Seriously,
Why Did We Learn Cursive?
In
all our years in schooling we were taught specific ideas and rules about
writing. And almost every year we would be told that what we had previously
learned the year(s) before is wrong (or at least not fully correct). When I decided
to sign up for this class, I accepted the notion that a fairly large amount of
what I believed I knew about grammar and everything involving the subject would
plausibly be incorrect. I could not have
been more intrigued.
While
I have always considered myself a decent writer, I do run into minuscule errors
more frequently than I would care for: errors such as a run on sentence or two,
or using a semicolon incorrectly, etc. And, like the snow in Pullman, many of these
little things would build up and I would end up with something as confusing as Pullman’s
weather. So, as far as this semester of class goes, there are definitely a few
particulars I would care to fix.
Apparently
run on sentences are a large problem I have.
I enjoy explaining things in great detail and because of that I struggle
to form cohesive, shorter, sentences. Instead, I make a sentence anywhere from
two to five lines in length. While it may sound correct in my head, often it
becomes quite the opposite once on paper. So, a skill I would like to be taught
this semester is how to correctly use symbols such as colons, semicolons, dash
marks, commas, and so on to help mend my exaggerated sentences. Though this
seems like a task I should have mastered well before college, as I have said
before, it is hard to really know what is correct with the rules changing so
frequently. One professor says it is one way, a different professor says
something else, not to mention the computers now having the ability to
virtually tell me I am wrong (thank god that little paper-clip dude is no
longer with us…).
There
are so many little nitpicked things about writing that I just want to master, the
majority of which I have already stated. It would be ridiculous of me to list every
single matter out and explain in detail the problems I have with writing,
mostly because that would take too long. I do not have the time nor the
inclination to explain in detail obviously, and you, as the reader, certainly
do not have the patience for it. My point being that what it is I want to learn
or take away from this class is the ability to fully understand how grammar
works within writing. I want to know all the ins and outs, all the small
details, because fixing those small details will add up in a big way.
