Digital Texts for Different Users

Grammar Moves - PREPOSITIONS      People usually wants to know where they are in certain places and time.  Prepositional words like "in," "at," "on," "during," "since," "inside," "outside," and "next" are valuable English words that help people to know when and where they can be in respect to time and place.  Even though prepositions are "usually small words," (Weinstein and Finn 18), they are important for many reasons. Prepositions help users to make connections to how "things relate to each other" (Weinstein and Finn 18), identify the purpose of "instrumentality" (Weinstein and Finn 18), and "connect the dots" (Weinstein and Finn 18).  Thus, prepositions do magical work. Without prepositional words like "to," "before," and "after," users may end up using a broken language. Descriptive grammar will become useful for them in this case b...

Using Apostrophe Learning a new language is interesting.  When I started learning English, I did not know anything about use of an apostrophe. I was confused with the symbol (') and the word "of."  In Vietnamese, the word "of" is used to denote ownership or one's possession. Weinstein's and Finn's Chapter 8 appeals to the readers regarding the use of apostrophe (47-50). Thus, I agree this chapter is partly about ethos because the authors give reasons for the use of apostrophe that appeals to the readers. For example, the authors explain a few basics on the use of apostrophe, including the use of contractions-don't and I'll-and possession. I do agree with Weinstein and Finn that "many store signs contain apostrophe errors" (51).  For example, I saw a nail salon with a name Lees Nails Salon.  Grammatically, the salon's name does not have the correct use of an apostrophe. If the salon's owner is Lee and wants to name the store...

Which Option is Better? Parents always want their children to be active in many different avenues. They do not want their children to be passive in anyway possible. Teachers in schools share the same sentiments with parents. They want their students to be active because being active makes things like learning fun and engaging for everyone. Thus, the use of active voice can help students and listeners to understand what are expected of them. Active voice avoids ambiguity and ensure clarity, so listeners and receivers avoid possible misunderstanding. Weinstein and Finn emphasized that using active voice presents straightforward directions (12). For example: a) I was sidelined for the rest of the season.  (The rest of the season sidelined me.) b) My parents were cheated out of their money.  (Money cheated out my parents.) c) Something needs to be done. (Someone needs to do something.) d) I was given a C. (A grade of a C was given to me.) e) The job was assigned to me. (I was assi...

  My response to questions 2 and 3 in Lawrence Weinstein's and Thomas Finn's Grammar Moves: Shaping Who You Are Differences can make things interesting in many situations.  Generally, people are different, and their differences make them unique, including their use of a variety of sentences when they communicate. Whether with oral or written language, people's differences can include the use of sentence variety. Some people prefer to use declarative sentences, and others incline to use imperative sentence for difference reasons, such as in urgent and emergency circumstances (24-26).  If normal imperatives can make speakers feel awkward and uncomfortable due to their nature of being authoritative, they can use "gentle imperative" (Weinstein and Finn 26). From my personal and professional experience, I recalled my last academic assistant provost who freely used imperatives to remind me what I would need to do.  The provost's freestyle of imperatives did not mak...

The Colon (:) We live in a society, which include people from many walks of life, and these diverse differences can both be great and controversial.  People's differences can include the use of a variety linguistic rules and applications.  This variation in the use of language preferences, including the ways people use colons and other punctuation marks, depends on people's everyday needs, interests, cultural backgrounds, and educational experiences. According to Weinstein and Find, people use colons for many different reasons: marking an end of a formal salutation, introducing a block quote, and presenting a dialogue (7-8).  The authors' use of colons in Chapter 1 indicated that Weinstein and Finn were assured of their use of colons for their own writing purposes.  With five colons that were used in three pages, the authors demonstrated mastery of using prescriptive grammar to indicate how grammar should be used in the English language.  Their use of colons is...