#that’s why every paragraph ends with a end-of-sentence punctuation mark but the last sentence doesn’t

[scholarhect]

frustrated because i want to get educated on feminist theory but idk where to start, especially since there’s so much flawed feminism out there (god, you’re saying i have to read it all and form my own opinion? but that’s so much work! just tell me what One feminist work i should read to know everything) but it’s so important because i’m becoming increasingly convinced that our deemphasis on theory is killing feminism.

we’re losing her. we’re doing vibes-based feminism we’re doing “whatever personal opinions i bring to the table without thinking about them are my political views” feminism we’re doing “it’s easy! if you don’t hate women and want them to die you’re a feminist!” feminism we’re doing VANITY feminism we’re doing “common sense” feminism (just a rephrase of “whatever personal opinions…” feminism) and we’re shocked that we’re losing. a political movement & ideology* that has NO thought behind it, JUST vibes. no pillars, no standards. what even is a feminist? when do you ever hear that articulated? unless, again, you’re hearing “a feminist is somebody who believes women are people :)” that’s exactly the problem i’m talking about.

this is why we’re losing ground to “criticizing beauty standards is antifeminist because it feels good to be pretty” feminism we’re losing ground to “you know what group has had it too good for too long? the transgender woman” feminism we’re losing ground to “feminism is for women AND men and the more we include men the more feminist it is” feminism.

frankly the way the transphobic feminism gains followers is it’s the only fucking side that actually gives somebody ARGUMENTS to latch on to. people are alienated by toothless no thoughts feminism and they’re going to people who are offering them some thoughts, and a bad argument beats the shit out of no argument at all. it’s like if you showed up to court with no lawyer? and you were like “everybody knows i’m right, morally. it’s common sense. the strength of that will protect me :)” you are going to prison. we could be doing transfeminist theory we could be explaining the role of gender in society and how it’s constructed and how women both cis & trans are constructed as women but instead we’re saying “i don’t hate trans women because i’m normal :)” that’s nothing!!! am i making myself clear do you see what i’m talking about!

and then the other two things i complained about, the “feminism is anything that makes me feel good, as a woman” and “feminism is for men, actually” are just because when we have zero standards for feminism it can mean anything at all. we could be talking about these things but we aren’t.

i don’t know how to fix this (i could learn more, but what then? well i guess id post about it for my followers. good enough, i guess. so it’s just that i don’t know how to learn more) but i am getting so frustrated with the way things are now. i know there’s people out there doing real things in the feminist space but i don’t know where to look… lot of trans women on my twitter tl talking about feminism (and yes that’s something, but i am hungry for more than twitter threads <3) and they’re fighting an uphill battle over there. like. god

* i feel like it’d be the good feminist thing to do to come down hard with “feminism is a MOVEMENT” but we do kind of need internal ideology before we can have external movement, probably. seems like people who already have feminist ideas are more likely to engage in feminist actions when the time comes. but idk i’m no political movements expert. this post is just me giving you my two cents on a specific concept

[thecraftyfoxthewriterscorner]

Editing Tip #1: Resist the Urge to Copy Edit While Writing

Hey writers,

Do you have the tendency to reread a page you’ve just written, and start going over it with a (metaphorical or literal) red pen?

If so, you’re not alone.

Most writers, by nature, are first avid readers. As a result, we’ve developed an eye, an ear, or both, for sentences that look and/or sound strange. This is a great skill to have for reviewing completed projects. It’s not so helpful in the middle of a WIP.

It may sound odd for the first editing tip to be “don’t edit while writing,” but when you’ve got a WIP you’re consistently working on, there’s a fine line between “productive editing” and “distraction.”

Before I start writing for the day, I often read the last paragraph or the last page I wrote the previous day. This is to remind myself of where I left off, so I can think about where I need to steer the story before I start writing again. This unfortunately comes with a great risk to my writing productivity: the urge to copy edit.

Copy editing is basically the type of editing that focuses on the technical aspects of written work, such as spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and the consistency of those elements throughout the piece. Some examples would be noticing an overuse of commas or a misplacement of one, misuse of semicolons, run-on sentences, noticing a magical incantation or the name of a magical creature is spelled one way earlier in the paragraph and another way further down the page, and inconsistent description. If you’re very detail-oriented or a bit of a perfectionist (I’m guilty of both), you can’t help but notice these mistakes or inconsistences while reading either other people’s work, or your own.

But you should resist the urge to copy edit when rereading pieces of your WIP, if you’re trying to continue writing your story. The goal is to refresh your writing mind, not enter an editing mindset. Falling into an editing mindset in the middle – or worse, the beginning – of a WIP, may cause you to lose the momentum to keep writing.

As I mentioned in my previous post, one tip to building a daily writing habit is to track your writing days on a monthly calendar (mark the days with a “/,” or a sticker, or anything you’d like) until you create a continuous string of marks. The motivation to write in this activity is, of course, to keep that string unbroken. Breaking that string isn’t the end of the world, but it allows the mindset of, “I missed one day, so it’s fine if I miss another,” to take root. Which might lead to another missed day. And another. Then, after however many days of not-writing, you’ve got to really work up the motivation to start writing again. 

(Note: This doesn’t apply if you purposefully and strategically decide to break your string of marks for personal or professional reasons. If this describes your situation, I’m sure you’ve got the right mindset to start tracking your writing days again, if you choose to do so.)

The same principle arises with copy editing while trying to write a WIP. You’re technically working on your story, but you’re not actually making progress on the narrative. You’re spinning your wheels on the same section of the story, tweaking and perfecting it to satisfy your inner-editor. Copy editing has now become more of a distraction than a benefit to your WIP, a reason to keep you from writing. The forward momentum you previously had for generating the storyline has stalled, and you might have a hard time getting started again.

(A brief aside: If you find yourself using copy editing as a distraction for getting actual writing done, try to reflect on why you’ve run into this resistance. List all the reasons for your resistance towards the next section of writing, and try overcoming that resistance. Whether it’s because you’re not sure where to go next in your story, or you don’t know your character (or characters) as well as you thought, you can always try journaling and brainstorming your way out of this rut.)

So how do you resist the urge to copy edit?

As with most writing rules and advice, tips for avoiding an editing mindset aren’t set in stone, and they certainly aren’t “one size fits all.” It may take a while to find the strategies that work best for you, if you’re especially prone to obsessing over fixing the smallest mistakes in your writing. Here are a couple of tips you can try out.

1) Don’t look back, keep writing.

Maybe you’ve been sitting down every day to work on the same writing project, and you have no plans to work on anything else until it’s done. If this best describes your situation, you might not need to review what you’ve written the previous day. So: sit down, move your cursor or pen to the next blank page, and keep writing.

 2) Turn off the editing or formatting marks on your word processor.

If your word processor doesn’t default to having its editing or formatting marks set to “off” (like Word), the colored squiggles underlining spelling or grammar issues may be the Siren’s call tempting you to copy edit, when you should be writing. If these marks are distracting you, consider turning them off until your project is finished. Once you’re done and you start editing, switch them back on.

If you aren’t prone to copy editing while writing a WIP, these tips may not be of interest to you. But if you one day find yourself wanting to copy edit when you should be writing your WIP, ask yourself: “Is this edit essential to the project I’m writing right now? Or is it a distraction?”

Until next time!

- Leah

P.S. Developmental (or substantive) editing and line editing aren’t included here, because performing these types of editing while working on a WIP might be beneficial to the completion of your project. For example, if you decide to change a character’s core personality or motivation in Chapter 4, you might decide to continue to the end of your novel and then backtrack to make changes to that character in earlier chapters; or you may decide to make those changes before continuing past Chapter 4. The choice is yours. In any case, make sure it’s an essential edit, and not a reason for distraction.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

I have so many things I want to write. But whenever I write anything, it never turns out how I want it to, and I find that so soul-crushing that I never want to write again. So seeing you post whole stories again and again is mind-blowing-ly magical to me. ...So I guess what I'm asking is: How do you keep your self-criticism from completely taking over, and being all you can think about? (Sorry if this sounds negative.)

“How to shut up that little bastard of a voice in your head that tells you if it’s not done perfectly it’s better to not do it at all” is… a very good question, the answer to which I’m still seeking out myself. Because oh man is my inner critic a jerk.

First: it never turns out how you want it to. I could keep picking at my stories forever, changing little bits of punctuation and a few words here and there, rearranging sentences until I go mad because no matter what I do, it just doesn’t sound quite right. The image in my head is always grander than I ever manage to put to page. The sentences always flow better. I can come up with a sentence or a piece of dialogue in my mind and in the time it takes me to finish chopping vegetables and go to my laptop to put it down, what ends up in the document is just off. That little excerpt of Blackquill dialogue I posted earlier tonight, I went over two or three times, trying to massage it back out into being what I knew it could be. And it still didn’t land quite right even when I posted it.

I hope that doesn’t sound discouraging -- I hope you don’t think “if she can’t get it right, how can I?” because none of us can, no matter how long or short we’ve been writing. There’s always a horizon to chase. I’ve been writing for about 13 years now and so much of that is just fighting with the words, wondering why they don’t sound like they should and you know they can. My style of writing did a complete shift in the past six or so years. I used to write 100k epics in six months back in middle school. A few years ago it took me a year to complete 20k. This current output that I have going is frankly, magical to me too, because it’s been years and years since I wrote like this. I’m not sure what the recipe for that is. Downtime at work and the honeymoon phase of a new fandom? Perhaps. I always feel like everything is in flux for me when it comes to writing. 

My mantra, to fight that bastard perfectionist who haunts my brain, is: done is better than perfect. For drawings, writing, schoolwork, everything, I tell myself that.

Done is better than perfect.

What I’ve discovered lately that’s been helping my writing method is about momentum. If I’m writing and feeling the momentum, I will stop myself from getting caught up on a paragraph and picking over it. Because I could, and I have, spent weeks and weeks hung up on a paragraph because if this isn’t perfect how can I move forward and I’m a person who much prefers to write chronologically. What I do now is I’ll highlight the paragraph and keep moving forward and come back and work on the details later. My current wip, Swan Song, looks like this:

All those highlights are vaguely color-coded and sort of in my head mean slightly different things, but all places I need want to come back to and work on. The last portion of highlight in there, third on the bottom row, was originally that entire page highlighted, and I read over half of it and said, okay, that’s good enough. That has to be good enough. It’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t let some of this go.

It’s… can I say “let it go and move on” is a good mantra for this, because it is. Several fics I’ve posted I’ve just kind of thrown online like “I am pissed at this fic, I am tired of fighting with it, it is done as in it has a complete narrative arc, and I am tired of looking at it.” I did this with Acing the Turnabout when I posted it two weeks ago because I’d spent about two months struggling with it, and then I’d had the concept for it rolling around in my head and a few other drafts since June. I could still be fighting with it, but it told a complete story and ended where I wanted it to, and incorporated what I wanted it to, so I said, I’m done.

And that’s a hard thing to say. I feel like I’m lazy. I feel like it’s not good enough. But every sentence that you pick over is one sentence in a greater whole, and you can’t lose the forest for the trees. It’s like when I spend hours on a drawing getting the lines in a section perfect and I zoom back out and realize that I’ve spent all this time lining fucked-up anatomy and I didn’t notice because I didn’t look at it in whole.

There will always be lines that you don’t like, that don’t land right, but read back through and find some you do. Find a piece of dialogue and say “oh, this is good shit. I want to do more of this good shit.” A lot of the fics I’ve done lately have come to me as a scene; I jot it down and say “shit, that’s a good scene, now I have to write the setup and the denouement for it.” And that’s always much harder, to do the heavy lifting around the section that felt like a lightning bolt of divine inspiration to write. Acing the Turnabout was like that -- the reason it ever got posted at all, despite me being frustrated with it, was because there was that portion in the middle that I really, really liked.

So I focused on that, made sure that everything around it was good enough, frustratingly far from perfect, but good enough that it could hold up The Scene. Find The Scene and write around it. Even The Scene won’t turn out exactly as you envisioned it in your head, and the stuff around it certainly won’t, but when it’s in your head, it can never be shared. No one else can see it. Hype yourself up for The Scene or That Line and be your own biggest fan. What is the reason for writing this piece? What is the heart of it, what excites you about it? What is The Scene or That Line, the part you most want to write and share? I find that if I have that one part that I really love, if I focus on that, I can set aside the nagging thought that there’s this other less important part that I don’t love and I could spend another three months changing it. Some parts of the story will be more important than others. Try and prioritize how you feel about each section. If the whole thing isn’t working out, go to something different.

Done is better than perfect. Find the parts you like, figure out why you like them, try and do more of it; keep the momentum flowing, mark where you want to come back to, and maybe when you come back and look at it in whole you can say “that section is actually good enough.” And the more and more you write, and the more and more you get done -- and even things you don’t get done can still have lessons learned and parts you like in them, and maybe a year or two down the line you’ll come back to something and finish it suddenly -- the closer you can get to what you’re imagining. Done is better than perfect.

I hope at least some of that helps. It’s hard. It’s very hard. Hyping yourself up and keeping the momentum going won’t totally shut up that little critical bastard, but even muffling it is better than nothing. There will always be disappointments, but pull out something good from it, and try again. I believe in you! Go tell your stories.

[haydenstudiesblog-blog]

Citing a (Literature) Paper

My professor began this discussion by saying these tips will hopefully be helpful in the future when we’re writing 5-10-15-page seminar papers. My heart sank to my butthole when she said that but I digress.

NOTE: In this post, the terms “in-text citations” and “citations” are used to describe the citations that appear in a paper, in the body of the text. When I start to refer to the part that is added to the end of the paper, the bibliography or works cited, I’m just going to call it Works Cited. I thought I would clarify so there is less confusion.

NOTE ALSO: Please take everything I say here with a tiny grain of salt. This is everything my professor told me in class, but every professor is different and she even admitted that it’s possible the MLA style could have been updated since she’d last checked and things could be slightly different now. In the end, it all depends on what YOUR professor personally prefers. So, when you are assigned a paper, don’t be afraid to raise your hand or approach your professor after class (it’ll only take a minute I swear) and ask for their preferences in some of the things I mention here. It’s always good to be sure.

How to Cite

When writing literature papers, it’s pretty known that the format is MLA style. However, double-check to make sure your professor/school does it this way. I don’t know of any place that uses a different style, but it’s still a good idea to check anyway rather than assume. You know what they say about people who assume.

When citing MLA style, in-text citations are typically: (AuthorLastName Page#) if that makes sense. The citation goes at the end of the sentence, outside of quotation marks and inside of punctuation. The citation itself contains no punctuation whatsoever, no abbreviations. Example: (Doe 3).

When it comes to a Works Cited, before you bust your ass creating one for every paper you turn in, ask your professor if you need one for your papers. I’m in two literature classes this semester. In one class, we write our papers on work from one anthology textbook the entire semester, and we don’t use any outside sources, which means our professor knows what we’re citing from. All we have to do is the in-text citations, no Works Cited. In my other class, my professor wrote up a bibliography online of all the readings. I think this was partially required on her part, because she took all of these readings and developed her own course packet so we’d have them all handy and not have to print every story we read. Anyway, she has a document filled with the bibliographies for everything we do and don’t have to write a paper on. Because of this, she said we don’t have to include the Works Cited, just the in-text citations. So definitely double-check with your professor and ask if they need a Works Cited for every paper you write in the class.

A great resource I highly recommend if there are more questions or if you’re brand spankin’ new to this would be OWL Purdue. It’s a great resource, I have yet to experience a professor who doesn’t recommend it. There you can find more help with in-text citations and instructions on how to create a Works Cited.

Now I’d like to get down to some nitty-gritty in-text citation stuff. It may seem irrelevant, but it’s all necessary for citing properly.

Paraphrase vs. Summary

Summary is commonly used for longer texts, such as an entire story. Paraphrase is used for shorter texts, such as a paragraph from previously mentioned story. Summaries do not need to be cited, and paraphrases...well, that depends.

Paraphrase Specifics

Paraphrase allows you to move between direct quotes (DQ) and your own words when talking about a certain aspect or part of the story (obviously this can all be used for essays and other forms of writing as well, I’m just using story as an example here, don’t feel limited).

Do you always have to cite it? Well. If you are unsure whether or not your paraphrase is too similar to the original line in the story, just cite it anyway. You can never have too many citations in a paper, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. Just make sure you don’t leave it open-ended, meaning for every line a cited quote or sentence takes up, you should have two lines of opinion or reasoning behind or discussion about the citation. However, if you’re 100% confident in your paraphrasing abilities, you don’t need to cite a paraphrase unless it utilizes that mobility between your own words and a DQ.

Here is an example of paraphrasing, from Karen Joy Fowler’s “Heartland”:

Willina takes her life at the end of Heartland. She “[severs] . . . her heart and her head” (62).

There are a few things to address in this example.

The brackets: the word “severs” is inside brackets inside the quote. Why? Because while this word was specifically used in the story, it was used in a different form, sever or severed or severing. When you alter a word slightly from the way it appeared in the story, place it inside brackets to indicate this alteration.

The ellipsis: AKA the “three dots” that a lot of people don’t know the technical name for. Obviously these were not in the original sentence in the story. The ellipsis actually indicates omission; therefore, the ellipsis is put in the quote in place of unwanted or unneeded parts of the quote. The stuff you decided to leave out. The original line in the story was: “One night she put a noose around her neck and severed the connection between her heart and her head.” The first half of the quote wasn’t necessary, because it was paraphrased and accounted for. Therefore, that part of the quote can simply be left out and ignored. However, when writing this paper, it’s hard to think of a better word than “severed” to describe what happened here, so we keep the word, alter it a little with the help of the brackets, and then it’s time to deal with the rest of the sentence. Because we used a specific word from the quote, it needs to be included in the citation. But there are parts of that quote that we don’t need in-between “severed” and “her heart and her head” so what do we do? We take out the section in the middle that we don’t need and in its place we plop an ellipsis. This signifies that there is a portion of the quote missing, that we altered it to fit our needs.

The citation: While you hopefully took notice that the citation is outside of the quotation marks but inside of the punctuation, you may have also noticed that it only indicates a page number. Why is that? 

When talking about a piece of writing, in this case the story, we are only referring to one author the entire time. And we aren’t using any other sources in our papers, so it’s 100% clear who we are citing. Because of this, our professor informed us that we only need to mention the last name in a citation once in our papers. After that first regular citation (for example (Fowler 62)) we aren’t changing sources, so we can just include the page number in the parenthesis. 

Also, let’s say you’re talking about two authors. In the first paragraph you need to cite Author A, and you cite them a couple of times but you don’t cite the other author in this paragraph. In the first citation include Author A’s last name and page number and in the rest of the citations IN THAT PARAGRAPH you can shorten it to just a page number. However, in the next paragraph you need to start over again, even if it’s the same author you’re citing. It’s the same concept as citing only one author, but it’s condensed to paragraphs. If you are citing both authors in the same paragraph, just do the full citation and don’t risk it.

No page numbers: In one of my current literature classes, we use a course packet to do our readings. These readings were found online and printed out, which means some of them have page numbers and some of them don’t because they were originally just articles (example, we read Cat Person last week, no page numbers). While we don’t do papers on every single reading, we have had a situation where one of our readings didn’t have page numbers. Everyone in the class wrote in their page numbers themselves, since we didn’t have anything to use for our in-text citations. Our professor was cool with it and told us from now on to write in our own page numbers if there weren’t any provided.

**However, before doing ANY this, I would check with your professor and ask if that’s okay. Every professor is different, and the MLA style logistics change often enough that this could be slightly off. Also, different professors can just have different preferences, regardless of what is the “new” MLA style. Never just assume that your professor is cool with whatever you do; it’s best to ask first.

[ihatejoelkim]

Sexual Failures of 2017.

A five-thousand word think piece promising a bold new take on the 2016 Democratic Primary race. I think that's the only thing I can think of that any of you would like to read less than some verbose exploration of my various successes and failures in 2017. The successes were all shared across platforms and you've already done your due diligence by liking and sharing (or not you stupid fucking bitch). I had a good year, professionally. To itemize all my failures against every accomplishment I've curated for you right here would be tantamount to telling you all how hard it is for me to gain weight (it is, and it's a problem, but I can read a room).

With all that in mind, I won't linger too long in this next part: I wasn't happy in 2017. In contrast, I can't say that I was terribly unhappy either, but trying to detail a mostly pleasant grey murk, punctuated by a handful of brief intermissions both low and manic (usually manifest as early morning text messages sent to various friends and sex partners), doesn't make for a compelling end-of-the-year post, I don't think.

Last year, I thanked all the gay men who saved my life (there were many, a handful even who don't strictly speaking identify as either gay or men, but that's part of the joke, you see). Many gay men both literal and honorary did their part to keep me afloat this year, and I do thank them, but as social media performances go, I wanted to go for something equally as sentimental and reflective but less exclusionary. Something the whole family could enjoy.

Let me walk you through all my sexual failures this year.

Now a quick disclaimer, I want to make this very clear up top: I happened to many of these men, not the other way around. To cast myself as the wide-eyed straight man next to a gallery of freaks seems very, well, 2015. I'm pretty sure I wrote that piece in 2015. I was the villain, sexually, in as many encounters as I was the hero (if you can call eating out a mean drummer in the waning moments of a molly high heroic).

Secondly there were plenty of failures this year that involved people I generally like or who otherwise might read this. I'm not including them, so if you're a friend who made the disastrous decision to roll around with me (a professional at making an exhibition of the personal) and it ended poorly, you won't find it below. I want to keep it all as broadly anonymous as possible, so that I can look back on it and convince myself, "this was okay, right?" Writing this paragraph has already halfway convinced me to that I'm a huge asshole and this is in fact not okay.

This list won't be chronologically correct but I would like to start at the beginning of the year. Almost 365 days ago exactly, I ended up at the home of a bobo Vincent Gallo character. A straight, married father of two in an open hetero relationship with his wife (though not an openly bisexual one, so the moral optics of the whole thing are still a little suspect). He's a music producer who looks like Mark Ruffalo and he won't kiss me on the mouth, but he does want me to spend an hour with my mouth on his asshole. He tells me he's never bottomed but would like to and it's all an embarrassing lie, so we do it and he comes alarmingly fast. We hadn't deleted Uber yet (#resist) and the surge that night to get home cost me nearly $70.

He hit on me on the water taxi on Fire Island. It's the night of the underwear party and we're both heading home alone. I enjoy the underwear party but I lost my phone beyond the veil (I'll offer no further explanation on that— you either know or you don't), and fingered and gotten fingered so much I lost faith that fingering was for the pleasure of anyone involved at all. Sexually, I’m not for Fire Island and that's all fine and well by me (it’s about so much more, etc.) . He is the hottest person that will have spoken to me in three years of visits and aggressively so. He walks me home and we dry hump on the beach. I was deeply attracted to the story we would get to tell if things worked out, but he was high on molly and I was the person you regret the morning after molly (I've been on both sides of this equation, we all have, so don't read this as entirely self deprecating). He ignores my texts for a while and is forced to acknowledge me once as our respective houses walk by one another on the boardwalk. I text him on the Fourth of July asking if he has plans. I don't hear from him again until September, a Saturday at 3AM. A victory.

Every sexual experience I had with a college student this year was in its own special way a failure. I know how that sentence reads, but straight comedians on the college circuit have been fucking their audiences since way back when a JFL set meant you were getting a television show, so I like to look at this as my way of queering yet another perilously heterosexual institution. Plus, I always ID, because I saw a character on How to Get Away With Murder do it. I'm sure there are three twenty-year-olds in the country who know how to fuck. You are probably twenty and reading this and think you are one of the three, but you are also probably wrong. You see, all three went to high school abroad, currently live in Manhattan and it's actually really sad that they're this good at sex by now. If you're twenty and you think the sex you're having is great, I'll take you at your word but privately I'll write you off as either a precious lil' thing or a liar.

There was of course the self-styled dom in the midwest. I love touring especially for the hotels. Every time I walk into my hotel room I immediately wonder if this is the place where I'll finally be strangled to death in the nude. I wondered if the dom would be the one to do it, until he arrived at my door and I almost considered not going through with it. I'm not an especially kinky person naturally, but by god am I an actor, and I love the costumes. He suggested we try and I was staying at a Hilton in a mid-sized midwestern city so why the hell not. Unfortunately he is not hot, nor very, um, authoritative and as it turns out I'm not a very good actor. He spits in my mouth and I gingerly remove the loogey intact and wipe it on the hotel bed, killing the mood. He jerks off sullenly next to me and then blocks me on Scruff.

In Nevada, one of the comedy agents gave me an adderall so I could stay up long enough after my shows to have sex. We were in old Vegas, and I wasn't testing well on the apps. But just about the time I became truly ridiculous, a parody of self-destructive horniness, I set off for a stranger's hotel to have a threesome with a nice looking couple who had driven in from Utah. By the time I arrive, the hot one has fallen asleep and the lucky one sheepishly meets me outside the hotel to inform me that, if I still wanted to hook-up, we'll have to do it in the car. I am twenty-nine and yet I follow him to his Toyota Corolla where I can't get hard so instead we watch the sun rise with our shirts on and our pants pulled down just below the ass, our soft, shrunken genitalia observing an adderall-fueled conversation about the the LDS.

There was the Korean who was staying on a friend’s couch but assured me no one would notice. I could hear the bright, jaunty theme song of Parks and Recreation through her bedroom door, and I wonder the whole time if she voluntarily sequestered herself or we are in danger at any moment of being interrupted by a rabid Amy Poehler fan. He refuses to bottom and is not a good top, so the long term prospects aren't great. A few weeks ago I saw that he is dating a self-identified rice queen I went on a few dates with back in 2014. I didn’t want to learn about my culture from a rich, white hobbyist and he only ever wanted to bottom. Seeing them together felt like reading the end of some distorted version of The Gift of the Magi.

I engaged in sex with only two people more than once and I'm perfectly content with that number. I made it through without collecting any STI's (yet). I didn't have my heart truly broken (yet). I haven't fallen in love.

I think I might get a dog when I turn thirty, or possibly a therapist.

[fandomdaysoftheweek]

GRE preparation complete guide!

THIS IS NOT a Great Deal of STUDY. Only a somewhat descriptive article. A couple of weeks of comparatively less manic groundwork will readily complete all I have mentioned.

This isn't likely to let you know exactly what the GRE questions seem like - all novels do this, have a peek prior to reading this. These are just.

Schedule:

I would not suggest following the program I did. It had been five days of intense. Too much stress and no fun in any way.

Three to four months will be perfect to prepare without panicking. Simply take a evaluation - to evaluate exactly what you want to examine. It is basic math and english, therefore studying is a waste of time. Identify flaws and examine people. Whatever you're good at could be revised in the future.

Quantitative Reasoning:

This is tier school mathematics that is Indian. Therefore a quick revision may help. No trigonometry or calculus - but exceptionally basic trigonometry occasionally helps with the triangle queries, though it is not prescribed to examine.

The very best method to do this is to perform several practice segments and revise anything you don't understand.

Data interpretation queries are occasionally confusing and need training, if just to find out what they look like. There are lots of kinds of charts which could be given and distributing them might call for unique procedures. These questions occasionally take more than others, therefore that I always left them to address last.

Comparison questions have corner cases in case you have not practised them you might not consider. There are two amounts given and they should be compared. So do a lot of those questions so as to comprehend what type of values may be utilized to check the amounts. Generally significant are using values such as 1, -1, 0, positive and negative fractions besides other actual numbers/integers.

Don't assume anything! Something which resembles a ideal angle isn't a ideal angle unless it's specified or marked.

The remainder of quant is fundamental mathematics, make sure each subject is refreshed. It should not take a long time, if you're great at high school mathematics. If a lot was abandoned, clinic! Quant is unquestionably the simpler GRE section for a big percentage of test takers.

What the majority of men and women realise is the quant segments are really simple, but it's also quite simple to create (incredibly) absurd mistakes. Most questions don't require over a minute to address. I attempted to fix all of the queries over 20 minutes and then use the rest to resolve ALL the queries. I changed a few incorrect answers in my true GRE on doing so, so it is quite important to look at each answer at least one time. Don't check. Assess an issue by solving like it is the first time you are seeing it in clinic evaluations too.

Verbal Reasoning:

I will not describe what these queries seem like, however what I researched and practised.

In my view, the only means to overcome this is by simply performing a few *hard* RCs and studying response explanations, knowing why one alternative is more likely to be right. I did not do ANY clinic comprehensions which were as hard as the true evaluation, but ETS Powerprep comes fairly near.

One more matter with RCs is that a number of them are extended - more than 6 paragraphs. It's crucial that you learn how to take care of these passages without losing an eye on the content whilst studying - thus practice doing these queries.

All you need is at the paragraph. They aren't asking for your view or assumptions. If something is maintained in an answer option, but it isn't suggested in the paragraph - it's incorrect, regardless of how logical/correct/appropriate it might appear to you. The planet is merely the individual reading thing rather than the world around you. It needs to be indicated or cited by the passing.

Coming to text conclusion and word equivalence, blanks have to be filled in using proper words. This is only one of the most difficult areas of the GRE since the response choices are phrases which may not be within a mean vocabulary.

Improving ones language is best achieved by studying plenty. However, GRE prep period might not be enough for studying a whole lot, so other resources may be utilized.

Aside from really *knowing* a note, circumstance and removal of different alternatives is very helpful. In sentence equivalence, you must choose two equal choices. When an alternative isn't similar/equivalent in significance to some other alternative (IN THE CONTEXT), remove it. Read the sentence/text to be finished and understand the circumstance before choosing choices.

1. My pre-GRE language 2. 3. 4. Magoosh Primary Wordlists and Frequent Wordlists 5.

As soon as I took the diagnostic evaluation, I recognized language as my weakness and focused many attempts on this section (therefore my first vocabulary was not spectacular). I covered the additional resources in their entirety. It doesn't take long in the event that you can perform 300 words daily, but this is quite painful. In case you've fourteen days, do 20-50 words per day and keep bargaining. WRITE DOWN phrases you do not understand with their own meanings. It's so much easier to update from your handwriting than out of print. I can not stress that enough. Revise all previously completed words daily.

Rote learning of phrases won't HELP. The ETS is analyzing your English ability and NOT your own learning-of-definitions ability. So it is extremely important to understand phrases in context. The 1100 of Barron does this and I suggest it. Words are awarded in a (humorous) story and that I remembered a few words due to the tales I learnt them.

Word Power Made Easy can also be brilliant. It educates word origins so deciphering unknown words becomes simple. Aside from roots, many frequent GRE phrases are educated also - in a structure that's structured. Again, no more word-definition pairs. It is interesting with lots of humourous illustrations.

IOS and android possess an program. Can utilize any third party program that extracts flashcards out of Quizlet. Theyare word-definition pairs and aren't enough to learn context correctly. However, I used them just because I constantly had my phone about. Any free fifteen minutes have been spent revising a couple of words. I didn't touch the words that are complex . Quizlet

Barron's 333 frequency words are a revision of GRE words that are common.

The language is not exceptionally challenging. These are phrases used in regular dialog that is high-level. I didn't see more than just two or three innovative words on the true test. Again, all words except you were in the resources studied. Know the fundamental words before you proceed to complex in almost any wordlist!

Alphabetical wordlists are perplexing and quite painful, in my view. However, in the event that you're able to bear together, do it.

I wish I'd had the time to generate synonym trees.

Barron's 800 key words is helpful also, I've heard. I didn't have the time to undergo it.

See where time has been wasted and attempt to reduce. With perplexing response options, a few minutes are missing in debating with yourself - don't to do this. Mark the query (the program allows marking) and return to it afterwards.

30 minutes, 20 queries - one minute per query could be great. I constantly did text/sentence questions initially (since they had been rapid) after that I did RCs in raising length of studying thing, just because I did not wish to devote first time reading extended passages. Determine a pattern on your clinic segments that works nicely for you and follow along.

AWA:

AWA is allegedly not too crucial for technology applications (I do not understand how much this is accurate). But, 1 practice essay of every kind (Topic, Argumentative) is essential. Regrettably, there are approximately 200 for every essay kind, therefore practising these is near impossible. Writing in 30 minutes isn't simple, so exercise at least one time.

Issue informative article - read sample essays (out of ETS and the net) and determine what routine of paragraphs that you need to use.

The article is basically asking you to analyse a problem, have a stand and help with illustrations. The rack doesn't need to be for or against the situation. It may be likely towards one side or perhaps ambivalent, if it is possible to substantiate it.

Contradiction is a paragraph in which you approach the contrary stand and justify your stance with that perspective - such as contending with an entirely opposite view.

Argument post - read samples (out of ETS and the net).

Additionally, definitely look the sorts of logical fallacies common to GRE debate essay subjects. There are not many (possibly five or even six) and may be identifiable. If you're able to detect four or three logical fallacies, you are place to write the article.

Long essays are favored for the two subjects - examine ETS samples. 5-6 paragraphs is adequate.

The very first thing about the essays - They aren't analyzing how good of a creative writer you're. Do not try and use these to express your own creativity.

They're analyzing articulation, perfect punctuation and logical arrangement - so use straightforward language so far as possible and easy to comprehend sentences.

Have a comparatively stiff paragraph structure for your article - then you can dedicate additional time to coming up with things to compose and less time considering how to initiate the essay and resolve.

Spend the first few minutes considering what it is you will write before you begin studying- end with time to spare time and spend a couple of minutes proofreading what you write. Practice writing using a 20 minute time limitation, it is OK if you overshoot a little.

BTW, they are not vital for MS apps, but PhD apps look at AWA scores really badly.

Additional:

MUST DO. The program is just what the pc GRE test utilizes. The standard of queries is quite similar also.

Make certain all queries in the ETS textbook are performed too - easy, moderate and hard. Standard resembles the GRE.

TIMED PRACTICE SECTIONS are rather important. The GRE is just as about speed and precision.

They may be used if you're familiar with everything. I didn't use them.

I just did timed section clinics as I did not have a lot of time. However, for familiarity with queries, many enormous question banks (Manhattan 5 pounds, by way of instance) are readily available.

[idiottantrum-blog]

Ellipses and You. . .

We need to have a chat, people writing internet comments.

On behalf of many good and decent citizens out there in the world, I would like to take a moment and educate you on a fun little punctuation tool called the ellipsis. Why, you ask? Well to put it simply it's because you're using it so fucking wrong it makes the rest of us want to go to your house and smash your keyboard over your hands until there is nothing left of either but a pulpy soup of letter keys and metacarpals.

The insult to people who weren't raised by jackals that is ellipsis use in internet commenting has gone on long enough. You don't need to put 8 dots after every complaint about millennials you cobble together under an article about avocado toast you didn't actually read, Sharon, you heinous shrew. They are called commas and periods, fucking learn when to use them.

I am not claiming my mastery over the written English language is impeccable, I'm like 80% certain I misused a comma before the name Sharon in a paragraph belittling a hypothetical woman for not using punctuation correctly. However, I do make at least a marginal attempt not to type like I'm slipping in and out of a coma between every sentence and want the reader to experience what that feels like through my use of punctuation. I don't think it's too much to ask that others do the same.

In case you are not familiar with the terminology, an ellipsis looks like this: ". . ." Three dots each separated by a single space. There is a lovely source you can check out here, which explains in what some might describe as excruciating detail exactly what the ellipsis is and how it is used. The TLDR version is as follows:

The ellipses in it's formal use is a punctuation mark that is used to annotate where something has been omitted from a quote. The informal or colloquial use of an ellipsis is the one with which we are going to be concerning ourselves. It is used to indicate when a thought trails off before it is finished, or that there is otherwise some marked pause or hesitation which requires something with more punch than your standard comma provides. It's like the pause for dramatic effect mark.

Here is an example:

"Six ellipses in three sentences is worse than. . . UGH!"

What is it worse than, person being quoted? Hitler? Adult-onset chronic swamp ass? Nickleback? We don't know specifically because of how you appropriately trailed off, leaving your thought incomplete before changing gears, but goddamn if we don't understand the emotion of helpless frustration you are currently feeling over some pigeon-toed jackanapes not knowing how to write like a civilized human.

So! Now that we all understand how to appropriately apply ellipses to our everyday internet commentinglet's look at some examples of people who are single handedly responsible for ruining society for the rest of us.

Let's start with our friend from the beginning of the post, why don't we?

Perfect example of somebody who doesn't know what the fuck he is doing around a keyboard but isn't going to let that stop him from trying to make people feel bad on the internet.

Sir, you wrote four sentences and ended three of them with ellipses. Why? Were you trying to give the reader ample time to recover from each of your fucking burns before continuing on to the next one? Am I supposed to be like "OH FUCK A RON WHITE ONE LINER FROM 2004 THIS GUY JUST SLICED MY FUCKING NIPPLES OFF WITH HIS RAZOR SHARP WIT HOW CAN I EVEN CONTINUE READING. . . Oh, thank God, he's incorporated some convenient dots forcing my brain to take what feels like an inappropriately placed pause while reading his comme-OF FUCK MY WAFFLES JUST AS I WAS RECOVERING FROM THE FIRST ONE HE JUST HIT ME WITH SOME FORREST GODDAMN GUMP SOMEBODY GET A MOP BECAUSE I JUST SPILLED MY GIBBLETS ALL OVER THE FLOOR FROM THE INTENSITY OF THE GUT PUNCHERS THIS GUY IS THROWING OUT ONE AFTER ANOTHER."

The only guess I can take as to why people use ellipses this way is that they think it gives each sentence more gravitas, not understanding that all it does is make the reader think the author is slightly less literate than a fourth grader who only scored in the 20th percentile for not writing like a fucking asshole.

In fact, the only sentence this person DIDN'T end with an ellipsis in the comment above was the last one which is in fact the only one he fucking wrote where it would have made sense! Not only did he select that particular sentence as the only one that somehow didn't need drama dots added to it, he didn't punctuate it at all. There are nine periods in that sentence you corndog, you couldn't have spared one more for the end of your thought?  You've failed me, guy who is apparently mad at a person or group of people he considers stupid. You've failed us all.

Alrighty, you used the correct form of 'their' so credit where credit is due, but I have a lot of problems with this next one. In no particular order:

You shouldn't be allowed to make your profile picture a sweet adorable puppy and then start herniating yourself yelling about fake news and democrats, it's false advertising. I don't like being lulled into a false sense of security by that 10/10 good doggo only to get purple-nurpled by the fact that the comment appearing next to it was written by a butthole.

Demwits is a pretty ok burn, but the fact that they emphasized it demWITS instead of DEMwits the way they should have ruined the wordplay. Like, the part of the word dimwit that you replaced with 'dem' from democrats is where you place the stress when you make the pun, get it together, we're trying to have a society over here.

One of those ellipses has four dots instead of three because apparently they weren't satisfied butchering their comment with the use of poorly placed pauses, they had to be inconsistent about it.

While those are bad enough, I could overlook it all if it weren't for this part:

Let me explain why this is an abomination through use of a visual aid representing exactly what "...LOL..." would look like:

Take heed lest you too should ever be inclined to write . . . LOL . . . in the fucking middle of a thought and come off as if you were kicked in the head by an emu at a petting zoo when you were a child.

I could go on for ages about how abusing ellipses in your internet commenting makes you sound like a half-assed Captain Kirk on a mission to boldly go where no one with at least a sixth grade reading level and any sense of self respect has gone before, but instead I'll leave you with what to me is the most perplexing question I find myself asking in all of this:

Why is it that you see ellipsis abuse used almost exclusively for the purpose of ranting about politics by far right people over 40 years of age?

 I don't know if FOX news has some sort of weird subliminal messaging that makes people misuse punctuation but goddamn if it doesn't seem like 90% of the people I see do this are Gen X/ Baby Boomers typing their little fingers down to stumps, about liberal snowflakes beneath some Tomi Lahren video. Think about it. Have you ever seen this comment?

"The Large Hadron Collider is a marvel of science and technology.............. CERN is really pushing the boundaries of how we understand the universe around us.......who knows what we might learn........... from their research....Higgs Boson.....Amazing"

 I certainly haven't. It seems like it's exclusively some red-in-the-face white person telling libtards to go fuck themselves beneath an article about how they made it legal to shoot endangered baby seals in the mouth because it will somehow help oil corporations oppress Native Americans or something. Always. 

Hopefully we've all learned a little bit about how to use ellipses today and a whole lot about each other. Namely that there are a lot of us out there who are just the worst. Go forth now my children. Go forth and spread the gospel of being slightly less of a trash bag full of used bandaids. Do it for me.

Do it for us all........................................................................................