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Mistakes With Modifiers

5/28/2015

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A modifier is a word or phrase that describes another word. If the writer places a modifier too far away from the word it’s modifying, then confusion may result. Modifiers can be misplaced, dangling, or split.

A misplaced modifier is when the modifier isn’t next to the word it modifies. Example:  “He saw a bird through binoculars that he couldn’t identify.” What can’t he identify? The binoculars or the bird? The solution is to place the modifying phrase next to the word it modifies or rewrite the sentence for clarity. In this case, relocating the phrase fixes the problem: “He saw a bird that he couldn’t identify through binoculars.”

Another mistake is a dangling modifier. When there is no word in the sentence for the phrase to believably modify, then the modifier dangles by itself. Example: “Sailing in the Prince William Sound, many glaciers can be seen.” The glaciers can’t be sailing, so the modifying phrase is dangling. To fix it, either add the appropriate word the phrase modifies or change the phrase: “Sailing in the Prince William Sound, the tourists saw many glaciers” OR “Many glaciers can be seen by tourists when sailing in the Prince William Sound.”

The third kind of mistake is a split modifier. Sometimes a writer places the modifier between two words it could conceivably modify, confusing the reader about the sentence’s meaning.  Example: “When only five years old, Joyce taught her sister to knit.” Who’s five? Joyce or the sister? Either one is plausible. In this case, the solution is to make clear which noun the phrase modifies: “When she was only five years old, Joyce taught her sister to knit.”

Two tips can help writers avoid misplaced, dangling, and split modifiers. First, make sure there’s a word in the sentence for the modifier to believably modify. Next, place the modifier as close as possible to that word.
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Comic Books for Girls

5/21/2015

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My brother was a big comic book fan, and as a girl in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, I read all the issues he left out around our parents’ house. I read about Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men. Note a recurring theme here?  Most of the comic books featured men, and I thought the few women—such as Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and the Invisible Girl—were blah.

When my tween daughter became interested in comic books (because Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s story continues in comic book form), I took her to our neighborhood comic book store, hoping things had changed. Oh my, have they! Female comic book readers once called themselves “unicorns,” because they were so few and hard to find. Today, females account for 46.67 percent of the 24 million U.S. comic book fans.

Comic books (or graphic novels) are not just for reluctant or beginning readers. The format demands that readers work hard to decode and understand literary devices like metaphor, symbolism, flashbacks, and point of view. Readers learn how to follow a visual narrative, in which the images convey meaning beyond the words of the text.


Here are some of the comic books we discovered with strong female protagonists appropriate for middle-grade readers:

  • Princeless – A princess tires of waiting for a prince to rescue her from the tower in which her parents placed her. She escapes to do the rescuing instead and finds two female sidekicks (one of them a dragon). We both loved this book.
  • Ms. Marvel – Kamala Khan is a teenage girl from New Jersey who acquires superpowers and happens to be Muslim. This series explores different notions of identity and one’s place in the world.
  • Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword – The star of this imaginative, funny work is a spunky 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. All Mirka wants is a sword so she can slay dragons. In her first adventure, she fights a fearsome pig, meets a witch, and goes head-to-head with a troll.
  • Batgirl –This book has striking, moody artwork and snappy dialogue. My daughter enjoyed it, but the story may be too dark for some readers.
I've also heard great things about Lumberjanes, but it's so popular that I haven't been able to find a copy of the first volume yet. The website A Mighty Girl has more recommendations.

I bought paperback anthologies rather than individual issues to make sure we started at the beginning of the story. When selecting comic books, read a few pages or look at the rating to make sure the book is appropriate for a tween. Different companies have different rating systems, but generally, there’s a rating for everyone or all ages, a rating for 12 or older, something that is roughly equivalent to a PG-13 rating, and a mature or adult rating. If in doubt, ask a store employee.

If the tween in your life wants to read about strong women in an interesting format, then why not give comic books a try?
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The @ Symbol

5/14/2015

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It looks like a shell’s whorls or a spiral galaxy. This swirly symbol stands for “at” and can be drawn in one graceful motion. It started out in obscurity and then spun into ubiquity, thanks to email and Twitter.

The origins of @ are murky. Scholars credit either medieval monks or French scribes with creating the symbol as an abbreviation. It saved space and labor on handwritten documents.

Skipping ahead to 1536, a Florentine merchant wrote “@” to represent “amphorae,” or large clay jars full of wine. Later merchants used the symbol to mean “at the rate of,” such as “3 pounds of asparagus @ $2.99.”

Because early typewriters and punch-card tabulators did not include the symbol, it nearly disappeared. Happily, with the development of standardized keyboards for typewriters and later a standardized character set for computers, the @ symbol was saved.

In 1971, a computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson worked for BBN Technologies. The U.S. government had contracted with BBN to create a network that would share information between computers. Tomlinson helped to develop ARPANET, a precursor of today’s Internet. He had to devise a way to address a message to someone at a different computer, using both the person’s name and the location of the computer. Tomlinson needed a symbol to separate those two elements, and to avoid confusion, the symbol had to be one not commonly used in computer programming. He looked at his keyboard and chose “@.” Since the symbol actually stood for “at,” people read email addresses as “Sue at XYZ.org,” which made intuitive sense.

The @ symbol has a proud history that spans centuries. And it’s fun to draw too.

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Cutting for Length

5/7/2015

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I worked with a writer once to cut nearly 300 words from a 700-word script. Few things are worse for writers than finishing a piece and realizing it’s too long. Where to start cutting? Here are some ideas:

  • Look at introductory clauses. They are often wordy. For example: “at the current time” can be shortened to “now” or deleted altogether if the audience can assume the writer’s talking about the present.
  • Examine verbs, particularly “-ing” constructions. Can you trim or replace them with shorter, more active verbs? Examples: “took off running” can be shortened to “ran” AND “conducted an analysis of” can become “analyzed.” 
  • Check for multiple adjectives and adverbs. Can you cut one or find a different word that conveys both meanings? For example, instead of describing a “rundown, deteriorating building,” use the single adjective “ramshackle” instead.
Below are some wordy phrases and ways to fix them:
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Here’s a more complete list of solutions to wordy phrases. Just about every piece of writing can be improved by some judicious pruning.
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    Rose Ciccarelli offers writing and editing services through Rosebud Communications.

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