The left or bottom … Continue Reading

Ethnic and racial labels

Having just finished writing a major project about a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Brooklyn, I figured that now was the time to finally figure out the proper label for immigrants from Central and South America.*  I remembered learning something about how “Hispanic” was a term created not so long ago, not a term preferred by the … Continue Reading

“People have been texting long before we have.”

A search for information tonight about stenography/closed captioning machines led me to a passing interest in shorthand. I never knew there were so many systems of shorthand. Eric Lee’s page, here, has an overview of some of the available systems. I’m kind of intrigued by Teeline, and there are quite a few books available on … Continue Reading