HW for 4/20: Portfolio Essays and Lecture: "It" Does Matter

1. Bring in your top three essays for the Portfolio. You will only need two of them revised to the best of your ability, but we are still in the selection mode.

• E-mail or USB copies
• Printed copies are fine, but you want to use our lab time to work on essays
• Also, bring in the handouts from Blackboard that you are using to help pace yourself in improving your essay.

***The Portfolio Folder is due on Wednesday, 4/27. On this day, you will also take the in-class Final 

2. Read the lecture below on revising "It" out of essays. This is another lesson on syntax and word choice.

"It" Does Matter

Have you ever seen the movie It?





Or, less creepy, the eBay commercials circa the Iron Age of the Internet?




What do either of these it clips have to do with learning to write more effectively? (Or, what pet peeve of Professor A. does he want me to avoid by my second or third draft of an essay?)

One Writer/Reader's Issues with It as Subject of Sentences

• Broad language use
• Derails linked sentences
• Casual, assumptive tone
• Wordiness
• Poor agreement (typically, two its in one sentence or paragraph refer to two different things)

How many times have you heard, said, written, or read the following?

What is it?

It is what it is.  

It has to be that way. 

It makes me very angry when people act like it doesn't matter.

As writers, we do not have the luxury of non-verbal cues or of absolutely understanding what our audience knows.  It {Those two factors} make us have to look at our use of its in our sentences. 

• Revise for concision:

It makes me mad when people judge without knowing the facts.

• Revise for clarity,  pronoun/subject agreement

Stereotyping somebody because of his or her weight is as bad as being prejudice against a person because of him or her being gay. Both involve judging a person because he or she is different from normal.