#1 Create a History

Every person has a past, so it is important to create a past for your character – even if you do not share the entire contents of that past. People evolve over the years because of their experiences and surroundings throughout their lives, and your fictional character is no different, so you need to develop a fictional past for him or her. When you are initially developing a new character, you are getting to know that character, just as your readers will get to know that character when they read your story. It is important to understand why your character will react or make decisions the way that he or she does, so it is important to have a back story that goes along with the personality that has been created for that character over the years.

#2 Show (don’t tell) His or Her Emotions

If you have not heard the phrase now, you will a lot throughout most of your English related courses: show, don’t tell. Simply saying that your character is feeling sad is not a proper description of a realistic character. People don’t feel the same emotions in the same way. Some people cry when they are sad, while others scream or go completely silent. You need to show how your characters are feeling, rather than just say how they are feeling.

Bad Example: Nora became angry after reading the letter. She just couldn’t stand it anymore.

Good Example: Nora’s face became hot after reading the letter. She viciously began to tear                       apart the envelope when she couldn’t look at its content any more.

Showing a character’s emotions through actions lets your readers get a better idea of what kind of personality someone like Nora has.

#3 Give Your Character Habits or Quirks

People are remembered for the little things they do that are different from anyone else, and everyone has something peculiar them that seems unique. Giving an interesting habit or strange quirk lends personality to your character. It can be as small as eating M&Ms all the time, but refusing to eat any other kind of chocolate. Or as big as having your character insist on eating at the exact same restaurant every day, and is thrown off if something disturbs this regimen. Whatever habit or quirk you give your character will allow your readers to get to know him or her better. Sometimes you can give an explanation for the behavior, but you don’t always have to. Either way, your readers will have another reason to think, “Hey, this character is interesting.”

#4 Show Relationships

We can learn a lot about individuals by the way they interact with others. If your character is very sociable, then you should show the character interacting with a lot of random people at work, talking on the phone, and even chatting with strangers on the street. But, if the character is more of a recluse and only has one or two friends, show the bond between those few characters, and maybe even show the uncomfortable feeling that character gets when dealing with new individuals.

#5 Reveal Character’s Hopes, Dreams, Aspirations

People live their lives with a particular purpose. They don’t just go through the motions of school or work without having some reason to do so. If you are going to show that your character is unhappy with his or her job, then be sure to explain why that character continues to keep that job – what is his or her motivation? Is she saving up for a car? Is he trying to pay off a loan? These are the kinds of questions that readers ask about characters who are interesting. And, if you are answering those questions, then your readers are going to enjoy your character and your style of writing that much more.

Step #1 Prewrite

Yes, you hear your instructors tell you all the time to prewrite, but do you ever listen to them? Prewriting (which is listed in another blog) is not just a way to organize your thoughts and get down ideas, it is another way to look at your writing project and force yourself to write. Getting past your writer’s block is often just a matter of looking at your task from a different perspective (or looking around your writer’s block, if you will). If you can brainstorm or outline some ideas for your writing, then you have a better chance at feeling confident and putting your pen to the paper to start writing. With all of the different methods of prewriting, there really isn’t any reason not to use at least one of them when you’re stumped.

Step #2 Write Backwards

Even after the prewriting is finished, you may still feel uncertain how you want to word your thoughts exactly. If that’s the case, jot down your ideas out of order – write the end first and the beginning last if you must. Sometimes your ideas may be scattered, which is why you are having trouble focusing on just one idea. Maybe your mind is blank with your introduction, but you know what you want to write for your body paragraphs. If that is the case, then just skip ahead. Write down whatever good ideas you think you have and reorganize them later.

Step #3 Take Your Opposing Side

If you are really uncomfortable with your topic and feel you have absolutely nothing to write about, then you may want to take yourself out of your own head and put it into someone else’s. This has nothing to do with cheating. You are supposed to write the opposite of what you really feel. Or, think of what other people would say about your subject. It may be easier putting down what you think other people feel or believe than what you actually believe. Your confidence in your own ideas may be what stops your writing. Do not use this technique all of the time though. There are some assignments where you need to give your honest opinion, and this method of breaking writer’s block may not always be suitable.

Step #4 Just Write!

It may sound harsh, but sometimes you just have to force your pen to move on the paper or to have your fingers move across the keyboard. Often people refuse to write anything because they don’t think their ideas or words are good enough. Well, when you’re struggling, writing something is better than writing nothing. Put down whatever comes to mind whether or not you think it sounds good. You can always fix it later, which is how we come to Step 5 in breaking the writer’s block.

Step #5 Walk Away… and Come Back

Sometimes students are just not in the right state-of-mind to write. If there are a bunch of things running through your head, you may need to just set up your writing assignment as best as you can and walk away from it for a while. When you come back to whatever writing you have put down, you may feel more inclined to fix your ideas and even add more ideas down on paper. Depending on how much time you have for your writing, walking away from your assignment for an hour or a full day may be just what you need to come back to your writing and look at your project with a clear head. When you come back to your writing, look it over with a critical eye, as if it were someone else’s paper, and see what you do and do not like about it. And then, take your writing from there. Unless you are taking an in-class essay, this method can be a great way to clear your mind. Otherwise, you’ll have to rely on a different method of break down that writer’s wall.

Although many students don’t like the idea of doing extra work before they actually start their homework, writing an impressive essay actually requires putting in a little extra effort prior to putting  together a final draft. Prewriting techniques involve warming up your – the student’s – brain, organizing ideas, and setting up a plan before diving straight into writing a composition. It may take just a little extra time, but you will find that if you practice some prewriting  before every essay you write, your papers will be better written overall, which will in effect give a better overall grade. Ten or fifteen minutes of extra work may be the difference between a B and an A grade for your paper. And, with all of the different techniques you can use to prewrite, there really is no excuse not to use at least one of them.

Brainstorming

Writing down every idea that is related to your topic in a list form is one of the simplest forms of prewriting, which is called brainstorming. The great thing about brainstorming is that you can put anything in the list that pops into your head. If your topic is on birds and you have random thoughts like,

-They fly

-They’re pretty

-They squawk

-They poop on people’s heads

All of those things would be fine because your brainstorming ideas are related to your topic on birds.

Mapping, Clustering, Bubbling, Webbing

It has several different names, but whatever you want to call it, it is one of the quickest ways to organize ideas in a fun manner. Circling ideas and linking the related ones that surround your main idea is a messy way to be organized… which ends up feeling a lot more enjoyable than most homework does. And, since your related ideas are clustered together, your separate body paragraphs are already prepared for you. What’s better than a prewriting technique that’s fun and easy?

Free Writing

There is nothing more freeing than knowing you can write whatever you want without worrying about grammar, spelling, structure, or coherence. That is the joy of free writing – you are free to make mistakes and write whatever you want. The trick is to force yourself to continually keep your pen on the paper and write whatever thought comes to mind, while trying to think of your essay’s subject. You may go off topic at times, but that is okay. You do not want to stop or correct your free writing because you may lose a train of thought that could be useful to you later. Just force yourself to keep writing, and you will eventually have enough material to use in your composition. By reading over your free writing afterwards, you should highlight or underline any ideas you find useful to your essay.

Outlining

Although outlining is more structured than other forms of prewriting, it is a very useful format to use in order to have your essay organized prior to writing your essay, which was explained in a previous “how-to” (see “Writing Outlines”). Outlines also help your essay stay on topic. By outlining your body paragraphs with their specific points, it is easy to just refer to your ideas written in your outline before you begin writing your composition.

Asking Questions

Sometimes the only way students will work is if they feel they are being forced to. Asking yourself questions is a way to make yourself feel forced into coming up with ideas for your essay. The standard reporter’s questions – Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? – are great ways to begin asking yourself questions about your topic. If you are still writing a composition about birds, ask yourself, “Who likes birds?” or “What kinds of birds are there?” or “Where do birds live?” Obviously, you can bend these questions to your own needs; these are just ways to force yourself into coming up with answers that will inevitably lead to ideas for your essay.

The English language has been around for long enough by now that words which once fell out of vogue have sometimes returned again in different forms. For instance, the word “defalk” once meant to lop something off with a sickle or pruning hook. It then linguistically morphed into the word “defalcate,” which sounds even worse, and is: it means to misuse or embezzle funds. In this era of shifting financial fortunes, the word “defalk” has a chance to make a comeback, as people line up outside their stockbrokers’ offices armed with sickles and pruning hooks.

Impress your friends and family with these five fine Words from the Past.

Phrenology: A branch of junk science popular in the nineteenth century. Its practitioners believed that personality traits took up physical space in a person’s brain, so by examining and patting the skull, phrenologists could determine which traits were dominant. As you can see by examining the helpful phrenological diagram, our heads have a lot of room for various personality traits: “Suavity” near the top of the head, “Mirthfulness” around the right temple and “Philoprogenitiveness,” or love of one’s children (a great antiquated word in itself) at the base of the skull.

Now we have a much more scientific method of determining personality: Facebook quizzes. You can find out what type of Twilight vampire you are, which Sex and the City character you are, or what kind of cheese you are. These quizzes don’t lie. It’s almost like the Internet is reaching out and massaging the top of your head.

Muliebrity: the state of womanhood, or the qualities of femininity. No, this term does not intend to compare women to mules, but rather to finely ground flour. (Some words are antiquated for a reason.) It comes from the Latin word mulier, or woman, which in turn comes from the word “muliesi” (fine, soft) as does the Russian word molot, to grind, and the English word meal, or flour.

The modern version of femininity can be anything that an individual woman defines it as, but a casual glance at Glamour magazine, one of femininity’s modern standard-bearers, insinuates that it has something to do with bronzing your jawline and cooking pasta rapidly.

Roborant: A tonic that restores vigor or strength. It can be a noun or an adjective (“I drank some particularly roborant Robitussin for my cold.”) It derives from the same Indo-European root, reudh, as the words “red, “ruddy” and “robust.” The modern equivalents, then, are energy drinks such as Red Bull. There is almost no ailment that an invigorating can of glucuronolactone, caffeine and carbonation won’t cure. (Disclaimer: You might want to run that by your doctor.)

Spraint: This refers to the droppings of an otter. These droppings, according to Wikipedia (I haven’t spent much time in otter country) can smell like anything from freshly mown hay to putrefied fish. The term joins others in the illustrious category of specific words for animal droppings: the fewmets of a deer, the buttons of a sheep, and the wormcast of guess what animal.

The modern equivalent is: spraint. Much like the otters that frolicked in the days when Latin was commonly spoken and Old English was the newest version, today’s sophisticated modern otter is up to pretty much the same tricks: swimming, eating and making spraint.

Nuncheon: In order to properly understand nuncheon, you must understand lunch. “Lunch,” to medieval English peasants working in the fields, was always a lump of some sort – a wad of bread, a hunk of cheese, a shred of meat – that they could keep in their pockets or sacks to tide them over between breakfast and their evening meal. All these lumps tended to stick in their throats, so they needed a beverage to wash them down. A slang term for any drink at that time, whether wine or water, was “shench.” Thus, the drink you consumed with your lump at noon was your noon-shench, which over time became the hybrid word “nuncheon.”

As the midday meal became adopted by the English upper classes, and began to take place at a proper table with multiple dishes, the word “lunch” still carried the stigma of the lump in a peasant’s cheek, so that up until the beginning of the nineteenth century the nobility would take “nuncheon” instead, which referred to what they ate as well as what they drank around noon. The gradual easing of class divides contributed to the word “luncheon” becoming more in vogue, which was eventually, conveniently shortened to its modern form: lunch. The next time you notice all the lumps in a plate of cafeteria mac-and-cheese, consider its dubious origins.

5. Das Bus – Lord of the Flies

Bart, Lisa, and other kids at the Springfield Elementary School are stranded on an island and are forced to come together to fend for themselves. One day, all the food that the children have been surviving on goes missing, and the kids blame Millhouse because of his corpulent size. Millhouse blames the island “monster,” but the kids don’t listen, put him on trial, and attempt to kill him. He escapes, along with Homer and Lisa, and run into a cave where the monster reveals itself to be a boar (with a potato chip bag on his tusk). As a result, the kids apologize to Millhouse, blame the monster, and kill it to eat as food. This, of course, is heavily influenced by the events of Lord of the Flies, a William Golding novel each of you has probably read in high school.

4. A Streetcar Named Marge – “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Taking a cue from Tennessee Williams‘ famous play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, this Simpsons episode hilariously draws from the story as Marge wins a spot as Blanche DuBois in a play. For those who aren’t familiar, Blanche is essentially the crazy sister of Stella (of Marlon Brando’s iconic “Stellaaaa!” scene in the film version) who moves to a new town and tries to hide a checkered past that she ultimately fails at concealing. As Homer is not particularly supportive of her acting dreams, she begins to draw a parallel between him and Stanley Kowalski, the macho, insensitive lead male character in the play (Brando’s role in the movie version).

3. The Tell-Tale Head – “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Bart cuts off the head of a statue in order to impress some of his friends, but this incites a mob riot at the town square because people are furious that the statue has been vandalized. Bart realizes his error and confronts his guilt. He goes to the town center to admit his wrongdoing and face the mob — who of course forgive him in the end. This episode references Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which is about a man who murders another man, in cold blood, for indisclosed reasons. The murderer starts to go crazy when his guilt manifests itself as hallucinations that the dead man’s heart is still beating under the floorboards, where the murderer hid his body.

2. Easy-Bake Coven – “The Crucible”

In 1649, Sprynge-Fielde is after its witches. Moe accuses Marge of being a witch, and though she tries to proclaim her innocence, the townspeople push her off a cliff with a broom. If she is a witch, she’d of course get on her broom and fly off. If she was innocent, she’d fall and die, but at least she wasn’t a witch right? To their surprise and horror, when Marge is pushed off a cliff, she turns bright green and gets on the broom and begins to wreak havoc on the townspeople. Then they go from door to door in the town, and are given goodies and presents in exchange for not eating the children of the town. This episode is based on “The Crucible,” an Arthur Miller play about the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials.

1. Diatribe of a Mad Housewife – Moby Dick with a cameo appearance by Thomas Pynchon

This is not only our favorite literary episode of the Simpsons, it might even be our favorite episode period. The reason? Not only it a hilarious take on Moby Dick by Herman Melville, but it also features one of our favorite authors, Thomas Pynchon, in a cameo role. Pynchon broke 40 years of media silence to appear on the Simpsons, and appears as himself — not a fictional character. The plot unfolds as Marge begins to write a whaling novel, influenced by a painting of a boat in her living room. The novel is about a woman, ostensibly based on Marge, who is a dutiful wife to a drunk, sloppy sailor who demands that she cook him unreasonably extravagant dinners (he is based on Homer). The book, called The Harpooned Heart is a huge success, despite Tom Clancy and Thomas Pynchon both declining to review it positively. Pynchon’s editor in the episode stands outside Pynchon’s house holding a sign and yelling “Hey, over here, have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we’ll throw in a free autograph. But, wait! There’s more!” This obviously pokes fun at how reclusive Pynchon is with the press.

Looking at a topic through a theoretical or philosophical lense can add a deeper level of understanding. Theory and philosophy are in practice everywhere, from politics to psychology to art to literature. Literary theory is something that every English major in college is expected to understand. Not only does theory add more layers of understanding to any literary work, but it also helps readers analyze works in deeper and more meaningful ways.

That said, college students often flagrantly name drop theorists like Deleuze, Baudrillard, Althusser, Derrida, et. al. without truly understanding a word of their theories. While taking higher level seminars in college, I often heard my fellow students talking about Lacan in ways that obviously showed they never really read Lacan beyond his Wikipedia page. While I don’t condone the irresponsible application of misunderstood theories to any of your critical papers, I do believe that a basic understanding of certain theories is highly useful for any person studying literature, not just because it will heighten your comprehension of literary works, but also because you will see firsthand the many ways that literature has power in the world beyond the physical pages of a book by applying theory into practice.

The purpose of this post is to hopefully inspire students to read literary theory outside of class. Not only will understanding theory make your reading more scholarly, more perceptive, and even more interesting, but it will also serve you well in writing papers. So here are 5 famous thinkers every student should know, and some links to their works.

5. Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure has had an enormous impact on liguistics and critical theory due to his writings on structural linguistics and semiotics. If you’ve ever heard people discussing the terms sign, signifier, and signified, they are referring to the school of structuralist thought founded by Saussure. Structuralists believed that language is the complicated workings of many structural parts, which can be individually dissected and analyzed in the search for meaning. Not only can language be intrepreted in this manner, but all of life itself can be seen as the complex workings of signals and signs. For more on structuralism, this resource is a great place to begin. For those who want to read Saussure, his Course in General Linguistics is the best place to begin.

4. Jacques Derrida. Derrida is a post-structuralist philosopher who became a prominent thinker due to his contribution to the field of deconstruction. From the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, deconstruction is: “A school of philosophy that originated in France in the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on Anglo-American criticism. Largely the creation of its chief proponent Jacques Derrida, deconstruction upends the Western metaphysical tradition. It represents a complex response to a variety of theoretical and philosophical movements of the 20th century, most notably Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean and French structuralism, and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.” While Of Grammotology is perhaps not the easiest place to start reading Derrida, it’s considered by many to be his best known work.

3. Judith Butler. Judith Butler, a post-structuralist thinker, has greatly contributed to feminist theory and queer theory. This page from Theory.org is a great place to begin discovering Butler’s works. Butler has written that gender is a fluid concept that is not tied to a person’s sex, and “Butler argues that sex (male, female) is seen to cause gender (masculine, feminine) which is seen to cause desire (towards the other gender). This is seen as a kind of continuum. Butler’s approach — inspired in part by Foucault — is basically to smash the supposed links between these, so that gender and desire are flexible, free-floating and not ’caused’ by other stable factors.” Understanding that the term “gender” is a myth is important for any kind of deeper analysis of works relevant to feminist studies or gender studies.

2. Edward Said. Said’s seminal work, Orientalism, is required in every post-colonial curriculum. Written in 1978, Said argued that the type of academic thinking prevalant during that time actually created more divide between the Western and non-Western worlds than any kind of greater understanding. “A rejection of Orientalism entails a rejection of biological generalizations, cultural constructions, and racial and religious prejudices… It is an erasure of the line between ‘the West’ and ‘the Other.’ Said argues for the use of “narrative” rather than “vision” in interpreting the geographical landscape known as the Orient…” Readings of works by writers like Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Daniel Defoe, all of which are commonly read in high school and college courses, are of interest to post-colonial thinkers due to their imperialist undertones.

1. Jacques Lacan. Lacan was a psychoanalytical thinker who made great contributions to literary studies. His concept of ‘the other’ is often discussed in literary studies. “We depend on the existence of the Other to fill in the gap of our desires, to create, if only for a moment, the wholeness before our subjectivity, before there was an Other… Images constitute the self. Images of the literal Other create both a separation because it is through that difference that we are constituted but also as we look toward the Other, it is with the desire of being a unified self.” If you Google “Lacanian reading of” you find thousands of links to different writings that apply Lacan to everything from Langston Hughes to Wallace Stevens to Shakespeare. It makes sense: for every character, there is a foil, or an ‘other’. Because theory incorporates and attempts to explain the world around us, it of course has application to literature, which does the same except in a fictional setting.

Writing persuasively is not easy. At times, persuasive writing can even feel a bit manipulative. Really, isn’t writing persuasively merely an attempt to coerce a hopefully impartial audience into trusting your arguments, judgments, and proclamations? Why should any audience trust what you have to say?

But, if you think about it, all writing is inherently pursuasive. A novel requires that a writer persuade the reader into accepting the book’s picture of the universe, be it Middle Earth, Holland in the 1600s, or in a galaxy far, far away — we have to accept that the world of the book is an actual world and suspend our disbelief in things like hobbits and aliens if we are to enjoy the story. Similarly, writing that makes no bones about being blatantly persuasive, like op-ed articles, legal briefs, and persuasive essays, also has to operate in such a way that the audience trusts the word of the writer and opens up their mind to accept, or at the very least consider, the writer’s position.

Writing persuasively is difficult, but there are things you can do to make your arguments more cogent and appealing to readers.

5. Earn your reader’s trust.

The best way to earn a reader’s trust is to come across as an intelligent writer. If you make grammatical errors, give misconstrued facts, or appear as if you aren’t an expert on your topic, you automatically undermine yourself as an intelligent writer, thereby weakening the sanctity of your argument. Writing well is the simplest way to come across as an intelligent writer. People are swayed by an eloquent writer: just look at the eloquent speeches of compelling orators like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,  who were able to start entire movements on the power of their words.

4. Back your writing up with facts.

A well-stated opinion is all good and well, but the real meat of an argument comes from strong factual evidence. Lawyers don’t win cases based on arguments alone. Lawyers win cases based on who has the most compelling evidence that backs up the arguments they make. If you write a persuasive essay, make sure that each of your paragraphs has as least one powerful fact that backs up your position. If you are writing a persuasive essay on a piece of literature, for instance, facts can be theoretical ‘proof’ from a literary theorist (writing a Freudian interpretation of “Othello” would obviously require that you quote Sigmund Freud himself) or a quote from a published paper in a literary journal or a strong quote from the literature itself.

3. Explain, and then argue, a contrary point of view.

Every great debater knows in order to win a debate, you have to premeditate the opposition and then disprove it. The same goes for writing a persuasive essay. Having an idea of strong points of opposition is not only crucial in order to construct a solid argument, but it’s also simply good practice in critical thinking. If you know some oppositions that might arise in your reader’s mind while reading your essay, think of responses to that opposition and embed the responses in your writing. That way, you advance your argument and counterpoint your reader’s contention in one fell stroke.

2. Be passionate about what you are writing.

Even if you don’t believe in your own argument — as in, you were assigned a topic to argue from your teacher and you have no choice but to argue it in your paper — you have to write as if you do believe. Passionate writing comes from using strong, specific language. The more specific your language is, the more precisely you can carve your argument, the stronger and better your argument will seem. Passionate writing also requires reinforcement. Don’t repeat your ideas, but keep the central argument in your mind while writing your paper and think of every sub-argument, every piece of constructing evidence, as a way to reinforce or strengthen the central position.

1. Be interesting.

The best way to not persuade a reader is to bore them. If I can’t make it to the end of an op-ed piece, there is no way I’m going to believe or be persuaded by what the writer is saying. Good writing is inherently interesting. Use your oratorical fireworks to wow your readers so that every next line, every following word, is something the reader wants to arrive at. Don’t make them trudge through your writing. If you aren’t sure of how to make your writing interesting, ask yourself what you would be interested in if you were an impartial reader who was faced with your paper. Would it be something you would want to read? If yes, great! If no, then work your way through the problem until you arrive at a satisfactory place.

5. Dangling participle.

“After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.” -Tom Sant, Persuasive Business Proposals

Unless you are interested in rotting brothers, this sentence will make no sense to you. First of all, decomposing people have no business bringing anyone oranges and, secondly, dangling participles are some of the most egregious errors you can make while writing. The dangling participle, also called a dangling modifier, “attaches itself to a word different from the one the writer apparently meant. It may be intended to modify the subject f a sentence, but due to word order seems to modify an object instead.” In plain English, a dangling participle doesn’t modify what it should. If you write, “After having paid for my groceries, the cashier bagged them for me,” what you are actually saying is that the grocery cashier paid for your groceries, because the participle (the clause at the beginning of the sentence) is grammatically modifying “cashier” rather than the intended subject.

4. Double negatives.

Many languages allow for double negatives, but English is one that does not. While to say that you “don’t know nothing” would mean, at literal face value, that you do know something, using it actually reveals that there is, in fact, nothing you know – about grammar, that is! Rather than using a double negative, what you need to use in a negation sentence is a negative adverb or a noun of negation. Negative adverb: I do not know anything. Noun of negation: I know nothing.

3. i.e. versus e.g.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, because it seems that even successful journalists and other career writers get confused between i.e. and e.g.! E.g. means Exempli gratia, or “example given”. I.e., on the other hand, means id est, or “that is”. Sometimes, however, i.e. and e.g. are actually interchangeable, but only if you are using them in the context of a finite versus non-finite list. So if I were to say, “I love medical shows on television, i.e. House MD, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scrubs,” what I mean is that these are the only medical television shows I love. If I were to say “I love medical shows on television, e.g. House MD, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scrubs,” what I mean is that I truly love medical TV shows and that these are an example of some I like (but by no means a finite list).

2. Split infinitives.

The split infinitive, while technically incorrect in grammar, is always used. “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” the famous opener from Star Trek, is just one example. But in proper grammar usage, the adverb (boldly) ought to go after the verb (go). Proper English would have Star Trek announce “To go boldly where no man has gone before”. Many people see nothing wrong with using the split infinitive, but I had an English teacher in high school whose very reason to get out of bed in the morning was to wage war against it, so I would use at your own peril. Especially in English class.

1. Mistaken apostrophes.

Mistaken apostrophes annoy grammarians more than anything. Though this is something we all should have learned in grade school, it really hasn’t sunk in with everyone. The general rule follows: use the apostrophe and s in singular noun constructions to make the meaning possessive (”Sally’s dog is cute.”). For plural possessives, use the apostrophe after the letter s, unless two s sounds are pronounced (”The twins’ dog is cute, but Carlos’ dog is cuter”). With biblical names, out of tradition, we always use the apostrphe s rule (”Jesus’s birthday is on Christmas”).

Proofreading, like many things, has never been my strong suit. Over the years, however, I’ve picked up some tricks on how to proofread more effectively. By no means a professional editor, I still occasionally gloss over and miss errors in my writing from time to time. But the tricks I picked up really help me in my writing, whether in finding spelling errors that spellcheck doesn’t pick up (like quickly typing “by no means a professional dieter” instead of “by no means a professional editor”) or in correcting grammatical construction or in simply rephrasing sentences to make them sound better the second time around.

Hemingway once advised writers to write drunk and edit sober. While I don’t advise anyone to imbibe whilst writing (especially you underage students), I see some wisdom in that remark. Write with an open mind and a creative spirit, without too much thought to making things 100% perfect. Unplug yourself from doubt and fear and engage in some stream-of-consciousness freedom! That way, you stay as creative as possible. The real work comes afterwards, after you already have your thoughts on paper. Proofreading and editing is when you turn your thoughts in writing. Proofreading is that crucial step in transforming everything you’ve thought of and everything you’ve written down into something legible that makes it fun for readers to read.

Here are my 5 tips for proofreading most effectively.

5. Read your work aloud to yourself.

You use a different part of your brain when you read aloud, and it’s also a slower process that forces you to physically read one word at a time. Reading in your head is a patchy quick process, which often leads to skimming rather than true reading. If you have glossed over errors in your work while reading silently, reading aloud can be a sure way to catch those mistakes.

4. Try reading your document backwards.

This sounds strange, but many professional proofreaders swear by it, particularly to catch spelling mistakes. If you are writing a paper with many scientific or historical names, or if you are writing a paper for a foreign language class – situations where spellcheck is useless in catching errors – reading backwards is a good way to examine each word individually and out of context to make sure that basic structure is correct.

3. Track your changes.

Tracking changes is an intelligent way to edit while on a computer because it mimics what it’s like to edit in a hard copy where you can visibly see any cross-outs or notes you’ve written on the margins. This is a good way to compare documents while you are editing and making changes. By the way, Eduify lets you track changes, comments, versions.

2. Have someone else proofread for you.

This is a no brainer. If you’re truly serious about proofreading, getting help from peers is the best way to catch mistakes. Because they think differently than you do and because they aren’t as familiar with the topic are you are, a peer is a good way to gauge how your writing is interpreted by third party readers. (Hint: Eduify makes this part really easy – you can share with any of your contacts and facebook friends with ease).

1. Always double check.

Always double check one last time before you turn in. It’s better to be safe than sorry!

We are so happy Eduify has added more users this week to its beta than ever before. And, that you’re using our product! Welcome, new students and avid writers! We hope that with us, you can write better, smarter, and more efficiently.

The first rule about Eduify is that you don’t talk about Eduify. Just kidding, we want you to tell everyone you know! By doing so, you’ll win points which you can convert to coins, which you can use to purchase services on the site. So the first real rule of Eduify is that you should share our services with your friends. Eduify is a social platform that enables students to interact with and help one another in writing assignments, so the more friends you have on Eduify, the better it works for you!

In honor of this weeks “more users than ever” added to beta, we want to tell you the top 10 reasons to use Eduify.

10. If you are really active on Eduify, I’ll personally buy you a Shamwow or a Slap Chop.

9. Eduify’s features, including citation verification, plagiarism check, automatic bibliography, and free storage online, make Eduify a one-stop shop for safe and easy paper writing online.

8. Eduify allows you to share quotations with your friends. Share your serious quotations on Virginia Woolf, and your favorite funny quotes from Arrested Development.

7. Eduify’s tutorials are extremely helpful, covering writing topics from Absurd Theater to Thesis writing. They’re written by English teachers from all over the United States, and are a good indication of what teachers expect from students when writing papers. Register for Eduify to see our teacher submitted tutorials.

6. By using Eduify, you won’t write like the worst writing ever.

5. On Eduify, not only can you get help from your friends, but you have access to our expert help as well, any hour of the day, everyday. Expert editing at 3AM when your paper is due the next day? You’re welcome.

4. This Eduify video shows you that Eduify really is the smarter way to write.

3. Chuck Norris likes Eduify. Actually, we don’t know that for sure, but from what our sources inform us, it looks positive.

2. Eduify will announce contests on the site regularly, so in addition to getting your use out of our product, you can register for chances to win cool things like iPod Touches, scholarship money, and free expert editing and writing help!

1. Eduify is here to help you. Without you students, we ain’t nothing! (And yes, we know that’s gramatically incorrect). Help us help you, by registering today.