First Looks category archive

I promised my tech writing class to dig up a list of online resources about writing. After intense research (half an hour on Google) here are some of the items I found. I figured I’d post them here, in case someone finds them useful:

Here is a short list of free on-line resources on writing and grammar. They will lead you to other resources.

I recommend highly that everyone read The Elements of Style. It says more about how to write well in 46 pages than many books do in 460 pages.

These resources will lead you to others. A web search for “English grammar” or “English grammar tutorials” will turn up many more.

Reference

Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
The classic American book on writing clearly and concisely.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/

Grammar Girl Podcasts
A light-hearted but useful look a common grammar questions.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

Judy Vorfeld’s Webgrammar
http://www.webgrammar.com/

AskOxford, the Oxford University (England) Press
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/

Grammar and Usage for the Non-Expert
http://grammartips.homestead.com/

The Guide to Grammar and Writing
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

Brief Guide to Business Writing
http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/faculty/kbrown/writing.html

Suite101.com Business Writing Course
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17951/seminar

Tutorials with Quizzes

Open Distance Learning Grammar
This includes quizzes. Sometimes the questions are a little too concise (so concise as to be confusing), but free is good.
http://odl.vwv.at/english/odlres/res8/Grammar/grammar.htm

University of Calgary Department of English
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/grammar/

English 101 Grammar
http://www.englishgrammar101.com/

My, the guy has a gorgeous voice (no, I didn’t hear the opening of the game–I was at DL–but I heard the rerun):

It began at a Havertown sushi bar, where he confessed his dream to a parishioner.

Then, last November, his adoring congregation celebrated his 10th anniversary as rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Wayne by surprising him with the chance to realize his dream.

Tonight at Citizens Bank Park, before the Phillies match bats with the Atlanta Braves, the Rev. Frank Allen’s dream will come true when he sings the national anthem.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled,” says Allen. “I’m very patriotic and I’m a baseball nut.”

On hand will be more than 1,100 members of his flock, who are “going to be making a joyful noise,” predicts Glenn Porter, a St. David’s congregant. “When was the last time 1,100 Episcopalians gathered in public? We’re not a showy bunch.”

Plus, the Phils are winning.

The question I have is this: Why is St. David’s Church in Wayne, when it should be, natch, in St. Davids, right next door?

At Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6p-9p.

Surprisingly enough, if you can’t take SEPTA, there’s almost always parking on South Street between 18th and 19th.

Addendum:

The radio traffic report warned me about everything except the accident on the Platt Bridge.

No, I don’t think this is his video, but he linked to it:

They seem much worse than usual this year:

From Delaware Liberal, through a glass darkly:

Here sunk in the depths of CSI: Miami reruns, I just saw a Verizon Wireless commercial in Spanish. It’s so new it’s not even on YouTube yet.

Duncan sums it up.

Drinking Liberally tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p. m.

I’d much rather be there than where I’m going to be, which is at a church meeting explaining to the Administrative Council that the price of fuel oil (you know, that stuff we were supposed to get from Iraq) is breaking us.

Your daily dose of executive incompetence (emphasis added):

Amanda Smay, an English major at a Pennsylvania college, longed to go to London next month with a study-abroad program.

Then sticker shock set in. The 10-day trip would cost about $2,800, or 75 percent more than two years ago.

This time on health care. Robert Reich:

This is becoming something of a pattern with McEconomics. McCain issues a policy, such as his tax cuts for everyone under the sun including corporations, followed by a vague “don’t’ worry about the price tag.” But as old-time conservatives used to be fond of pointing out, there’s no free lunch. The net price tag on McCain’s election-year promises already dwarf everything HRC and Obama have proposed. His “high-risk” pool idea is in the same broad “don’t worry about it” category. Which means we should worry.

McCain’s health care plan won’t work even for average people without pre-existing conditions. He wants to end the tax break for employees who get health insurance from their employers (I’ve gone on record in support of de-coupling health insurance from employment), but would offer only $5,000 per family in tax credits to pay for what they’ve lost or never had. Absurd. The average cost of employer-funded health care in the U.S. last year was over $12,000 per family.

Steven D. over at the Booman Tribune meditates upon Cicero and Clinton.

Daily post on the failed stewardship of the Party of Privilege (emphasis added):

Mark Price, a labor economist with Pennsylvania’s Keystone Research Center, lists the ingredients for what he terms “the most liberal definition of unemployment”: people who are unemployed and looking for work, people who want jobs but have given up looking for one, and people who have taken part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work.

These measurements provide the broadest measure of labor underutilization, according to Price.

Last month, 9.2 percent of the workforce fell into one of these three categories.

I did really bad.

See whether you can do better.

From Delaware Watch:

Bush = Iraq war. The American people will graduate to a slightly higher level of mathematics when they fully understand:

[((Bush = Iraq war) = John McCain) = Republican Party]

Honestly, folks, no wishful thinking.

What you see is what you get.

He’s put the whole damn country in hock (emphasis added):

Carin Dillingham handed over her watch to the pawnbrokers at Society Hill Loan as if she were giving up one of her bones.

The 30-year-old bookkeeper stood pregnant, broke and sad under rows of pawned guitars hanging like curing hams from the ceiling of the ragged South Street shop. She got a $20 loan for her $200 Bulova, a gift from the Harley-Davidson Co., where she used to work.

“It feels so weird,” said Dillingham, accompanied by her fiance, Pat Lapetina, 35, an unemployed ironworker doing painting jobs on the side. The couple recently moved to South Philadelphia from Florida to build a life.

“I worked hard for this watch. I’m middle-class, not poor. I can’t believe I have to do this to buy gas.”

(snip)

“People are cleaning out their houses of gold, silver, whatever, to get money just to fill their cars with gas,” said Nat Leonard, 51, whose grandfather opened Society Hill in 1929. “People are pawning out like crazy.”

Business is up maybe 20 percent over last year.

“With this economy, we’re not done yet with bad times,” Leonard continued. “Not even close.”

Things are so awful, he said, he’s getting loads of first-time customers.

(snip)

It’s not just fuel that’s bringing new people to pawnshops. And they’re not all brick pointers.

“Upper-income people are in pawnshops nowadays, needing money right away to meet payments,” said Bill Stull, chairman of the department of economics at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management.

“We are in an economy in which many people are living right at the margins, even middle- and upper-income people. They have little savings, they’ve borrowed so much, their credit-card bills are high, and their house values are going down.”

Over at Carver W. Reed & Co., a pawnshop at 10th and Sansom Streets since Lincoln was president, more and more higher-echelon people are filing in, owner Tod Gordon said.

“The upper middle class is feeling the crunch like never before,” he said. “They’re bringing in diamonds and gold to pay for margin calls on stocks. There’s a feeling of despair.

Upyernoz wants to know.

Brendan points out that this is the 5th Anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day.

His photomontage does it the honor it deserves.

Meanwhile, at the “accomplished mission,” s(pl)urge ™ is turning to s(pl)at.

The four U.S. soldiers killed in a series of roadside bombings yesterday lifted the number of American service members killed in April to a seven-month high of 50.

Civilian deaths reported by the Iraqi government also reached the highest levels in months as Baghdad experienced intense clashes triggered by an Iraqi government crackdown against Shiite Muslim militias.

(snip)

At least 4,063 U.S. personnel have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to the Web site.

The level of violence has been inching up since January, after a 60 percent drop in attacks nationwide in the second half of last year, according to U.S. military figures.

The pens that Chris made for us arrive today.

They are gorgeous.

(Mine’s the fat one.)

If you want to learn more about his handcrafted pens, visit his website.

Now, I’m just waiting for the fountain pen. I expected it would be more challenging than a ballpoint, but it has turned out to be even more challenging than I anticipated. It’s caused him so much torment that the fun has gone out of watching him.