Last post

If you're reading this, you've probably figured out that seven out ten blog entries on this blog have been made today. I also lost the requirements for the blog posts, so I write them in a vain attempt at not failing. I seriously doubt I’ll succeed. I can barely remember the last class, so I’ll go on what I do remember: linking subjects. I’m quite sure we talked about that at one point in class. I assume it was about brainstorming. Or forming an argument. Or mutant bananas, one of the three. In any case, I mean to recall that by linking subjects, branching outwards, connecting topics, you could add a lot of strength to your argument. Or something.

I’m going to be honest: While the class itself was quite useful, this blog, even if I did write it on time each week, would still not have enough value to make it as a long lasting addition into the module. That’s my two cents as a student. Fare thee well!

Redundancies and such

I’ve never been a big fan of redundancies and parallelisms. If I see one, I usually point out “double negative” or something of the like, in a vain attempt at looking intelligent and witty. There were some quite funny examples in class. I’m quite sure there were. I cannot recall any of them for the life of me. I do, however, seem to unconsciously use some redundancies myself when speaking. “Exactly the same”, “each and every”, “the reason why” and “first introduced”. They appear to have become a part of our everyday language, and I seriously doubt they will disappear any time soon.

The texting essay, and my opinions on David Crystal

The texting essay went fairly well, I guess. Shouldn’t complain about a grade like that. Maybe it was because of the topic. Textspeak is something that has often gone on my nerves. The occasional smiley isn’t all that bad, but constant abbreviation and shortening of words just kills my inner grammar police officer. David Crystal does argue quite well, though, and even if you disagree with him, it’s hard to not like his character. Textspeak is a fascinating phenomenon, indeed, though I wish I’d have realized sooner, when most people I knew used it! Oh well, there’s always comments on youtube with roughly the same structure.

Structuring an argument

I can never quite find the proper arguments for my essays. I always seem to search clumsily around them, always mentioning things that are related to them, and almost good arguments, but always lacking key bits of information. If I do find an alright argument, though, I’ve usually misunderstood the essay question. Again, this probably relates back to structuring and planning. If I structure and plan my essays, I probably won’t have these problems. Well, maybe the reason for the arguments is that I don’t have the time to find them, who knows? I should really start doing my work sooner.

The library

I seem to be having some trouble with finding books in the library. For my past essays I’ve been able to find the books I’ve needed, but for my latest one, I couldn’t seem to find them. At the end of the day, I settled for other books on roughly the same topic, roughly being the key word. Note to self: ask someone for help. There was supposed to be an E-section, but it jumped straight past it, from D to F. Who knows, maybe I’m just being ditzy and unobservant again, but I have a nagging fear that I’ll never get the exact books I need.

Wordcounts and such

Keeping my wordcount within the limit is often a challenge for me. I know several people who constantly have to cut their essays down for them to be within the limit, but I always seem to end up on the short end. No matter what I do, I can almost never write enough words to reach the correct word count, and usually sit in front of my screen far, far too long until I come up with a paragraph that seems suitable for the essay. Not quite sure what I’m supposed to learn from that, though. Maybe I’m just a bit too tired to be doing this right now.

Essay planning

Right. Essay planning. I'm not going to lie, I've never been one to plan anything. I definitely think I should, though. By planning my essays, I could most likely avoid the temporary block that I always seem to get midway through an essay. Even just a loose outline would probably work miracles on my otherwise unstructured work plan. It’s a shame I always forget right before an essay, though, as if I never knew a thing such as “planning” existed. Then again, it doesn’t in my world. I really do need to try to get some more structuring in my writing, just look at how this has ended up!