 
How to Teach a Problem-Solving Letter Composition Project in 6 Classes

By David Bruce

Copyright 2014 by Bruce D. Bruce

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
Introduction

This document describes a composition project that I have successfully used during my years of teaching at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. The composition project is to write a Problem-Solving Letter that gives the reader information that the reader can use. This is practical writing, as opposed to academic research papers that teachers grade and return to their students. Problem-Solving Letters tell readers information that the readers do not already know but that the readers would like to know and use. Academic research papers tend to tell the readers — teachers — information that the teachers already know. Academic research papers tend not to have information that the readers can use in their own lives.

The Problem-Solving Letter Project is useful because it teaches the students useful skills:

• How to Solve Problems

• How to Write Persuasively

• How to Write to a Real-World Audience as Opposed to a Teacher

• How to Use a Conventional Business Letter Format

Teachers are welcome to evaluate this assignment to see if they want to use it in their own classes. Teachers are welcome to adapt this assignment as desired.

Important Disclosure

The students' letters are copyrighted by the students who wrote them. (Some students' names are pseudonyms.)

Free Resource

The Classes in this document contain a number of problem-solving scenarios. To find out some possible answers, search online and download this document:

Teaching Problem-Solving: A Fun Activity

By David Bruce

TV

Richard A. Watson, a professor of philosophy at Washington University, refuses to have a television set in his home. He relates in his book Good Teaching that this used to upset Anna, his daughter, when she was young because when she said she wanted to watch TV, he told her to go to someone else's house. However, when Anna became a college student, she began to think that her father had been right to keep TV out of their home. At her university, she discovered that many students were watching TV four to six hours a day, and she wondered when they found time to study.
CHAPTER 1: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Assign the Project (Class 1)

Problem-Solving: Strapless Gowns

When Jerry Spinelli, author of the Newbery Medal-winning Maniac Magee, made plans to attend his ninth-grade prom, the girls were angry because they were not allowed to wear strapless gowns. They held a meeting with the principal, but they were still not allowed to wear strapless gowns. What can the girls do to wear strapless gowns at the prom even though the authorities say that they aren't allowed to? More than one effective solution may exist.

What Do I Have to Do for the Problem-Solving Letter Project?

Teacher's Expectations

What are your teacher's expectations for the problem-solving letter?

• You will start writing this paper at least four days before the peer review.

• You will spend at least five hours on this paper.

• You will revise this paper at least once.

• You will bring a good, complete, typed draft to the peer review session.

• You will get feedback on this paper during the peer review session.

• You will get feedback on this paper from at least one other person outside of class.

• You will proofread this paper at least three times.

• You will run a spelling check on the final draft of this paper.

Benefits of Writing The Problem-Solving Letter

If you work hard on this assignment, you will learn some important persuasive techniques and you may be able to solve or help solve a problem that is important to you. In addition, if your letter turns out well and you mail it, you may be able to say in a job interview that you are a problem-solver — and back up the statement with the evidence that you solved a problem by writing this letter. (Don't mention that you wrote the letter for a course you were taking.) In addition, you may be able to mention in your resume and job-application letter that you solved a particular problem, and you may be able to get a letter of recommendation because you solved a particular problem.

Assignment Information

• This is your chance to improve a part of the world. You will find a real problem that exists in the world, and then you will come up with a solution and write a person with the power to solve the problem. Your letter will be focused on persuading the reader to accept your recommendation. To do so, you will present the benefits for the reader if the recommendation is implemented and the problem is solved, and you will anticipate and respond to objections that the reader is likely to raise.

• Obviously, you will use the letter format for your Problem-Solving Letter. Note: You will need to use a header listing the name of the reader, the page number, and the date on all pages after page one.

• Your letter will be between 500 to 1,000 words long (2-3 pages). Note: You must have at least two pages; you are allowed to have more than 3 pages (and more than 1,000 words).

• Your letter can be either solicited (someone has actually asked you to solve the problem) or unsolicited (no one has asked you to solve the problem).

• You must describe the problem in such a way that it is significant to the reader. (This is an important persuasive technique.)

• You must write about the benefits that will follow if your recommendation is implemented. (This is an important persuasive technique.)

• You must bring up at least one objection that the reader is likely to make, and you must rebut (that is, argue against) it. (This is an important persuasive technique.)

•Excellent examples of Problem-Solving Letters appear in today's reading and this Study Guide.

Audience

The readers of your Problem-Solving Letter will be a person at an organization that has a problem that you want to solve or help solve. It is up to you whether you actually mail this letter.

Some Important Restrictions

• Your recommendation must concern a situation in which your letter can really bring about change. You must write a real person who has the power to solve the problem.

• Your recommendation must concern the way an organization operates, not just the way one or more individuals think or behave. However, you may write a landlord or landlady.

• Your recommendation may not involve a problem that would be decided in an essentially political manner. However, you may write a local politician about a local problem.

• Don't write a letter to me or about me. Also, don't write your parents or your roommates.

• Do not plagiarize. If you quote word for word, use quotation marks and cite the source. If you paraphrase, cite the source.

Sample Problem-Solving Letter Topics

Letters Related to Work or Business.

• You may write a letter describing a way to raise profits, reduce costs, improve safety, increase customer satisfaction, or raise morale at the business where you work.

• You may recommend that a business where you work upgrade its computer capabilities.

• You may recommend ways to improve services at a coin-operated Laundromat.

Note: If you write and mail a letter on this topic, you may have something impressive to talk about in a job interview.

Letters Related to Student Organizations.

• You may write a letter that recommends a detailed strategy for increasing attendance at the meetings of a club you belong to.

• You may recommend that an organization sponsor a few social activities so that its members may get to know each other better.

Letters Related to Ohio University or Other Schools.

• You may write a letter that makes a recommendation that will solve a problem at your university or your old high school.

• You may make a recommendation that the university plant some trees where they would improve the attractiveness off the university.

• You may write about upgrading a computer lab with new equipment or programs.

• You may write a university president about adding more bicycle racks on the campus.

• You may write about adding more lights in unsafe areas of campus.

• You may write about improving the curriculum.

Letters Related to the Environment.

• You may write a letter recommending that an organization recycle its aluminum cans.

Letters Related to Housing.

• You may write your landlord or landlady recommending that some much-needed repairs be made to your apartment or house. Feel free to cite the relevant laws, such as can be found in the city code. If you are good at making home repairs, you may offer to do the work if the landlord will buy the materials. (If you offer to paint the apartment if the landlord buys the paint, you may wish to say that you will go with the landlord to pick the color — you don't want to be stuck with a ugly green that resembles pea-soup vomit.)

• Students often throw away good, usable items when they move. To help solve this problem, you may want to recommend that a big apartment building put a "free" table in its lounge. When students don't want a good, usable item, they can put it on the free table and another student can take it and use it.

Fund-Raising Letters.

Note: As in all other letters, avoid plagiarism if you write a fund-raising letter. If you are quoting word for word from literature prepared by the organization, give credit to the source.

• You may write a letter asking a business to buy an ad or make a donation.

Note: At the end of a fund-raising letter, you will have to — among other things — tell the readers what to do next. For example, you may tell the readers that you will visit or call next week to see if the readers are willing to buy an ad or make a donation. This will let the readers know that they should get ready for your visit or call. Or you may want to tell the readers that if they are willing to buy an ad or make a donation, then they should call a certain telephone number.

Letters to a Bank or Credit Card Company.

• You may write a letter about an unjust late fee you are being charged or about a mysterious fee you are being charged or about some other problem. Some of my students have been refunded late fees after writing and mailing a letter about this problem.

Letters About WWW Pages.

• You may write a letter offering to help a worthy organization by creating a WWW page for a club or a church or some other non-profit organization.

Unacceptable Topics

No Letters About Politics. You can't write a letter to a Senator about terrorism. However, you can write a letter to an airport or business suggesting ways to make the facility more secure. You may also write the city mayor about the huge potholes on your street.

One Effective Organization of a Problem-Solving Letter

• Introduction.

Identify yourself, and build common ground with the reader. The common ground you build should relate to the problem you are trying to solve. (Common ground is something you have in common with the reader.)

• Transition.

Make a smooth transition to the next part of your letter (you may wish to use the transition word "however"). You will have to decide whether to follow a direct pattern of organization (make your recommendation early) or an indirect pattern of organization (hold your recommendation until later in your paper — after you have described the problem).

• Problem. (This assumes that you will use an indirect pattern of organization.)

Present the problem in such a way that makes it significant for the reader — but be careful not to offend or to antagonize the reader.

• Recommendation.

Present the recommendation in such a way that the reader realizes that your recommendation will solve the problem — at least in part. Make sure that the recommendation will solve or help solve the problem.

• Objection(s).

Show that you understand the objection(s) that the reader is likely to raise against your recommendation.

• Rebuttal of Objection(s).

Rebut each objection. Show that the objections are not as serious as the reader thinks.

• Benefits.

Point out the benefits for the reader (or the reader's organization) if he or she accepts your recommendation.

• Conclusion.

Conclude the letter in a way that reaffirms common ground between the reader and the writer. Give your telephone number in case the reader wishes to call you to ask for more information.

Note: You will need to have ALL of the above sections in your Problem-Solving Letter. However, you can vary the structure as needed for your particular topic. For example, you can write about several problems and make several recommendations. In some cases (as when someone has asked you to solve a problem), you may decide to state the recommendation in the first paragraph of your letter.

Another Effective Organization of a Problem-Solving Letter

• Introduction.

Identify yourself, and build common ground with the reader. The common ground you build should relate to the problem you are trying to solve. (Common ground is something you have in common with the reader.)

• Transition.

Make a smooth transition to the next part of your letter (you may wish to use the transition word "however"). You will have to decide whether to follow a direct pattern of organization (make your recommendation early) or an indirect pattern of organization (hold your recommendation until later in your paper — after you have described the problem).

• Problem No. 1.

(This assumes that you will use an indirect pattern of organization.) Present the problem in such a way that makes it significant for the reader — but be careful not to offend or to antagonize the reader.

• Recommendation No. 1.

Present the recommendation in such a way that the reader realizes that your recommendation will solve the problem — at least in part.

• Objection(s) to Recommendation No. 1.

Show that you understand the objection(s) that the reader is likely to raise against your recommendation.

• Rebuttal of Objection(s) to Recommendation No. 1.

Rebut each objection. Show that the objections are not as serious as the reader thinks.

• Benefits of Recommendation No. 1.

Point out the benefits for the reader if he or she accepts your recommendation.

• Problem No. 2. (Include a transition to the second problem.)

Present the problem in such a way that makes it significant for the reader — but be careful not to offend or to antagonize the reader.

• Recommendation No. 2.

Present the recommendation in such a way that the reader realizes that following your recommendation will solve the problem — at least in part.

• Objection(s) to Recommendation No. 2.

Show that you understand the objection(s) that the reader is likely to raise against your recommendation.

• Rebuttal of Objection(s) to Recommendation No. 2.

Respond persuasively to each objection.

• Benefits of Recommendation No. 2.

Point out the benefits for the reader if he or she accepts your recommendation.

• Conclusion.

Conclude the letter in a way that reaffirms common ground between the reader and the writer. Give your telephone number in case the reader wishes to call you to ask for more information.

Advice for Problem-Solving Letters: Important Persuasive Techniques

1. Show that the problem is significant to your reader.

The problem is probably a problem for you, but show that it is also a problem for the reader. G.K. Chesterton once said, "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." By making the problem significant to the reader, you will help the reader to see the problem.

2. Present yourself as helping the reader.

Present yourself as a problem-solver and as someone who wishes to help the reader achieve his or her goals.

3. Emphasize the benefits for the reader of solving the problem.

Chances are, you will benefit if the reader solves the problem; however, the reader is more likely to solve the problem if the reader will benefit.

4. State your qualifications.

Establish your credibility by mentioning your experience, if relevant, or by mentioning your education, if relevant. Mention any special qualifications you have to solve the problem. For example, if you have worked at the company that has the problem, you have credibility because of your experience. Some of the courses in your major at a university may give you good ideas for solving a problem; if so, mention that you are studying this major at a university.

5. Mention and rebut one or more objections that will occur to the reader.

This means to think about the reader's objections to what you recommend, then to show that the objections are not as significant as the reader thinks.

6. Don't rip the reader apart.

This assignment is not about ripping your reader apart; it is a persuasive letter recommending ways to solve a problem. If you insult your reader, your recommendation won't be accepted. Be professional.

7. Be sure that you can do everything you promise.

If you say that you and your roommates will build a deck if the landlord gives you the materials, be sure that you and your roommates can and will build the deck if the landlord gives you the materials.

"How Much Does He Need?"

Long ago, Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski decided to go to medical school despite having a wife and two children (and a third child on its way). He managed to pay the bills, including tuition, for a while, but in the middle of his third year, he was no longer able to do so. In addition, he was deep in debt. However, his wife called him and told him that comedian Danny Thomas had pledged $4,000 to help him finish medical school. Mr. Thomas had met with officials from Marquette University, and they had told him about a Rabbi who needed financial help to get through medical school. Mr. Thomas asked, "How much money does he need?" Hearing the answer — $4,000 — he said, "Tell your Rabbi he's got it." Mr. Thomas is a Christian, but he generously helped a Jew. Rabbi Abraham says, "Who would think of a less likely combination: a Lebanese Christian and a Chassidic Rabbi?"

"Even A Child Knows That"

Bai Juyi went to Zen master Daolin of the Tang Dynasty and asked what one must do in order to live in accord with the Tao. Daolin answered, "One must avoid doing evil, and one must do as much good as possible." Bai Juyi was surprised at the simplicity of this answer and said, "Even a child knows that." "True," replied Daolin, "even a child of three knows this but even a man of 80 fails to live up to it."

Homework Assignment Due Class 3

Hand in a typed 1-page memo (To: Your Teacher) about your Problem-Solving Letter. In the memo, tell me briefly 1) about the problem(s) you will write about, and 2) what you will recommend to solve the problem(s). In addition, tell me 3) the reader of your Problem-Solving Letter. Be sure to use the proper memo format. Be sure to proofread your memo.

Do NOT give me a copy of your Problem-Solving Letter.

Sample Memo

To: David Bruce

From: Alison Goodstudent (3-5 p.m. MW; ENG 308J)

Re: Topic of Problem-Solving Letter

Date: April 15, 2010

For my problem-solving letter, I will be writing to my landlord: Supreme Rentals. My three roommates and I have lived in the house for almost a year, and some repairs need to be made:

1. The upstairs shower leaks constantly, raising our water bill.

2. The railing on the back porch is broken, creating a health hazard. Someone who does not know that the railing is broken could lean on it, fall, and be injured.

3. The roof leaks, causing damage to the kitchen ceiling.

The owner of Supreme Rentals is Don Wilson, whom I can praise for having replaced our refrigerator when the old one broke and could not be repaired. He is a good guy, and I feel that he will accept my recommendations.

Sample Problem-Solving Letter

Charles Adams

89 Mill St.

Athens, OH 45701

September 28, 2006

Tom Cullen, President

Johnson Metal Products, Inc.

426 State St.

Northbend, OH 45248

Dear Tom,

I want to start off by thanking you for the employment opportunity you gave me in the summer of 2002. As you know, it was so great an experience that I worked for Johnson for the next three summers and over a holiday break. I can honestly say that working at Johnson was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. While there, I learned all the trades of the metal fabricating business. However, I believe a few things could make Johnson an even better company.

While I was employed at Johnson, one of my responsibilities was to load and unload shipments in the shipping yard. I have identified three problems related to this area:

1) One problem the truck drivers always complained about was how hard it was to find Johnson. I know a sign is out front, but it is barely visible to a passing truck. Even if the driver did happen to see the sign, he or she would not know where the shipping yard is located. If the truck drivers cannot find the sign, then possible customers driving by also cannot find the sign.

2) The second problem the drivers complained about is the erosion that is occurring on the hill near the back of the property. After it rains, mud and sand slide down onto the gravel driveway and make it hard for trucks to back onto the loading bay and turn around.

3) The third and final problem is occasional vandals and neighborhood kids cutting through the back lot. If one of these kids were to be hurt on the back lot, the result could be a lawsuit against Johnson.

The problem of a good sign could be solved relatively easily. Workers could make the frame and base for the sign in the shop. Johnson would not have to cut back on day-to-day production. A few workers in the shop could make the sign when business is slow for a week or a few days. Another added bonus is the stockpile of parts Johnson carries. If we simply use materials from the stockpile to assemble the sign, we would not have to buy materials. The only real cost would come from hiring a painter or designer to put the logo for Johnson on the sign along with "Shipping in Rear" in letters that would be clearly visible to the truck drivers. Once the new sign is put up, the secretary and the rest of the staff in the office would not have to constantly answer the truck drivers' questions of "Is this the right place?" and "Where do I go to unload?"

My second suggestion involves the installation of a retaining wall to stop the erosion into the shipping yard. This idea will cost the company more money than it will to install the sign, but it will fix an important problem. Recently, Johnson has added revenue from good sales, so now would be a good time to make these repairs. A retaining wall will also have a few advantages. First, the retaining wall will make more room for supplies and trailers in the shipping yard. Second, the additional space created by the retaining wall will allow trucks to get in and out more efficiently. Finally, of course, it will solve the problem of the mud and sand sliding down onto the gravel driveway.

My final suggestion deals with the shipping yard being used as a shortcut by neighborhood children. A retaining wall will give us enough room to extend the security fence. After the addition of the retaining wall, we can extend the security fence to close off the entire shipping yard and the rear of the building. This will keep neighborhood children from cutting through the shipping yard. As you know, the night guards have had to run neighborhood children off Johnson' property after the children have been caught climbing on trailers and other equipment. The security fence will keep vandals off Johnson' property, and it will keep children from getting hurt on Johnson' property. If Johnson is not careful, a child could get hurt on Johnson' property, and a lawsuit could be brought against Johnson. Extending the security fence will eliminate any possibility of this.

My suggestions will benefit Johnson in many ways. People driving by will be able to easily read a sign that may bring in new business and will enable truck drivers to find the loading dock more easily. Installing a retaining wall and extending the security fence around the back will definitely make the shipping safer. Keeping the neighborhood children off Johnson' property decreases the chance of a child becoming injured and a lawsuit being filed against Johnson.

Thank you for the wonderful and valuable opportunity you have given me as an employee at Johnson. I have learned many priceless skills that will help me in my future endeavors. In addition, thank you for taking time out of your day to consider some of my suggestions for making Johnson a better company.

If you have any questions about my suggestions, I would love to talk to you. Feel free to call me anytime at (740) 555-3421.

Sincerely,

Charles Adams

Questions:

1. Does the writer open his or her letter in a way that encourages openness to his or her letter? If so, how?

2. What are the problems that the writer describes? Are they described well?

3. Does the writer make the problems significant to the reader? If so, how?

4. Which solutions does the writer recommend? Would they solve or help solve the problem?

5. Which objections does the writer rebut? Has he or she done a good job of rebutting them?

6. What are the benefits of accepting the writer's recommendations?

7. Is the writer's conclusion professional? If so, how?

8. Has the writer written a persuasive letter? If so, how?

9. Has the writer shown professionalism in his or her business letter? If so, how?

Note: These questions can be asked about all of the Problem-Solving Letters that appear in this document.
CHAPTER 2: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Setting Goals, Analyzing Audience, and Thinking Ethically (Class 2)

Problem-Solving: Gifts

Comedian Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand played her in the movie Funny Girl) had a favorite friend from her Ziegfeld Follies days: a woman nicknamed Penny. Fanny continued in show business and made big bucks, but Penny got out of show business. Fanny enjoyed buying Penny gifts of expensive designer clothing, but she worried that Penny would feel bad about accepting the gifts of clothing when she saw the labels and realized how expensive the designer clothing was. What can Fanny do to make Penny think that the gifts of clothing are not expensive? More than one effective solution may exist.

How Do I Set the Goals for and Analyze the Audience of a Communication?

The Writing Process

• Setting Your Goals: Determining the goals of the communication.

• Planning: Figuring out how to write the communication so that it meets its goals, and doing research.

• Drafting: Creating the text and/or visual aids.

• Evaluating

• Checking: In checking, you do your own evaluating.

• Reviewing: In reviewing, you ask someone else to evaluate your draft.

• Testing: If you use a performance test to test a Set of Instructions, you give the Instructions to the reader and have the reader perform the procedure while you watch. This can help you figure out how to improve your Instructions.

• Revising: Rewriting the communication so that it can better meet its goals. (Note that revision must be followed by another evaluation.)

Audience Analysis: Muzak

"There are so many songs out there that if I listened to just one I'd never know whether it was Muzak or not," [Dana] McKelvey, who is twenty-six years old, and has the kind of soft, persuasive voice that would sound good on late-night radio, told me. "But I could tell if I listened to the flow of a few. The key is consistency. How did those songs connect? What story did they tell? Why is this song after that song, and why is that one after that one? When we make a program, we pay a lot of attention to the way songs segue. It's not like songs on the radio, or songs on a CD. Take Armani Exchange. Shoppers there are looking for clothes that are hip and chic and cool. They're twenty-five to thirty-five years old, and they want something to wear to a party or a club, and as they shop they want to feel like they're already there. So you make the store sound like the coolest bar in town. You think about that when you pick the songs, and you pay special attention to the sequencing, and then you cross-fade and beat-match and never break the momentum, because you want the program to sound like a d.j.'s mix." She went on, "For Ann Taylor, you do something completely different. The Ann Taylor woman is conservative, not edgy, and she really couldn't care less about segues. She wants everything bright and positive and optimistic and uplifting, so you avoid offensive themes and lyrics, and you think about Sting and Celine Dion, and you leave a tiny space between the songs or gradually fade out and fade in."

Source: <http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060410fa_fact>.

More Audience Analysis: Muzak

A business's background music is like an aural pheromone. It attracts some customers and repels others, and it gives pedestrians walking past the front door an immediate clue about whether they belong inside. A chain like J.C. Penney, whose huge customer base includes all ages and income levels, needs a program that will make everyone feel welcome, so its soundtrack contains familiar and relatively unassertive popular songs like "Kind and Generous," by Natalie Merchant. The Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, which appeals to a more narrowly focused audience, plays "Girls, Girls, Girls," by Mötley Crüe, and cranks up the volume. (Imagine how teen-agers would perceive the jeans and t-shirts at Abercrombie & Fitch — not a Muzak client — if those stores played country-and-Western hits.) Audio architects have to keep all this in mind as they build their programs. They also have to be aware of certain broad truths about background music: bass solos are difficult to hear, extended electric-guitar solos annoy male sports-bar customers, drum solos annoy almost everyone, and Bob Dylan's harmonica can make it hard for office workers to concentrate. Audio architects also have to screen lyrics carefully. They removed the INXS hit "Devil Inside" from many of the company's playlists after a devout Christian complained, and they are ever vigilant for the word "funk," which almost everyone mistakes for something else.

Source: <http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060410fa_fact>.

Important Questions for Setting Goals And Analyzing Audience

• What is the major goal of your document?

Why are you writing the document? What do you hope to accomplish by writing your document?

If you are writing a Problem-Solving Letter, the major goal you hope to achieve is that your recommendation is accepted and the problem is completely or partially solved.

If you are writing a Set of Instructions, the major goal you hope to achieve is that the readers are able to perform the procedure you are writing about.

If you are writing a Letter to the Editor to complain about a politician's vote, the major goal you hope to achieve is that the readers will understand why you think the politician's vote is bad. One way to do that is to present evidence for why the politician's vote is bad.

If you are writing a Memo about a new policy, the major goal you hope to achieve is that the readers obey the new policy.

If you are writing an Employee Manual, the major goal you hope to achieve is that the readers will understand the policies and procedures of the company and that they will obey the policies and correctly perform the procedures.

• Who will read your document, including those to whom it is not addressed?

Sometimes people will read your document although it is not addressed to them. E.g., lawyers may read your document.

Future Readers: They will read the communication in the future. If you think a communication will be read in the future, you may want to include background information that will make the communication intelligible to future readers. (You are a future reader of your diary, so be sure to include enough information that 20 years from now, you will remember the people and events you write about now.)

Complex Audiences: For example, a complex audience can include people on all levels of the hierarchy: higher than you, on the same level as you, and lower than you.

Remember that documents can appear in a court of law.

• What are the roles of your target readers?

Major roles include being decision-makers, advisors, and implementers.

Decision-Makers: They make decisions.

Advisers: They advise the decision-makers.

Implementers: They follow orders.

When you write a Resume and a Job-Application Letter, you are writing for decision-makers. They will decide whether to interview you.

When you write a Problem-Solving Letter, you are writing for decision-makers. They must decide whether to solve the problem and whether to accept your recommendation.

When you write a Set of Instructions, you are writing for implementers. They will follow the step-by-step directions you write.

When you write an Employee Manual, you are writing for implementers. They will obey the policies and follow the step-by-step directions you write.

• What are some other characteristics of your readers?

Are they familiar with your topic?

Topics may include company inventory levels, a safety problem on the first floor, employee morale on the night shift, problems with computer software, etc. If your reader is unfamiliar with your topic, you will need to provide background information.

Are they familiar with the specialized knowledge that you have?

You will need to define or explain specialized terms that the reader does not know. This also includes other specialized knowledge that you have but the readers do not, such as computer knowledge.

What is their relationship with you?

You will write to a boss differently from the way you would write to a subordinate.

• How do you want to change your readers' attitudes?

In your next communication, how will you want to change your readers' attitudes? You will always want the reader to think you are competent. Ways to do that include proofreading carefully, answering the readers' questions, and providing evidence as needed.

In your Resume and Job-Application Letter, you attempt to persuade the readers that you are capable, responsible, and pleasant.

In your Problem-Solving Letter, you may need to persuade the reader that a problem that is significant to them exists. In addition, you need to persuade the reader that your recommendation will solve or help solve the problem.

In your Set of Instructions, you may need to persuade the readers to follow your Instructions instead of trying to figure out everything on their own. One way to do that is to list the benefits of reading the Set of Instructions.

• What are the important questions your readers will want you to answer?

Once you know the readers' important questions, be sure to answer them in your communication.

For example, if you are announcing a new company policy, employees will want to know when the new policy goes into effect.

• What is the context in which your readers will read your document?

A landlord who recently wrote a large check to the Internal Revenue Service will probably not want to spend a lot of money on repairs.

Advice: Ask others to help you understand your readers and the context in which they will read.

You may want to ask others for assistance. For example, the readers themselves can tell you what they need in a certain report. If you can't talk to the readers, you may be able to talk to someone who has written this kind of report for those readers in the past, or you may be able to talk to someone who knows the readers well and knows what the readers will want in the communication.

• How will your readers use the information you provide?

If you ask the readers to do several things for you, you can help the readers by putting the tasks in a checklist. That way, the readers can check off each task as it is completed.

If the readers need to compare two things, such as an electric and a propane forklift, the alternating pattern helps the reader most. If the readers need to look up information about one thing only, then the divided pattern helps the readers most.

Divided pattern: Write about the electric forklift first, then write about the propane forklift.

Alternating pattern: Alternate between descriptions of the forklifts, according to criteria such as cost, safety, warranties, etc.

• Who are the stakeholders?

Stakeholders are people who will be affected by the document — they will gain or lose because of what you write. Of course, the readers are stakeholders, but often people who are not your readers will have a stake in what you write. For example, if you have the responsibility of recommending a pesticide for your company to use, and you discover that two pesticides are equally cost effective, but that one is better for the environment, you should consider all the people who will be affected by your recommendation (including unborn generations) and recommend the pesticide that is better for the environment.

Identifying all the stakeholders can be difficult.

• Is your document ethical?

Consider the effect of your document on the stakeholders. Will it affect them positively or negatively?

An excellent way to get the answer to this question is to talk directly to the stakeholders, if possible. For example, the Department of Transportation will hold public meetings to discuss the possible route a new road will take. Citizens show up at the public meetings to support or oppose the new route.

Consider the consequences of the communication. Will the consequences be good or bad?

Consider the legality and morality of the communication. Is it breaking any legal or ethical rules?

• Is your document legal?

What is legal and what is ethical are not necessarily the same. For example, at one time in the United States slavery was legal in several states. Still, ordinarily we want to do what is legal, especially in the case of just laws. If you ever do anything illegal, you should have a good reason for it. For example, abolitionists opposed slavery and many abolitionists helped slavers to escape to freedom.

• Do any special circumstances or preferences need to be considered?

For example, is morale low recently because of a lack of profit sharing?

Some readers prefer a formal writing style, while other readers prefer an informal writing style. Some readers prefer short words to long words, etc. Some readers (such as your teacher) dislike the word "utilize." They prefer the word "use."

Sample Excellent Problem-Solving Letter

Amanda N. Sidoti

350 Hunting Road

Maplewood, OH 44444

January 29, 2008

Mr. Eddie Smith, Owner

Eddie's Creekside Restaurant

8803 Maple Road

Maplewood, OH 44444

Dear Mr. Smith:

As you know, I worked at your restaurant during my last three years of high school and over my winter break. I just want to start by thanking you for giving me such a positive work experience. From working at your restaurant for so long, I have developed many different friendships and responsible social and work skills that have helped me grow over the years. I enjoyed coming to work because your business was run so well. Because I have worked for you for so long, I feel I can give you my opinion about some issues that came up while I was there. These suggestions may help please your employees and customers, and they may improve the overall structure of your business.

In my opinion, the biggest problem that occurred over the years was closing and opening the restaurant. When I first started working as a hostess, a lot of the servers would leave it up to the hostesses to do their closing work for them. The servers would not roll the correct amount of silverware, leaving the hostesses to have to do it for them when the restaurant was mobbed. This caused a lot of chaos and left the hostesses focusing on things other than the customers waiting to be seated. When I started serving, I found that some of the servers would just leave when their shift was up. Occasionally the servers would not wrap the line in the kitchen while others did not clean up the back servers' station properly. This left it up to the closing servers, using more work and more time. I believe that we can solve these problems.

First, you can have more than two servers come in and open the restaurant. If four servers come in an hour before the restaurant opens, it will ensure that all the jobs are done correctly before the customers arrive. A list can be made for each server who arrives in the morning to guarantee all duties are done. The list can then be signed by the employee and checked by the manager to make sure all the jobs have been done correctly. As for closing, you can have a manager walk around to make sure that each employee did their fair share in closing work before allowing them to leave. Again, another list can be prepared for each server with duties to complete before they leave to ensure everything is done properly. This will help satisfy each employee because all of the jobs will be distributed evenly and will avoid craziness during restaurant hours. I have enclosed sample to-do lists that can be handed out to each employee when they arrive.

My next proposal to increase the efficiency of the restaurant would be to hand out monthly surveys to the customers. By doing this, you would be allowing the customers to give their input on how they think the restaurant is being run. For example, I have had numerous customers tell me that the blueberry pancakes should be permanently placed on the menu. If you were to hand out a monthly survey, you would be able to see what the customers like and dislike. I think the best way to get the surveys to the customers would be to place them in the book with their check. I have enclosed a sample survey to give you an idea of what to ask customers. This will improve the way customers view your business. If they know you are making changes because of their suggestions, they will feel that you are running your business to please the customers. The patrons may also give a suggestion about the service, allowing you to know how your employees are doing. If someone writes they did not feel they had good service, then you can talk with that employee to see what was going on. If you hand out the survey at the end of every month, you can then arrange to have monthly meetings giving your employees the heads up on how they are doing. A monthly meeting would also be a good idea because it will allow your employees to express their thoughts on how they feel things are going. This will help keep all your employees on the same page and keep the business running smoothly.

My last suggestion is to keep watch to see how each of your employees is doing. If they are getting many positive comments on their service, they should be rewarded in some way. I am saying this because I worked there for over three years and was never given a raise. I had many different customers compliment my work to the managers, but I was never rewarded. I believe it should not be up to the employees to ask for a raise, but it should be given upon good work. I enjoyed my job, which was why it did not really bother me, but as I look back, I feel bad. I think that the best way to solve this problem would be to give a raise to employees every six months if they are doing a good job. By doing this, you are being fair to all your employees.

My suggestions will help benefit Eddie's Creekside in many ways. Making a list of opening and closing duties will help the restaurant run more efficiently at the beginning and end of the day. This is going to ensure that everything is done by the time the restaurant opens. By handing out monthly surveys, you are able to see how your customers think you are doing. If you are getting a lot of suggestions to change something about your menu, then it would be beneficial to your business to do so. Lastly, if you give your employees a raise every six months or so, you will be pleasing your staff and giving them motivation to do their job properly. This will also help keep fairness throughout your business so that everyone feels as though they are being treated the same.

Thank you for giving me such a positive work experience over the years. I have learned the value of responsibility and gained many communication skills that I will use in my future accomplishments. It is still always a pleasure to come into the restaurant for breakfast on Sunday mornings to see all of the regular customers. In closing, I would like to thank you for taking the time to consider some of my suggestions about making Eddie's Creekside a better company.

If you have any questions about my propositions or would like to meet and further discuss my suggestions, feel free to call me anytime at (440) 999-9999.

Sincerely,

Amanda Sidoti

Enclosures: Sample to-do list for opening and closing shifts, sample survey

Opening Shift

____ Turn lights and radio on

____ Start coffee and make iced tea

____ Unwrap the line in the kitchen

____ Put the dressing in ice

____ Check the stock

____ Put jelly, cream, and sugar caddies on tables

____ Put silverware on each table of section

____ Cut up lemons and limes

____ Write out daily specials on board

Server______________________________

Manager____________________________

Closing Shift

____ Wrap, change, and refill line

____ Check jelly, cream, and sugar caddies

____ Wipe down all tables and booths in section

____ Clean back server's station

____ Dump iced tea

____ Change and refill dressing and wrap

____ Wash trays

____ Turn off lights and music

____ Bleach the sinks

Server______________________________

Manager____________________________

Sample Survey: Please leave survey with server or leave at hostess stand. Thank you!

1. What would you like to see changed in the restaurant?

2. Is there anything you would like permanently on our menu?

3. How do you feel your service was today?

4. Any other suggestions?
CHAPTER 3: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Planning Persuasive Strategies (Class 3)

Problem-Solving: Hunting

Occasionally, farmers run into a problem during hunting season: Hunters mistake the farmers' cows for deer, and they shoot them. How can farmers solve this problem? Come to class (on time) and find out.

Homework Due Today: Hand in a typed 1-page memo telling me the reader of your Problem-Solving Letter. Also, tell me briefly about the problem(s) and what you will recommend to solve the problem(s). Proofread carefully. Do NOT give me a copy of your Problem-Solving Letter.

Problem-Solving Memo

Today, you will hand in a typed 1-page memo (To: Your Teacher) about your Problem-Solving Letter. In the memo, tell me briefly 1) about the problem(s) you will write about, and 2) what you will recommend to solve the problem(s). In addition, tell me 3) the reader of your Problem-Solving Letter. Be sure to use the proper memo format. Be sure to proofread your memo.

Did you remember to do these things:

• Tell your teacher the topic of your letter?

• Tell your teacher the reader of your letter?

• Choose a problem that concerns an organization? (You can't write your roommate and recommend that he or she take more showers or wash dishes more often.)

• Tell your teacher (briefly) what you will recommend to solve or help solve the problem?

• Address the memo to your teacher?

•Put the hyphen in the phrase "problem-solving letter"?

• Avoid wordiness. For example, usually "there are, " "there is," and "it is" are wordy and can be deleted.

Wordy: There are three problems that must be solved.

Not wordy: Three problems must be solved.

Wordy: There were holes in the walls.

Not Wordy: Holes were in the walls.

Wordy: There are three recommendations I would like to make: 1)...

Not wordy: Here are my three recommendations: 1)...

Sample Memo

To: Your Teacher

From: Ben Goodstudent (3-5 p.m. MW; ENG 305J)

Re: Topic of Problem-Solving Letter

Date: April 15, 2010

For my problem-solving letter, I will be writing to the Top Performance Fitness Center in Shady Heights, OH. My letter will be directed to John Collins, who is the founder, owner, and CEO. This is the business where I worked part-time during the first two years I was out of high school. Top Performance is an independently owned and operated fitness club that also has an outdoor pool, tennis courts, workout room, group fitness room, and personal training center. It is a large building that seems to be constantly undergoing changes in order to better make use of the space it has available. In my two years of employment at Top Performance, I worked various jobs, from serving as an assistant personal trainer to building maintenance and everything in between. Perhaps my favorite title was operator of the facility's new smoothie bar. Working in various areas of the club allowed me to see just about every inch of the building and its surrounding outdoor area, and it allowed me to develop an understanding of what the members liked and did not like.

For the most part, Top Performance is excellently organized and run; however, I will make three recommendations to solve three problems. First, I will recommend keeping the upstairs fitness room stocked with fresh towels and disinfectant spray at all times. Second, the smoothie bar is in a poor location to make money. Right now, it's practically hidden in the back of the club. Therefore, I will recommend that it be moved to a better location in the front of the club. Lastly, I will recommend having the growth of weeds and brush outside of the side door removed.

Two Notes on Problem-Solving

1. You may be able to solve some problems yourself — at least partially — instead of waiting for a landlord to take care of them. For example, during winter many students' apartments have low temperatures and high heating bills. You can save money by buying plastic to put over windows and by doing what you can to winterize your apartment. It's very worthwhile spending $30 of your own money to winterize your apartment if you can save $120 or $200 on your heating bill. In addition, if the lock on a door is not safe, you may want to invest a few dollars in a chain lock.

2. You may wish to keep writing Problem-Writing Letters after this assignment is over. If you write one short Problem-Solving Letter each week, you will get a very good education in solving problems.

Ethics

Is it ethical to take credit for someone else's idea when writing a problem-solving letter?

Let's say that an employee has been asked to solve a problem at work, and that Maria Smith in Accounting has a really good idea for solving that problem. Should the employee give Maria Smith credit for the idea when the employee writes a memo about solving the problem?

• What would happen if everyone were to do what you are thinking of doing?

• Would you want done to you what you are thinking of doing to other people?

• What are the consequences of the action you are thinking about doing?

How Do I Plan My Persuasive Strategies?

Advice for Planning Your Persuasive Strategies

1. Emphasize the benefits for your readers.

Many or most organizations have these goals:

• Increase profits

• Increase income

• Reduce costs

• Improve products

• Keep employee morale high

• Make work environment safer

• Make work environment more pleasant

• Increase customer satisfaction

In some cases, you may not be able to stress organizational goals in your Problem-Solving Letter, but you may be able to stress the other benefits for the person reading your letter. For example, people want to help, not harm, the environment, so if you are writing about implementing a recycling program for aluminum cans in your apartment complex, you can stress that this recycling project will help the environment.

2. Rebut your readers' objections.

Be careful to rebut objections that are unlikely to occur to the reader.

For example, a landlord may think that your recommendation to fix the roof of your apartment will cost too much, but you may rebut the objection of cost by pointing out that a landlord will save money in the long run by making the repairs now or that the cost of the repairs will not be as high as the landlord thinks.

Be careful not to mention an objection that is unlikely to occur to the reader. If you do, the reader may be persuaded by the objection. This means that the reader could reject your recommendation.

3. Organize persuasively.

You must decide when to state your recommendation: early or late in your letter.

You may want to state your recommendation early in your document, then present your argument, evidence, or other information. If you have been asked to solve a problem, you can state your recommendation early in your document. Your reader(s) are already aware that a problem exists, and they want to know what you recommend to solve the problem.

You may want to postpone your recommendation until after you have presented your argument, evidence, or other information. For example, if the reader is unaware of the problem, you will have to inform the reader about the problem before you make a recommendation. Another example: When announcing a new smoking ban inside he buildings of a company that manufactures fitness exercise equipment, you should first explain why allowing smoking anywhere at any time is not a good policy for this company and why smoking will not be allowed in private offices and then you should announce the smoking ban. If you simply announce the smoking ban in the "Re" line or before making the above points, you will cause an unnecessary immediate negative reaction in the readers.

Which pattern of organization should you use in your Problem-Solving Letter? This will depend upon your reader. If your reader is likely to feel threatened by your recommendation, use the indirect pattern. If your reader is likely to have a favorable reaction to your recommendation, use the direct pattern.

4. State your qualifications.

By all means, state your qualifications. For example, if you are writing about increasing profits at a company, you may establish credibility by mentioning how long you have worked there. In some cases, your major at your university may help establish your credibility.

5. Persuade ethically.

Strategies for employing ethical persuasive techniques:

1. Don't mislead or manipulate. (For example, by leaving out important information.)

2. Think win-win.

3. Argue from human values. (Point out the effect of a recommendation or decision on humans, not just on profits.)

4. Consider all the stakeholders.

5. Consider the effect the document can have on the environment and future generations.

A Note on Research

If you are writing a landlord about a house or an apartment in a town or city, you may want to quote the city code, especially if the house or apartment is in violation of the code. Sometimes, you may find the city code online. If you quote the city code, you will be giving the landlord useful information. In addition, you may be subtly making a persuasive point: If you want, you can get the landlord in trouble by reporting the violation(s). (Don't write that you will report the violation unless you think it is necessary; this should be a non-confrontational letter.)

Assignment

Make a copy of the worksheet on the following pages and use it to set the goals of your Problem-Solving Letter, to analyze the audience of your Problem-Solving Letter, to ensure that your Problem-Solving Letter is ethical, to plan some persuasive strategies that you can use in your Problem-Solving Letter, and to plan to give the readers of your Problem-Solving Letter the information they need.

Worksheet: Setting Goals, Analyzing Audience, and Thinking Ethically

Topic, Purpose, and Final Result

What are you writing? What is the communication's topic?

Why are you writing the communication (other than it's a course requirement)? What is the communication's purpose?

What outcome (final result) do you desire? After the target audience reads the communication, what do you want to happen?

Target Audience and Other Readers

Who are your primary readers? Who is your target audience?

What is your readers' relationship to you? Do your readers know you?

What are your readers' job titles and responsibilities? Are your readers decision makers, advisors, or implementers?

Who else might read your communication? Sometimes, people who are not in your target audience will read what you wrote.

How familiar are your readers with your subject? Do you need to provide any background information?

How familiar are your readers with your specialty — knowledge you learned in your major? Will your readers be familiar with the words and concepts you use?

What is your readers' attitude toward your subject? Why? What do you want it to be?

What is your readers' attitude toward you? Why? What do you want it to be?

What events and circumstances influence the way you should write? For example, knowing that the reader has just written a large check to the IRS may make it difficult to persuade the reader to spend money.

How will your readers use the information you provide? For example, if you are writing a Set of Instructions, you will want to use numbered steps and you will want to be sure that your Set of Instructions can lie flat (don't use a binding that forces the reader to close the Sets of Instructions when not actually reading them) because readers will read a step, then perform the step, and then find and read the next step.

Readers' Questions

What are the important questions your readers will want you to answer in the communication?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Stakeholders: Identify all the stakeholders.

Who, besides your readers and yourself, are the stakeholders in your communication? (Stake- holders are people who will be affected by your communication.) In the next section, you will answer this question: How will the stakeholders be affected by your communication?

Ethics: Determine if your communication is ethical.

Is this communication ethical?

• Would you want done to you what you are thinking of doing to other people?

• What are the consequences of the action you are thinking about doing? (Be sure to consider the consequences for all the stakeholders.)

• Are there any other ethical considerations that you should take into account? (For example, effect on the environment? Effect on future generations? Does the action you are considering doing involve breaking any ethical rules that are important to you? Are your persuasive strategies ethical?)

Legality: Determine whether your communication is legal.

For example, if you are making a recommendation, is the recommended action legal?

Strategies for Achieving Your Goals

What are some strategies you can use to make your communication persuasive? What arguments will you use? What persuasive points will you make? (For example, telling the benefits for the readers is persuasive.)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

What are some strategies you can use to make sure your communication gives the readers the information they need? (For example, you will provide answers for all the readers' important questions that you listed earlier, but are there any other questions you should answer?) What informative points do you need to make? How can you make it easy for the readers to use the information you provide? (For example, using headings makes it easy to find information.) Make notes about anything else you have learned from filling out this worksheet. (For example, how long should the communication be? Should the tone be formal or informal?)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Note: This Worksheet is based on the work of Paul Anderson, author of Technical Communication.

Sample Excellent Problem-Solving Letter

Shannon White

100 West Green

Boyd Hall Rm. 324

Athens, Ohio 45701

January 31, 2008

Michael McMann, Dietary Manager

Western Care Center

4110 East Western Road

Western, Ohio 44444

Dear Mike,

Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your wonderful staff at Smithville Western Care Center (SWCC) for the past six months. I have gained meaningful experience and exposure that I will never forget. While there, I have learned much about being a dietary aide and what it takes to be a part of a team. However, I believe that a few changes could be made in the Dietary Department that will provide SWCC with a safer environment for residents and employees.

As you know, I was a part of the Dietary Department during my employment at SWCC and some of my duties were to load, deliver and retrieve carts that carried the residents' meals. I have noticed that while taking a cart through the building, it is difficult to see what is around me because the carts are taller and wider than I am. The carts are also stainless steel, which makes it impossible to see in front of me. I am concerned about the safety of the residents and the other employees. In order to see around the cart, I have to continually shift my head to the extreme left and right to ensure the safety of the residents living there.

In order to eliminate this problem, larger wheels, two clear plastic doors and a mirror on the top of each existing stainless steel cart could be added. This will create a safer and more comfortable environment for the staff and the residents.

First, adding larger wheels to each existing cart will make it easier for employees, like myself, to control the cart. The current wheels are small in diameter and they swivel in undesired directions, due to bearing failure in the castor. This makes the cart difficult to handle when trying to make a smooth turn around a corner. The wider wheels will make the cart more stable, which would eliminate the chance of a cart tipping over. When employees take a cart through a doorway, metal strips on the floor cause an employee to have to lift one side of the cart. The larger wheels will prevent the employee from having to lift the cart. This could prevent serious back problems, which could result in lawsuits. Each wheel will cost $45.66, and I have enclosed an informational sheet about the new wheels to clarify which type of wheel I am suggesting.

Second, adding two clear plastic doors to each existing cart would allow employees to view the resident's slip on each tray, so that they may deliver each tray in a more timely manner. As the carts are now, the Dietary Aide must open the doors to see where to deliver the cart. If the new doors were implemented, they could just look through the door to the slip on the tray and eliminate the chance of any germs entering the cart. The specifications of the doors that I am recommending are Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Compliant, which means that they are going to be more resistant to germs and bacteria than the current stainless steel doors. The new doors can also be scrubbed down to remove stains and spills, which show that the doors are also resistant to wear. Each door will cost $18.16, and I have enclosed an informational sheet about these doors so you may review any details that I have not covered.

Finally, I recommend that SWCC add a mirror on the top of each cart. I think that the mirror would be most effective if it was mounted on the top left of each cart. This would make the job more efficient because it would take less time for an employee to take a cart to their destination. I realize that it is hard for residents to move out of the way when they see us coming towards them with a cart, because they are confined to wheelchairs. The employee would not have to stop the cart to look around and make sure no residents are in the way. The employee may simply look up into the mirror and their problem will be solved. This type of mirror will cost $70.23 according to the informational sheet that I have enclosed. You will find other useful information here about the mirror.

As an employee, my duty is to prevent any serious incidents from happening. The changes that I have recommended will benefit Smithville Western Care Center in more ways than one. I feel that making these important changes will create a safer and more effective work environment. It may seem as though this will cost too much, but I think the company will be saving money by preventing injury to employees and the residents. Therefore, there should be minimal chances of a lawsuit from ever happening due to this type of activity.

A fourth enclosure is a spreadsheet showing the cost of updating each cart. If you choose to update only a few carts instead of all five, I have listed the price of each product along with the quantity needed. I hope you find this useful when making your final decision.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about my suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail at sw985704@ohio.edu or by phone at (614) 444-2121. Thank you again for the valuable experience I have gained from working at Smithville Western Care Center. In addition, thank you for taking the time to consider my suggestions.

Sincerely,

Shannon White

Enclosures

[Note that Shannon White has the word "Enclosures" at the end of her letter because she enclosed some informational sheets and a spreadsheet. You will not need to write "Enclosure" or "Enclosures" at the end of your letter unless in fact you have one or more enclosures.]
CHAPTER 4: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Planning to Give Information to Readers (Class 4)

Problem-Solving: Foreign Food

Ballerina Nora Kaye ran into a problem while performing in a foreign country. She simply did not like a lot of the food served in the country. One day, she and a friend were invited to eat dinner by a citizen of the foreign country. How can Nora Kaye attend the dinner, yet decline to eat some of the food while still practicing good etiquette? More than one effective solution may exist.

How Do I Plan to Give My Readers the Information They Need?

The Writing Process

• Setting Your Goals: Determining the goals of the communication.

• Planning: Figuring out how to write the communication so that it meets its goals, and doing research.

• Drafting: Creating the text and/or visual aids.

• Evaluating

• Checking: In checking, you do your own evaluating.

• Reviewing: In reviewing, you ask someone else to evaluate your draft.

• Testing: If you use a performance test to test a Set of Instructions, you give the Instructions to the reader and have the reader perform the procedure while you watch. This can help you figure out how to improve your Instructions.

• Revising: Rewriting the communication so that it can better meet its goals. (Note that revision must be followed by another evaluation.)

Planning to give your readers the information they need will help you to enable your readers to locate, understand, and use the information and ideas they need from you.

Advice For Planning To Give Your Readers The Information They Need

1. Answer your readers' important questions.

For example, if you are writing a Problem-Solving Letter about a problem at work, ask yourself whether your reader is aware that this particular problem exists. If your reader is unaware of this particular problem, you will need to present background information about the problem so that the reader's questions are answered.

For example, if you are writing Instructions about how to use a certain computer to create graphs, and if your readers have little knowledge of either computers or graphs, then you will have to do such things as explain computer terms and graphing terms that are unfamiliar to your readers.

2. Include any additional information your readers need.

For example, let's say that you are in charge of information about two models of hybrid automobiles that your company is considering buying. You discover that the manufacturer of one kind of is on shaky financial ground and may go bankrupt. This is information that the reader needs to know.

3. Put the most important information at the top of the document.

This helps to ensure that the reader will read it.

4. Group together the items that go together.

One principle of organization is to put related items together. If you are requesting information from someone, that information ought to be grouped together. If you request some information in the middle of a letter and then you request more information a few paragraphs later, it is likely that you will get only a part of the information you requested. Therefore, if you want the reader to perform a series of tasks for you, such as gathering a few pieces of information, put the tasks in a checklist. That way, the reader can check off each task as he or she performs it, thus ensuring that no task goes undone.

5. Decide whether you need visual aids and/or enclosures.

Often, visual aids and/or enclosures are helpful to the reader.

For example, to show your landlord the extent of water damage to the ceiling caused by a leaky roof, you may enclose a photograph of the water damage to the ceiling. Be sure to write "Enclosure" at the end of your letter. (If you enclose two or more photographs, be sure to write "Enclosures" at the end of your letter.)

One type of visual aid is a table. If you are recommending that you be allowed to make repairs to your apartment, donating your labor as long as the landlord buys the materials, you should enclose an itemized list of the materials — and their cost — that you will need. The table would include a grand total. The table could appear within your letter, or it could be an enclosure.

One of my students was injured when she stepped into a hole caused by a missing brick in a walkway. To solve the problem, she wrote Facilities Maintenance at Ohio University and enclosed a map showing the location of the hole she had stepped into. This helped the maintenance workers to locate the hole to fix it. (She wrote "Enclosure" at the end of her letter.)

Enclosures may help the reader.

6. When possible, discuss the goals/organization of your document with its intended reader.

Outlining can be helpful as a way to check organization with a boss or other authority figure (or reader) before you begin to write a document. You can outline a document, then show the outline to a boss or other authority figure (or reader) and ask if anything should be added or deleted. This can be especially helpful before drafting long documents.

A Note on Outlining

If outlining will not be useful, don't outline. Most short communications don't need to be outlined; however, many longer communications should be outlined. Be aware that an entire communication need not be outlined. If one part of a long communication is difficult for you to organize, you may outline only that one part.

Outlines are useful when you are part of a writing team. The team may work to outline a long paper, then decide who will write which sections.

A Note on Parallel Structure

You may be able to use parallel structure in your list of recommendations, if you have one. Begin each recommendation with an imperative verb:

1. Move one of the dumpsters on the other side of the parking lot...

2. Place more trash cans in the...

3. Send out more memos...

4. Put up security cameras...

5. Hire a security guard on weekends to...

The ellipsis (...) simply means I left some words out. However, I typed enough words for you understand (I think) what I mean by parallel structure.

Case: Writing the University Head of Housing

Often, students in dorms have things that are useable but that they no longer want. Often, these still useable items end up in a dumpster. Let's say that you want to write a letter to your university's head of housing and want to recommend that each dorm on campus have a "free" table in its lounge. When students don't want a good, usable item, they can put it on the free table and another student can take it and use it. Use the worksheet in the previous class to help you plan that Problem-Solving Letter.

Rebecca Waddell

1234 Main St.

Latham, OH 45646

(740) 123-4567

September 29, 2009

Susan Fellowship, Owner

Fellowship Retreat Family Resort

50 Bell Hollow Rd.

Latham, OH 45646

Dear Susan,

As the season begins to come to a close, I hope that everything is going well for you. I am already looking forward to beginning my fifth summer of employment at your thriving business, Fellowship Retreat Family Resort. Your business provides a great place for high school and college students looking for summer employment because of the flexible scheduling and numerous opportunities to meet new people.

As I was reflecting on this past summer and its success, I thought of a few improvements that would make this campground even more successful. I have noticed no recycling system in use and employees are not wearing hats and gloves when handling food, which is a violation of state health codes. In this letter I will propose some simple solutions to these problems that will keep this business running smoothly and efficiently.

With over 600 campsites, half of those being used by seasonal guests, this campground produces a lot of trash. A large percentage of that waste is a collection of recyclable materials such as cans and bottles. To help eliminate all of this trash from being dumped in a landfill, I would like to propose the idea of placing recycling bins/cans at various spots within the campground. Some examples of where the bins could be placed include at the swimming area, shelter houses, concession stands, beside the go-karts, at the kiddie area, and anywhere else trash cans are set up. I have researched different types of recycling cans and my recommendation is a 55-gallon bin that costs $69 plus tax and shipping. Additional information about this recycling bin can be found in the enclosure that follows.

Not only could bins be placed within the campground, but I would also like to ask seasonal guests to begin recycling. The recyclables could be collected by employees once a week during the routine trash routes and dropped off at the local recycling center. If you would like to propose the idea of having the recycling center pick up the items after they have been collected within the campground, you can contact the local recycling center, Highland Recycling and Litter, at (937) 393-4080. You can supply recycling bins at the campground for campers who wish to participate. I have also researched recycling bins, and my recommendation will cost $16.95 per bin plus tax and shipping according to the enclosure that follows.

I understand that incorporating a recycling system would require you to purchase recycling bins, but I am certain that you will see that this is an investment that will have great benefits for this rapidly growing campground. By recycling, the campground will be improving the local environment by preventing all of this waste from entering landfills. This will also be a great marketing strategy for the business as more and more people begin to adapt the "go green" theme. The campground's website and brochures could be updated to show that the Fellowship Retreat is doing its part to help eliminate the amount of waste on our planet by providing a recycling system to its visitors. This will help attract more visitors and in turn increase profits. Also, the money that is collected from selling the aluminum will help pay for the recycling bins that were purchased and in time become purely profit.

The abundance of waste is not the only problem plaguing this campground. Another problem that needs corrected is in the concession stands located in the swimming area and in the game room. Many of the employees are violating state health codes by not wearing gloves and hats while preparing food. By not following these regulations, the employees make the company look unprofessional and put it at risk for not passing inspections.

A simple solution to this problem would be posting signs in the kitchen area. These signs will serve as a reminder to employees that while handling food they must have on gloves and a hat. If employees continue to break the health code, the manager can remind or give warnings to the employees. Stressing the importance of following the health codes at staff meetings would also be helpful. These are all things that can be done to fix this problem quickly and easily.

I understand that reminding employees can become tedious work, but I believe that it will be worth it in the end. The state health codes will not be in violation, and customers will be pleased with the professionalism of your employees. Health inspectors will also be impressed by the effort put into these small reminders.

With a little effort these minor problems can be fixed and Fellowship Retreat can continue to thrive. I would like to thank you for taking the time to consider my recommendations. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at (740) 123-4567. I would be happy to discuss my recommendations with you.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Waddell

Note: Rebecca Waddell enclosed information in her letter about the products she wanted her reader to consider buying.
CHAPTER 5: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Revising; Doublespeak; Gobbledygook (Class 5)

Problem-Solving: Apartment

You live in a large apartment building, and you have a problem with drunks banging on your door at night because they think that your door is their door and they are trying to wake up their roommates to let them in. What can you do to solve the problem? More than one effective solution may exist.

Advice For Revising

1. Always make your document at least competent.

You must always make sure that you have no errors in important statements; however, you must also correct spelling errors and other proofreading errors. These things help to make your document competent.

When revising, make first the revisions that will result in the greatest amount of improvement in the least amount of time. Do this in case you run of time.

2. If you can, make your document a work of art.

Be aware that you can learn to write better by making your communication better than merely competent. By making revisions that improve your document, you are learning to write better. For example, by making lists parallel in a draft, you are learning to use parallelism.

3. Pay special attention to your writing when you are new on the job.

When you are new on the job, people who have not met you will judge you by your writing, so everything you write, including routine e-mails, should be well written and well proofread.

Sometimes, when you are new on the job, you may discover that company VIPs read a memo that you thought was routine. For that reason, you should carefully proofread everything and you should make a special effort to find out the audience for whom you are writing. (Of course, you should do these things all the time, not just when you are new on the job. However, you are most likely not to correctly identify the audience when you are new on the job.)

4. Make the reader's job as easy as possible.

As always, you need to make the reader's job as easy as possible. Organization ranks high when revising. Every sentence may be correct in a communication, but if the organization is poor, the effectiveness of the communication can be severely harmed. For example, in a memo that requests information, if one paragraph requests some information, then a later paragraph requests additional information, the reader may read the communication, set it aside, come back to it later, and send the information requested in the earlier paragraph, forgetting about the later paragraph that requested additional information. In such a case, you will want at least to keep related paragraphs together.

As always, you need to make the reader's job as easy as possible. If you are requesting that information be sent to you, put the information request in a checklist. Say that you need some information, and say which information you need in a checklist (either numbered or bulleted). That way, as the reader gets each piece of information, he or she can check it off the checklist.

As always, you need to make the reader's job as easy as possible. If you are giving someone your schedule, put the schedule in the form of a table. That way, the reader can look up a date, then read across the table to see where you will be on a certain date, or what you will be doing on a certain date.

As always, you need to make the reader's job as easy as possible. To make it easy for the reader to see how a communication is organized, use headings.

As always, you need to make the reader's job as easy as possible. Organization ranks high when revising. One way to organize is to put the most important information first in a communication. Go from what is most important to what is least important.

5. Revise after reviews and/or tests.

The purpose of getting reviews of your work and/or testing your work is to enable you to revise your work well. If you don't correct the problems you have discovered through reviews and/or tests, you have wasted your time getting reviews and/or tests. (Performance tests are useful when you write a Set of Instructions. You can get a performance test of your Set of Instructions by asking someone to follow your Instructions as you watch. This will help you to determine if you left any steps out and will help you to find ways to improve your Instructions. It is very easy to leave out an important step.)

6. Proofread carefully — and get reviews.

Proofread three times.

Always run the spelling checker before you quit your word-processing program.

Proofread short memos and emails as well as longer communications.

Proofread your draft both on the computer and on paper.

Proofread both immediately after writing and after some time has passed.

If you can, get one or more reviews by someone who knows grammar and punctuation well.

Always proofread three times before you give a copy to a reviewer.

Always proofread three times before delivering finished copies to the reader.

Don't say, "I can't use the apostrophe (or whatever) correctly." Take action. Learn to use the apostrophe (or whatever) correctly. Working-class people often don't know how to use the apostrophe correctly (check out signs around Athens); middle- and upper-class people usually know how to use the apostrophe correctly. Knowing how to use the apostrophe correctly is a job skill.

Not proofreading results in a lack of credibility. If your reader learns you can't proofread well, will the reader think that the content of your paper is likely to be good?

Writing Isn't Brain Surgery

Robert Cormier, author of The Chocolate War and I Am the Cheese, points out that brain surgeons have to get it right the first time, but authors can work to make a first draft better. Revise!

"You Don't Do Things Right Once In A While; You Do Them Right All The Time." — Vince Lombardi

Too often, some students will work hard on major papers, but they will turn in sloppily written memos. I wish that these students had had Vince Lombardi as a coach.

Is Grammar Important?

"[Thomas] Hodson recalled one day when an attorney was making a case before the court and used the non-word 'irregardless' in his argument. [U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William] Rehnquist always leaned way back in his chair because of his back problems, but when the attorney said 'irregardless' a second time, the chief justice 'catapulted' up in his chair and told the attorney that he should use 'regardless' or 'irrespective,' but not 'irregardless.' Hodson said. The attorney was naturally flustered, having been corrected for his grammar, and then referred to one of the judges by the wrong name. That brought Rehnquist out of his chair again as he admonished the attorney one more time.

"Hodson noted that the attorney did eventually win his case, but he felt bad for him as he was probably making the biggest legal argument of his career and was being corrected during the argument for poor grammar."

Source: Nick Claussen, "Scripps director recalls his time working for William Rehnquist." The Athens News. 26 September 2005 <<http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=21668>>.

What is Doublespeak?

"Doublespeak is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn't. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it." — William Lutz, author of Doublespeak

Examples of Doublespeak

• A defense contractor sold $450 "unidirectional impact generators" to the Pentagon. In non-doublespeak language, they were claw hammers that normally sold for $10. (Source: Rose B. and Nathra Nader. It Happened in the Kitchen: Recipes for Food and Thought. Washington, D.C.: Center for Study of Responsive Law, 1991, p. 156.)

• "A Canadian military spokesman calls a helicopter crash a 'departure from normal flight.' The National Agricultural Chemical Association changes its name to the American Crop Protection Association. Soap dispensers become 'hand cleansing systems.' Logging companies no longer 'bulldoze,' they 'access timber.' O.J.'s defense team uses the term 'marital discord' instead of wife-beating. The U.N. sends troops for 'armed humanitarian interventions.' The University of California at Berkeley now has a 'department of human biodynamics' (formerly physical education). Prostitutes are 'commercial sex workers.'... Belts are made of 'genuine simulated leather.'" (Source: <http://www.chiprowe.com/magrev/doublespeak.html>.)

• "We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people," said Lt. Col. Gerald Wellman, an ROTC instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the military's ban on gays. (Source: Newsweek, 25 May 1992, p. 21.)

How Can I Avoid Doublespeak?

A very good way to avoid doublespeak is to follow this piece of advice from Strunk and White's Elements of Style: "Avoid fancy words." As Mr. White writes so well, "Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able."

Books by William Lutz, Doublespeak Expert

William Lutz is professor of English at Rutgers University. These are some of his books:

• Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four: Doublespeak in a Post-Orwellian Age. Edited by William Lutz.

Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1989.

• Doublespeak Defined: Cut through the Bull**** and Get to the Point. New York: HarperResource, 1999.

• The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone's Saying Anymore. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996.

• Doublespeak: From "Revenue Enhancement" to "Terminal Living," How Government, Business, Advertisers, and Others Use Language to Deceive You. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

More Doublespeak Examples

fines on the spot = bribes taken during traffic stops

gain access = break into someplace

internment facility = prison

intervention = invasion

job flexibility = lack of job security

job seekers = unemployed

replacement workers = scabs or strikebreakers in labor disputes

Peacekeeper = a missile

reliability enhancement = fix for a software bug

unsavory character = suspected criminal

outsource = dismissing local employees to hire cheaper labor provided by another organization

layoff = being fired

Source: http://legalese.wikispaces.com/file/view/luiss+lesson+4+doublespeak+quiz.pdf

Doublespeak Quiz

Here are some examples of things that might be considered doublespeak. Connect the euphemism with its 'real' meaning — e.g. the Department of Defense = The organization that plans wars.

1. ____ physical persuasion or physical pressure

2. ____ collateral damage

3. ____ protective custody

4. ____ pre-hostility

5. ____ surgical strike

6. ____ ethnic cleansing

7. ____ aggressive enforcement

8. ____ person of interest

9. ____ friendly fire

10. ____ engagement

11. ____ casualty

12. ____ pacify

13. ____ preemptive war

14. ____ incontinent ordnance

15. ____ psychological deterrent

16. ____ secure an area

17. ____ defense

18. ____ area denial munitions

19. ____ excessive force

A. use of any non-nuclear bomb

B. a battle

C. being mistakenly attacked by your allies

D. landmines

E. an excuse to invade a foreign country

F. harassment, racial profiling

G. kill or capture remaining enemy soldiers

H. subdue by force I. bombs that kill innocent civilians

J. suspect, material witness

K. death

L. imprisonment without due process of law

M. bombing attack by plane

N. torture

O. brutality

P. war

Q. peace

R. genocide

S. innocent people and buildings destroyed

Source: http://legalese.wikispaces.com/file/view/luiss+lesson+4+doublespeak+quiz.pdf

How Do I Avoid Gobbledygook?

If you wish to avoid Gobbledygook, avoid writing like this:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must be taken into account.

How can you do that? Following this advice will help:

Choose plain words over fancy words.

Strunk and White's Elements of Style gives this advice: "Avoid fancy words: Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able."

It is never a good idea to send the reader to a dictionary to decode what you wrote. (Of course, if you are an engineer writing to other engineers, you may use the specialized engineering terminology that engineers know and understand.)

Gobbledygook Proverbs

If you can translate these camouflaged (but familiar) witticisms, you have a talent for making clear writing out of mud.

1. Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.

2. Scintillate, scintillate asteroid minific.

3. Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.

4. Surveillance should precede saltitation.

5. It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lacteal fluid.

6. Freedom from incrustrations of grime is contiguous to divinity.

7. The stylus is more potent than the claymore.

8. It is fruitless to indoctrinate a super-annuated canine with innovative maneuvers.

9. Eschew the implement of corrections and vitiate the scion.

10. The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly ogled cooking container does not reach 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

11. Neophyte's serendipity.

12. Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony.

13. Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be advised to refrain from catapulting petrous projectiles.

14. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.

15. Where there are visible vapors having their province in ignited carbonaceous material, there is conflagration.

16. Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.

17. A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques vitiates the potable concoction produced by steeping comestibles.

18. Exclusive dedication to necessary chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders John a heptudinous fellow.

19. A revolving lathic conglomerate accumulates no diminutive claucous bryphitic plants.

20. The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses, thereby, the optimal cachinnation.

21. Missiles of ligneous or porous consistency have the potential of fracturing my osseous structure, but appellations will eternally be benign.

22. Propinquity avails itself only in the coverlets of equine quadra-bases.

Source:  http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:PcMB9Xp7dUEC:www.cord.edu/faculty/sprunger/e315/dbltk.html+doublespeak&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Dashes and Hyphens

Please be aware that dashes and hyphens are different. A hyphen is shorter.

Dash — Hyphen -

To make a dash on a Macintosh, simultaneously press these keys: shift — option — hyphen.

If you can't figure out how to make a dash on your computer, use the Help menu. If that doesn't work, use two hyphens to represent a dash: Dash --

Stapling

Do not staple together the pages of any formal business letter, including the Problem-Solving Letter.

Sample Problem-Solving Letter

The writer of the Problem-Solving Letter on the next few pages uses the following elements for their Problem-Solving Letters.

• Introduction. Identify yourself, and build common ground with the reader. The common ground you build should relate to the problem you are trying to solve. (Common ground is something you have in common with the reader.)

•Transition. Make a smooth transition to the next part of your letter (you may wish to use the transition word "however"). You will have to decide whether to follow a direct (make your recommendation early) or an indirect (hold your recommendation until later in your paper — after you have described the problem) pattern of organization.

• Problem. (This assumes that you will use an indirect pattern of organization.) Present the problem in a way that makes it significant for the reader — but be careful not to offend or to antagonize the reader.

• Recommendation. Present the recommendation in such a way that the reader realizes that following your recommendation will solve the problem — at least in part. Make sure that the recommendation will solve or help solve the problem.

• Objections. Show that you understand the objections that the reader is likely to raise against your recommendation.

• Rebuttals of Objections. Respond persuasively to each objection.

• Benefits. Point out the benefits that will follow for the reader if he or she accepts your recommendation.

• Conclusion. Conclude the letter in a way that reaffirms common ground between the reader and the writer. Give your telephone number or email address in case the reader wishes to call you to ask for more information.

Andrea Hayen

1 Community Dr.

Apartment 404

Smith, OH 45771

April 20, 2005

Lakeland Towers

Leasing Office

36 N. McKinley Ave.

Smith, OH 45771

Lakeland Towers:

I am a junior here at Ohio University, and I have been a resident in apartment building 37 (Davis) for the past two quarters. During these past two quarters, I have enjoyed my stay at Lakeland Towers; however, I have also noticed several problems. The problems I have encountered in my time living here include safety issues as well as the cleanliness of the building. Our main door to our apartment does not have a firm lock. We have had several problems with drunks trying to break into our apartment because they mistake our apartment for theirs. The lock barely holds when they are pounding on the door, and my roommates and I do not feel safe with the current lock.

Additionally, the cleanliness and sanitation of the building is of great concern. During the weekends the elevators become trashed. Urine, vomit, and beer cover the floor of the elevator, and beer cans line both the elevator floor and the stairwells. Also, the floors in the stairwells are frequently covered with a sticky liquid.

These problems can be solved quite easily. I have taken it upon myself to provide you with a list of recommendations to increase safety and sanitation in the complex:

1. Install a better lock on our apartment with a deadbolt and a chain.

This quick solution would solve our immediate safety issues within our own apartment. However, updating the locks on everyone's apartment would increase security even more.

2. Hire a Security Guard to monitor the floors, elevators, and stairwells on nights when large gatherings are likely.

The Security Guard would help cut down on the amount of trash in the building as well as help protect the residents.

3. Hire staff to clean the elevators and stairwells even on the weekends.

The elevators and stairwells are not cleaned everyday. I believe they should be. If you hire additional staff to clean on the weekends, the stench and the trash would diminish.

4. Install security card slides at the entrances of the buildings in order to decrease the amount of vandalism and destruction to the building.

I know that several apartment complexes such as University Commons use this system and even some of the dormitories such as Johnson and Reed. The security card slide prohibits non-residents from entering the building without a resident letting them in.

5. Install security cameras in the elevators, the stairwells, and on the floors.

The security cameras would increase the safety within the buildings and help catch violators so that they can be prosecuted.

I understand that several of my recommendations are rather expensive and time consuming; however, the cleanliness of the building as well as the safety of your tenants should be of great concern. I believe that if you follow my recommendations, the amount of vandalism and destruction of property would diminish because you would not only be able to prevent much of the destruction, but you would also be able to prosecute those committing the crimes.

After all, the poor sanitation of Lakeland is not fair to the residents who are not involved with the destruction, yet have to deal with these problems. It is embarrassing to bring guests up to our apartment because of the conditions of the elevators and stairwells. No one enjoys stepping onto the elevator floor when it is covered with a liquid that smells of urine, vomit, and beer. In addition, when my parents come to visit, they are appalled by the conditions.

Furthermore, the safety of your tenants should be of your highest concern. Allowing anyone and everyone to enter the building is dangerous, especially when the locks, including our lock, are not very strong. Moreover, I am worried that someone could slip and fall on the liquid-covered floor, or someone could cut their foot on glass, or someone's apartment could be broken into because of the poor locks. Accidents such as these could result in possible lawsuits for Lakeland Towers.

By increasing security in the building and by improving the cleanliness and sanitation of the building, Lakeland Towers will not only benefit, but also the residents of Lakeland will benefit. Lakeland currently has the reputation of being the party complex and being dirty. I know many students who refuse to even consider living in Lakeland because of its reputation. By cleaning up its facilities, Lakeland will be able to reach an even wider group of students.

Additionally, by improving the sanitation of the building, you will decrease the risk of cockroaches and other bugs from inhabiting the building and at the same time reduce pest-control costs. When the building appears clean and nice, people will respect it. However, when trash is everywhere and urine, vomit, and beer are on the floor, no one will respect the facilities, and, in fact, more people will be willing to contribute to the destruction.

Maintaining the cleanliness of your facilities as well as the safety of your tenants should be a priority for Lakeland Towers. I am sure that you would want your tenants to be safe and to live in a clean and healthy environment. With all of these problems in mind, please consider my recommendations for improving the safety and cleanliness of building 37 (Davis) as well as all the other buildings of Lakeland Towers.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to contact me at (740) 592-8888. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss any of the problems or any of my recommendations more in depth. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Andrea Hayen

[Note: Ms. Hayen's list of recommendations uses parallel structure. Each recommendation begins with an imperative verb. This is good style and good writing.]

[Note: Ms. Hayen carefully organizes her list of recommendations from least expensive to most expensive. If she began the list with a very expensive recommendation, the reader may stop reading because of concerns about costs. This is good analysis of the audience of this letter.]

[Note: When Ms. Hayen writes about "urine, vomit, and beer," she uses parallel structure. She always puts these terms in the same order: She always puts "urine" first and "beer" last. This is good style and good writing.]

[Note: One characteristic of a good Problem-Solving Letter is that it uses evidence as needed to convince the reader that a problem exists or that a recommendation will solve or help solve the problem.]

Problem-Solving Letter Checklist

1. Does your letter concern a real problem? Is your letter directed to a real person with the power to solve the problem? If relevant, do you use a job title for the person you are writing in the address section? If possible, you should have the name of a real person to whom you address your letter. In some cases, you may have to use the name of the organization (e.g., IBM) instead of the name of a real person.

2. Do you use a standard business letter format with complete addresses for you and your reader?

3. Do you place the comma after the city (not the state) in the addresses? For example, this is correct: Athens, OH 45701.

4. Is your letter at least two pages long, with the correct header (name of reader, page number, and date) on the pages following the first?

5. Is your letter single-spaced, with double spaces between the paragraphs?

6. Do you have a colon after the beginning salutation, if you refer to Mr. So-and-so or Ms. So-and-so? (This is a formal business letter.) Do you have a comma after the beginning salutation, if you use only the reader's first name (Dear Jack, or Dear Mary)? Do you use the reader's job title, if relevant?

7. Do you establish common ground at the beginning and end of your letter?

8. Do you make a smooth transition (perhaps using the word "however") to the problem?

9. Do you describe the problem in a way that it is significant for the reader?

10. Do you acknowledge (and rebut) at least one objection likely to be raised by the reader?

11. Do you create an effective role for yourself (as a team member, or as a problem solver, or both)?

12. Do you end your letter professionally? (Give your telephone number, and offer to answer any questions the reader may have — plus thank the reader for the reader's time.)

13. Do you avoid offending the reader? Remember that in this letter, you are not to insult the reader. You are to write persuasively so that your recommendation is accepted.

14. Do you point out the benefits of accepting your recommendation?

15. Do you avoid having too many paragraphs or too many sentences in a row begin with "I"?

16. Have you avoided wordiness?

17. Have you avoided dangling modifiers?

Dangling Modifier: By following my recommendations, the problem will be solved.

No Dangling Modifier: By following my recommendations, you will solve the problem.

Note: "By following my recommendations" modifies what follows it.

18. Have you avoided comma splices?

19. Do you avoid widows and orphans? The glossary at <<http://www.designtalkboard.com/glossary/fonts/typography.php>> says this:

\- A widow occurs when the last line of a paragraph from the previous page flows onto the top of the next page.

\- An orphan occurs when the first line of a new paragraph starts at the bottom of a page.

For example, if the first line of a paragraph appears at the bottom of a page and the rest of the paragraph appears on the next page, the first line of the paragraph is an orphan. You may correct this orphan by moving the first line of the paragraph to the top of the next page.

20. Have you avoided passive and wordy phrases such as "there is" and "there are" and "it is"?

Bad: There are three problems that we need to address.

Better: We need to address three problems.

Note: Use the "FIND" command in your word-processing program to search for the phrases "there are" and "there is" and it is." When you find them, try to correct them to avoid wordiness.

21. Have you used "who" to refer to people?

Don't write about people that do something; instead, write about people who do something.

22. Have you remembered NOT to staple together the pages of this formal business letter?

23. Have you used a serif font? Times is a serif font. Serifs are little lines at the bottom of some letters: T, I, M. Serif fonts are easier to read in big chunks than sans serif fonts.
CHAPTER 6: Problem-Solving Letter Project: Peer Review (Class 6)

Problem-Solving: Job Applicants

You receive an excellent and well-written job-application letter from a student, whom you hire for an internship, but you then discover that the student cannot write well. Apparently, the student had lots of help writing the job-application letter (and resume). What can you do to ensure that the next student whom you hire for an internship can write well? More than one effective solution may exist.

Teacher's Expectations for the Peer Review

Your teacher expects you to do these things:

• Bring a complete, carefully proofread draft to the peer review. Better, bring two copies.

• Actively read the other person's draft and seriously look for errors that the writer can correct.

• Tell the writer something that he or she has done well.

• Seriously give good advice to the writer about what the writer can do to improve his or her paper.

• Listen carefully to the other person's comments about your paper. Don't be defensive, even if you disagree with some of the other person's comments.

• Try to get at least two peer reviews.

• If you have time after getting the peer reviews, look over and evaluate your paper.

• Don't ask the teacher, "Can we leave now?"

Proofreading Tips

If you are unsure about the definition of a word, use Google to look it up. For example, if are unsure which word — "complementary" or "complimentary" — means "free," you can look up each word using Google. If you search for "complimentary definition" or "define complimentary," then click on "Web definitions for complimentary," you will find this:

conveying or resembling a compliment; "a complimentary remark"

costing nothing; "complimentary tickets"; "free admission"

Source: wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

"Complementary" means "goes together with."

You can use the FIND command of your word processing program to check such words as "you" and "your" to make sure that you are not writing "you" when you should be writing "your."

If you often use wordy phrases such as there is or there are or it is or the fact that, you can use your computer's FIND command to find each use of these phrases, then you can revise these phrases to get rid of the wordiness.

This is a short letter, so it is a good idea to read it out loud to check for errors.

Proofread your letter three times.

Proofread your letter both before and after you print it.

Ask a friend to help you proofread your letter. Often a friend's eyes will catch errors that you miss. However, be aware that some people are poor proofreaders, and therefore you need to do proofreading yourself.

What Do I Have to Do for the Peer Review?

What is a Peer Review?

In a peer review, you exchange drafts of your communication with other members of the course. They evaluate your writing, you evaluate their writing, then both of you talk about each other's writing, telling what the other person has done right and how the other person can improve his or her communication.

Bring a Good Draft — Not a Zero Draft — to the Review

A zero draft is a seriously incomplete draft. For example, a student may arrive at a peer review with only the first paragraph of a Problem-Solving Letter. Zero drafts receive zero credit. Bring full drafts to the peer reviews. In some (perhaps all) cases, I may cancel the conference of a student who brings a zero draft to a peer review. I don't want my time wasted, and I don't want the time of the peer reviewers wasted.

What Do You Need to Bring to the Peer Review?

• Two typed copies of the second (or third) draft of your Problem-Solving Letter.

• A full draft, with beginning, middle, and end, not a partial draft.

• An alert mind.

Review Your Previously Graded Papers

Are you making the same mistakes over and over? If so, sit down and study and learn not to make those mistakes. Study any handouts I have given you about common errors in grammar and punctuation. Try not to make the mistakes you have made previously. It's up to you to learn this; the teacher can't learn it for you. Many students do not make many errors in punctuation and grammar; unfortunately, they make the same mistakes over and over.

Use the Checklist

Use the checklist in the material for the previous class.

Be Aware of When the Word "University" Should and Should Not be Capitalized

"University" is capitalized when it is part of a name. When you are writing about a university or the university, do not capitalize the word "university" unless it appears as the first word of a sentence. For example:

I go to Ohio University.

She went to Ohio State University.

I go to a university.

I go to the university.

Be Aware That the Phrases "There Are" and "There Is" are Often Wordy and can be Deleted

Bad: There are three problems that must be solved.

Better: Three problems must be solved.

Bad: There is a recommendation I would like to make.

Better: I would like to make a recommendation.

Bad: There are two recommendations to solve this problem.

Better: Two recommendations will solve this problem.

Be Aware That You Can Use the Dollar Sign in Business Communications

Bad: A locksmith can quickly do the job for approximately sixty dollars.

Better: A locksmith can quickly do the job for approximately $60.

Bad: Solving this problem will cost under one hundred dollars.

Better: Solving this problem will cost under $100.

Keep Related Words Together

One rule of good writing is to keep related words together. Therefore, the word "only" should be near the word or words it modifies. Often, the word "only" modifies a number.

Wrong: I only made three mistakes.

Right: I made only three mistakes. ("Only" modifies "three.")

Wrong: We only meet four hours a week.

Right: We meet only four hours a week. ("Only" modifies "four.")

Avoid Comma Splices

A comma splice occurs when two sentences are joined together by only a comma.

Comma splice: Thank you very much for your time, I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Correct: Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

How Can I Identify and Correct Dangling Modifiers?

Spotting Dangling Modifiers

"To spot a dangling modifier, look for a sentence that begins with a modifier but doesn't name the person, idea, or thing modified. Readers will think the modifier refers to the subject of the sentence that follows. If it doesn't, the modifier dangles." — The Longman Pocket Writer's Companion

Example No. 1

The following sentence says that the Courthouse was walking down Court Street:

Dangling Modifier: Walking down Court Street, the Courthouse glittered in the sun.

The clause "Walking down Court Street" modifies what follows it: "the Courthouse." Clearly, this is wrong — the Courthouse was not walking down Court Street.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to identify who was walking down the street.

Correct: Walking down Court Street, I saw the Courthouse glittering in the sun.

Example No. 2

In the following sentence, the writer is saying that he or she is "a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings."

Dangling Modifier: Being a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings, I would assume challenging assignments as an intern to provide exposure to various career options.

The clause "Being a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings" modifies what follows it: "I." Clearly, this is wrong — the writer is not a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to accurately identify the "Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings."

Correct Sentence: Because PPG Industries is a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings, as an intern there I would assume challenging assignments to provide exposure to various career options.

Example No. 3

In the following sentence, the writer is saying that "the majority of our curriculum" is "an engineering student at Ohio University."

Dangling Modifier: As an engineering student at Ohio University, the majority of our curriculum is centered on three important areas in engineering: development, drafting, and design.

The clause "As an engineering student at Ohio University" modifies what follows it: "the majority of our curriculum." Clearly, this is wrong — the engineering student at Ohio University is not the majority of our curriculum.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to make clear that "an engineering student at Ohio University" describes him or her and not "the majority of our curriculum."

Correct: As an engineering student at Ohio University, I study in particular three important areas in engineering: development, drafting, and design.

More Examples

Dangling Modifier (this sentence doesn't identify what is lacking accurate, up-to-date information):

By not having accurate, up-to-date information for the cadets, problems continually arise.

Correct Sentence:

Because the manual does not have accurate, up-to-date information for the cadets, problems continually arise.

Dangling Modifier (this sentence says that the dogs will write a manual):

By writing the manual, dogs will be taken care of properly.

Correct Sentence:

By writing the manual, I will make available to pet owners information about how to take care of dogs properly.

Dangling Modifier (this sentence says that "smoking" has conducted research on the size and nature of our company):

After conducting research on the size and nature of our company, smoking will be banned in both of the two buildings here at Fitness Exercise Equipment, Inc.

Correct Sentence:

After conducting research on the size and nature of our company, I have decided to ban smoking in both of the two buildings here at Fitness Exercise Equipment, Inc.

Review Sheet for Problem-Solving Letter

Remember: The ability to review well is a job skill!

A good, thorough review takes time. Plan to spend 10-15 minutes reviewing the letter, 5-10 minutes making comments to the writer and 5-10 minutes listening to comments about your writing. This will give you time to get a second review. The Peer Review Session should take up the entire class period. If you have questions, raise your hand and I will come over and try to answer them. (Please give me time first to go around and give everyone who deserves it credit for being prepared for the Peer Review Session.) You don't need to write on this review sheet; feel free to write directly on the writer's letter.

First, review the letter format.

1. The letter should be directed to a real person with the power to solve the problem.

2. The writer should use a standard business letter format with complete addresses for the writer and the reader. The letter should have a date.

3. The letter should be more than one page long, with the correct header on the pages following the first (name of reader, page number, and date). The dates on all pages of the letter should be the same date.

4. The letter should be single-spaced, with double spaces between the paragraphs. The reader should avoid widows. A widow is one line of body text that appears at the top or the bottom of a page. For example, if the first line of a paragraph appears at the bottom of a page and the rest of the paragraph appears on the next page, the first line of the paragraph is a widow. You may correct this widow by moving the first line of the paragraph to the top of the next page.

5. The writer should have a colon after the beginning salutation, if the writer refers to Mr. So-and-so or Ms. So-and-so. (This is a formal business letter.) The writer should have a comma after the beginning salutation, if the writer uses the reader's first name (Dear Jack, or Dear Mary).

Next review the letter's content and style.

1. The writer should establish common ground at the beginning and end of the letter. (It's a good idea to open with praise.)

2. The writer should have a smooth transition to the problem. (The writer may need to use the transition word "however.")

3. The problem should be described in such a way that it is significant for the reader.

4. The writer should acknowledge (and rebut) at least one counterargument (that is, objection) likely to be raised by the reader. (The writer should show that he or she understands the reader's point of view and respond persuasively to each counterargument.)

5. The writer should create an effective role for him- or herself (as a team member, or as a problem solver, or both).

6. The writer should stress the benefits that the reader will receive by accepting the recommendation.

7. The writer should end the letter professionally. (The writer should give his or her telephone number and offer to answer any questions the reader may have — plus thank the reader for the reader's time.)

8. The writer should avoid offending the reader. Remember that this is a persuasive letter. If you insult the reader, he or she will reject your recommendation.

9. The writer should avoid having too many paragraphs or sentences in a row that begin with the word "I." The writer should avoid having too many short, simple sentences in a row. The writer should vary the sentence length and structure.

Next, help the writer with proofreading.

Check the letter for the following:

1. Spelling

2. Grammar

3. Punctuation

Next, read the letter again, putting yourself in the place of the reader, and see if there are any additional comments or suggestions you wish to make.

Next, you and the writer will take turns making comments on each other's letter. Remember that you are doing your best to help the other person improve his or her letter. Tell the writer what he or she is doing right — and wrong.

Finally, find another person with whom to exchange letters and then go through the process again.

Avoid the late penalty; turn in your papers on time.

The Most Important Things I Have Learned from Writing the Problem-Solving Letter

Note: In this section, "I" refers to you, the student.

• I have learned some techniques of persuasion that I can use to persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem. Many of these persuasive techniques are described below.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should be aware that what a reader reads early in a communication affects the way he or she reads what appears later in a communication. Therefore, it is a good idea to open with praise. For example, if I am writing my landlord about repairs that need to be made to my apartment, I should find something to praise about my landlord or the apartment, and I should put that praise near the beginning of my communication, perhaps in the first paragraph.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should describe the problem in a way that makes it significant to the reader. If the problem can be shown to adversely affect the reader or the reader's organization, the reader is more likely to want to solve the problem. For example, a leaky roof is annoying to me, the tenant, but to convince my landlord to fix the leaky roof, I should stress that a leaky roof can cause severe water damage to the apartment — water damage that will be expensive to fix.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should emphasize the benefits for the reader of solving the problem. For example, if my landlord fixes the leaky roof, he or she will avoid higher repair costs later. In addition, the landlord will be protecting his or her own property by keeping it in good repair. For one thing, tenants are more likely to respect and take care of property if it is in good repair. Finally, the landlord will be providing good value for the tenants — very few landlords like to think they are ripping their tenants off.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should use evidence and good reasoning as needed. For example, to convince my landlord that a leaky roof has created significant water damage to my apartment, I could take a photograph of the water damage and enclose it with my letter.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should give myself an effective role. For example, I can present myself as a problem-solver and as someone who wishes to help the reader achieve his or her goals. This means I should not give myself the role of a carping critic who insults the reader. Instead, I should be professional and perhaps write that I am trying to make an already fine organization better.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should organize my communication effectively. For example, if I think that the reader will consider my recommendation with an open mind, I could write the recommendation early in my communication. (This is known as using a direct pattern of organization.) However, if I think that the reader may be hostile to my recommendation, I should delay writing my recommendation until after I have presented some of the evidence and arguments that support my recommendation. (This is known as using an indirect pattern of organization.)

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should anticipate and respond to objections. I should think about the reader's objections to what I recommend, then I should show that the objections are not as significant as the reader thinks. For example, I may know that the reader is worried about costs, but I can try to show that the costs will not be as high as the reader expects. For example, if I am good at making home repairs, I may offer to do the repairs for my landlord in return for a reduction in rent the month after I make the repairs. Or if I am advising the manager of a restaurant where I work to advertise more, I could do research and list the cost of advertising in various publications or on radio and TV.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should establish my credibility. For example, my recommendation about how to solve a problem may be made credible by my pointing out that I have studied this particular problem in college, or that I have dealt successfully with this kind of problem in a similar job. If I offer to make repairs to my apartment in return for a reduction in rent, I could point out that I did the same kind of repairs in my summer job or that I remodeled my parents' home. I could also give the reader the telephone number of my summer boss or parents for verification that I can competently perform the repair.

• To persuade the reader to accept a recommendation to solve a problem, I should learn about the context in which my reader will read my communication. For example, if my landlord has recently written or will write a large check to the Internal Revenue Service, I know that my landlord will be especially concerned about costs, and I should make a special effort to convince my landlord that the costs involved in accepting my recommendation are justifiable. Or if I am writing about purchasing a new forklift, and I know that an accident involving a forklift occurred recently at the factory, I should write about the safety record of the new forklift I am recommending that the organization buy.

• I have learned that I should list problems in order of importance to the reader. If the problems I am writing about in my letter to my landlord are a leaky ceiling, a too-small refrigerator, and a lack of parking, the first problem I should start writing about is the leaky ceiling, as the landlord will be most concerned about it. If I start writing about the other problems (which don't concern the landlord so much), the landlord may not finish reading the letter and may not learn about the leaky ceiling. (Occasionally, you may decide to put the least expensive solution first because if you start with the most expensive solution, the landlord may not finish reading the letter and may not learn about the least expensive solution.)

Note: All people should have an art to practice in their lives. Your art may be music or painting or writing. Perhaps your art consists of writing autobiographical essays. Of course, you may practice more than one art in your life. Solving problems is probably not an art, but feel free to write problem-solving letters the rest of your life. If you write a short problem-solving letter each Friday, you will get an excellent education in problem-solving.

Is It Ethical to Take Credit for Someone Else's Idea When Writing a Problem-Solving Letter?

Let's say that an employee has been asked to solve a problem at work, and that Susan Smith in Accounting has a really good idea for solving that problem. Should the employee give Susan Smith credit for the idea when the employee writes a memo about solving the problem?

• What would happen if everyone were to do what you are thinking of doing?

If everyone were to take credit for other people's ideas without giving credit to the other people, very soon people would stop sharing ideas because they would be afraid that other people would steal their ideas. There is a contradiction here. The employee makes the rule, "I will steal other people's ideas so that I will look competent to my employer," but if everyone does what the employee wants to do, soon it will be impossible to steal other people's ideas because they won't share their ideas with you.

• Would you want done to you what you are thinking of doing to other people?

Would you want other people to steal your ideas and not give you credit?

• What are the consequences of the action you are thinking about doing?

Stealing other people's ideas is likely to lead to a lot of hate and discontent for the thief and for other people. Employers want employees to get along and to work together to solve problems and make the company profitable. Stealing other people's ideas is likely to lead to employees not working together to solve problems and make the company profitable.

Problem-Solving

Jonathan Eybeschuetz (c. 1690-1764) displayed remarkable intelligence even as a young child. One morning, a much bigger, anti-Semitic bully beat him up. Jonathan cried for the beating to stop so he could give the bully all the money he had. Of course, the bully stopped beating him, and young Jonathan emptied his pockets and handed over all his money to the bully. As he did so, he explained that today was a special Jewish holiday, and Jews were required to hand over all their money to anyone who beat them that day. Hearing this, the bully decided to beat up the richest Jew in town. Of course, the rich Jew cried out for help, and a police officer arrested the bully and took him to jail — exactly as young Jonathan had planned.

One problem faced by many religious people is how to avoid persecution. The story behind the game of dreidel is serious. When Jews are forbidden to worship, they worship anyway, gathering together to study the Torah. At these times, they have money and a dreidel nearby. Should soldiers come near, the Jews gather around the dreidel and pretend to be gaming. Early Christians did something similar by decorating their houses with holly. Holly was sacred to Saturn, and by decorating their houses with holly, early Christians avoided trouble because pagan soldiers thought they were dedicated followers of Saturn.
Appendix A: Some Common Rules of Writing

How Do I Use Affect And Effect?

The word "effect" is both a noun and a verb. The noun "effect" means "result" and refers to the consequences an action or event has

The effect her father's death had on her was to throw her into a deep depression.

The word "affect" is a verb, meaning "to influence."

Her father's death affected her by throwing her into a deep depression.

The verb "effect" means "to bring about," "to accomplish."

He effected his escape with a rope made of strips of his sheet.

• Nineteenth-century cartoonist Bernhard Gillam's first attempt at oil painting was a dismal failure. When he was eighteen years old, he painted a battle between the Aztec Native Americans and the Spanish explorers. The painting was filled with dead and dying soldiers, but when exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts as number 93, it did not produce the seriously dramatic effect Mr. Gillam wanted. A reviewer in the Brooklyn Eagle wrote, "The sensation of the hour is number 93. There was never anything funnier than the dying men in 93, unless it is the men who are already dead. Don't fail to see it; it's the greatest show on earth!" Mr. Gillam used to stand near his painting, listening to people laugh at what he had meant to be a deadly serious painting.

• Sometimes the board of education trusts students more than the principal trusts them. In 1974, Priscilla Marco wrote an article for her New York high school newspaper. The article listed instances of censorship of the school newspaper and pointed out that students had not been given copies of a board of education pamphlet describing their rights. However, the principal refused to let her article be printed. Ms. Marco contacted school authorities about the censorship; she also contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. Eventually, the school chancellor ordered that Ms. Marco's article be published, but even then the school principal refused to allow it to be published. Therefore, the board of education printed a special edition of the student newspaper which contained discussions of the First Amendment and how it affects young people, as well as both Ms. Marco's original article and an updated, revised version. On June 23, 1975, protected by security guards, members of the board of education entered Ms. Marco's school — the Long Island City High School — and passed out copies of the newspaper.

How Do I Use Amount And Number?

Use number for things you can count.

Ex: I spilled a large number of bags of flour on the floor.

Use amount for quantities you can't count.

Ex: I spilled a large amount of flour on the floor.

• Actor Jack Nicholson is aware that two Jacks exist. Big Jack is the image, a raiser of hell complete with sunglasses and smokes and other stimulants. Regular Jack is a lot quieter, especially at age 70. Occasionally, people see Big Jack when Mr. Nicholson wants them to see Regular Jack. This occurs a lot with bartenders. Mr. Nicholson says, "I can't tell you how many bartenders I've had to grab by the lapel and say, 'Look, give me a very big glass with a lot of ice and a small amount of bourbon.' They see Big Jack, and they want to give Big Jack that extra shot of bourbon. But you can't be Big Jack all the time."

• Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, had an older brother named Tom who wanted him and yet another brother, who was named Robert, to keep up their studies after they had started to work for a living. Tom would ask Alexander and Robert to each contribute a coin, then he would quiz them on math, geography, and history. The brother who answered the greatest number of questions correctly got both coins.

• Hollywood cameraman James Wong Howe had the greatest amount of fun in his career during the days of silent movies. He remembers driving around with a crew looking for a house to shoot in front of. If no one was home, they began to shoot the film. If the homeowner returned before they had finished, everyone would hop over the fence and take off running as if they were in a Keystone Kops comedy.

• Dr. F.P. Keppel, the president of the Carnegie Corporation, which financially supported many libraries, made several visits to the Denver Public Library and the University of Denver Library. He was impressed by the number of visitors to the libraries, and once joked to librarian Malcolm Glenn Wyer, "Now tell me, Malcolm, how much has it cost you to hire all these people to keep coming in and out of the library during the days I was here?"

• Tom Hanks, of course, has won back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor for his roles in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. This puts him in the ranks of actors who can command millions of dollars for starring in a movie. However, like most other actors, he underwent a period of poverty before making it big. Early in his career as an actor, his sister returned several empty soda-pop containers for the deposit so that she could send him an admittedly small amount of money.

How Do I Use Apostrophes to Show Possession?

How do I make singular words possessive?

Answer: Add an apostrophe and an -s.

• Great art is frequently earthy. One of the most famous scenes in Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander shows the character Uncle Carl amusing children with his virtuoso farting; his talents include being able to blow out a candle with his wind. Was the actor who played Uncle Carl really farting? Unfortunately, no. Bertil Guve, who played the boy Alexander, explains, "They had a person sitting right next to the candle with a tube." Watch the scene carefully. When the candle is blown out, the wind does not come from Uncle Carl's backside.

• Sir Laurence Olivier paid attention to the little things in his effort to make his wonderful acting even better. For example, when he was going to play Dr. Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, he was extremely happy when he acquired an authentic pair of 19th-century pince-nez to wear when he played the role. He explained, "No one else might know it is real, but the fact that it is adds authority to my feeling about the role."

How do I make plural words possessive?

Answer, part 1: If the word does not end in -s, add an apostrophe and -s.

• Children do strange things sometimes. When he was a child, Will Hobbs, author of such young people's novels as Beardance, bought a ticket to a movie, and then he stood in line. When the doors opened, the line moved forward, but when young Will reached the ticket-taker, he discovered that he had been chewing on his ticket, turning it into a spitball.

Answer, part 2: If the word does end in -s, add an apostrophe only.

• Charles Laughton directed the movie The Night of the Hunter, in which an insane preacher played by Robert Mitchum chases a small boy named John, played by Billy Chapin, to get him to reveal where some money is hidden. After the film had been released, Mr. Laughton heard Mr. Mitchum ask Billy, "Do you think John's frightened of the preacher?" Billy replied that John wasn't, so Mr. Mitchum said, "Then you don't know the preacher, and you don't know John." Billy, who was somewhat cocky, said, "Oh, really? That's probably why I just won the New York Critics' Circle Prize." Mr. Laughton, hearing this, roared, "Get that child away from me!"

Use Brackets for Editorial Insertions

Occasionally, you may need to add words to a quotation to make the quotation more understandable to the reader (or to correct an error in the quotation). When you do that, enclose your words in brackets to show that the added words (or letters) are your own and not those of the speaker.

• If you are really famous, it's hard to avoid the paparazzi. For a while, celebrity photographers were after all the photographs of Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie that they could get. (Actually, they still are.) And for a while, Ms. Aniston wore the same outfit over and over, hoping that media editors would think that newly taken photographs were actually old, leftover photographs. According to celebrity photographer Gary Sun, that trick will no longer work. He says that these days the media will "use the pictures, [and] they'll talk smack about you for wearing the same clothes over and over."

• If you want people to laugh, it helps if they know that you are a comedian. For example, Groucho Marx went to a candy store and bought some candy for his children. The candy store owner did not recognize him and did not laugh when Groucho said he wanted to buy "just a few dainties to make the kiddies sick." However, later the candy store owner learned that Groucho was a famous comedian and so when Groucho entered the store again and said, "The kiddies want to get sick again," the candy store owner laughed hard. Groucho says, "Surely this wasn't a funny remark. Certainly it wasn't any more amusing than when I had said a similar thing before. But the fact that [the candy store owner knew that] I was a comedian made a difference."

• Controversial film director John Waters, aka the Prince of Puke, finds inspiration for his films in real life. In a Baltimore bar, he once asked a man what he did for a living. The man replied, "Can I be frank? I trade deer meat for crack." Mr. Waters reflects, "I can't think that up. I could think of three movies about him. I mean, does he wait at a deer crossing sign and gun it when he need[s] a fix? It takes a while to get deer meat so you have to plan ahead, which isn't what most junkies do. Little things like that, anything can inspire me. I base everything on regular people who think they're completely normal and their behavior seems entirely insane to me."

• Being an actor can be an insecure experience, as actors frequently worry about whether they will ever find another acting job. Alan Arkin tells a story about the great actor George C. Scott. One month after Mr. Scott had won an Oscar for Best Actor for his title role in Patton, a good friend of his visited him and heard him yelling. He was yelling for joy, screaming, "I got a job! I got a job!" Mr. Arkin makes the important point, "So most [actors] never get over that sense of never working again. It's a precarious life." Of course, Mr. Arkin tries to get quality jobs, although compromise can be a necessity: "I just want good material. But part of taking a role is your bank account. If you haven't worked in six months and the cupboard is bare, then your sights get lowered a bit out of necessity."

Capitalize the Names of Holidays

• While creating E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, director Steven Spielberg worked with young children, including a six-year-old Drew Barrymore, and so he wanted to make the filming fun. On Halloween, he went to work dressed up in costume — as a woman. Drew remembers, "He looked great!" He was also filmed in costume, and he said to the camera, "This is Halloween, folks. I don't dress this way all the time."

• In 1939, May Wale Brown left Austria to come to New York City to be with her two brothers. She arrived on Thanksgiving, and of course the big Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was being held. Her brothers, who loved to tease her, told her that they had arranged the parade in order to welcome her to America. (Later, Ms. Brown became a Hollywood script supervisor.)

• When Beth Quinn, former columnist for New York's Times Herald-Record, was young, she and her sister looked forward to two big presents — one for each of them — each Christmas. The two big presents came in two big boxes, the tops of which were wrapped in colorful paper. One box's top was red; the other box's top was blue. To open the box and see the present, all a child had to do was to take the top off of a box. When Beth was about eight years old and wondering if Santa Claus was real, she came across these two boxes in her family's storage area. To Beth, this was disturbing evidence that perhaps Santa Claus was not real, so she asked her father about the boxes: "Why are they here? Why doesn't Santa have them?" Her father explained the situation well: "What are you, nuts or something? You think Santa can haul everything around with him? He asked your mother and me years ago to keep those boxes here. He said to put them out on Christmas Eve so he can fill them." This made sense to Beth, who realized, "So that's why the lids come off like that! So he can fill them and doesn't have to wrap them each time!" Her father agreed: "He's a smart guy, that Santa."

• Eric Sean Nall is the frontman for the music group Foxy Shazam, who recorded the album Introducing. One of the songs on the album, "A Black Man's Breakfast," is about Karen, Mr. Nall's girlfriend, a Proctor and Gamble scientist who develops shampoos. When the album came out, Mr. Nall's girlfriend wrote down the lyrics for most of the songs so they could appear in the CD booklet, but when Mr. Nall took the lyrics to a printer, he added a couple of lines to "A Black Man's Breakfast": "Karen, I love you so much. Will you marry me?" He gave her a copy of the CD and booklet on Christmas Eve, and when she read the lyrics, she cried — and she said yes.

• Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, was a good mother, but not necessarily a good baker. When her children asked her to bake a cake for a school bake sale, she did, but the cake was lopsided. Therefore, she sent a note to the school, asking, "Is there anything else I could do, more in line with my talents? Is there a play we could help with, or anything like that?" The following week, she and her husband, a professional actor, found themselves in charge of directing the school's Christmas pageant.

Use a Colon Between Two Independent Clauses When the Second Clause Summarizes or Explains the First

• Shirley Temple became a child star in movies before she learned how to read. So how did she learn her lines? Her mother read her the scripts of her movies at bedtime. In 1934, little Shirley won a miniature Oscar to recognize a major accomplishment: According to Hollywood, she had brought "more happiness to millions of children and millions of grownups than any child of her years in the history of the world."

• The parents of Sandra Bullock, star of Speed, loved opera. Her mother sang, and her father taught voice. When Sandra was eight years old, she made her debut on the operatic stage: She played a gypsy child. The part was non-singing and non-speaking, but richly rewarding — members of the audience threw chocolates to her.

• A fun movie about drag queens is the Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Directed by Stephan Elliott, the surprise international hit even won an Academy Award for Costume Design. This win is amazing: The showpiece costume of the film — the flip-flop dress — was made for only $7, thus showing the superiority of originality over money. (When the film's costume designer, Lizzy Gardiner, picked up her Oscar, she wore a dress made from credit cards.) Of course, the male stars of the film wore dresses for the movie, but for the crew photo taken after the film was completed, every member of the crew, including some very macho males, happily wore a dress.

• Not every family is happy. While growing up, actor Corbin Bernsen did not have a really good relationship with his father, and at one point, during the process of getting a divorce, his mother was drinking way too much. In addition, Corbin was going through a process of teenage rebellion and blaming his parents for it. Corbin says, "I was a typical kid, getting high and acting crazy. And I said, 'Well, Mom is this' and 'I do this because of that' and 'What do you expect?'" His father then taught him an important lesson. Corbin remembers, "My dad said, 'You have a choice in life. You can be happy or you can be sad. But don't blame anybody else other than yourself. If your life is going to be screwed up, don't blame me or your mom.'" He decided to become an actor after seeing his mother on the stage in a production of The Miracle Worker, following which he thought, "Wow, that's my mother up there, the crazy woman who makes my dinner. Look at what she's doing!'" She also taught him an important lesson: "She said, 'I don't mind you following what I'm doing. You've seen the ups and downs. The only thing I demand of you is that you love and respect your craft. It doesn't matter if you're doing a commercial or a movie, just love it. Love all of it.'"

• In 1965, the Friars Club, whose members are comedians, roasted Soupy Sales with comic insults. Mr. Sales and everybody else enjoyed themselves, but Friars Club member Brian Dougherty ran into a problem: He had to go to the bathroom, but he didn't want to miss any of the jokes. Fortunately, Mr. Dougherty is a problem-solver. He whispered to Marty Allen, who was sitting next to him at a table with an overhanging tablecloth, "Hand me that pitcher." With a relieved bladder, Mr. Dougherty was able to laugh even harder.

After an Independent Clause, Use a Colon to Direct Attention to a Quotation

• This may be a shock to some people, but at one time, two-time Oscar-winner Jody Foster thought about giving up acting. She found acting not to be rewarding anymore, and she thought about entering some other profession where she could use her analytical skills. Ms. Foster says, "I had been feeling there was something kind of not intellectually valuable about being an actor. It had started to seem like a really dumb job." Fortunately, she realized what the problem was: "It was me. It was my fault. I wasn't bringing enough to it. I hadn't realized that it was my responsibility to go deeper, to really build a character from the ground up; that to really be a good actor, you had to be able to discuss a movie, any movie that you're taking on, and to see the literature in it. Then it becomes fascinating. Then you get better as an actor. Then you learn to really love movies." With this realization, Ms. Foster rededicated herself to her career — at age 12. This paid off in a big way. Just two years later, when she was 14, she played a prostitute in Taxi Driver, earning an Oscar nomination.

• Too often, Hollywood has stereotyped actors and actresses, sometimes because of their ethnicity. Anna May Wong played many, many Oriental stereotypes in the 1930s, something she disliked. So, of course, did other actors and actresses with Oriental features (or makeup that made them appear Oriental). Once, Ms. Wong said, "Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain? And so crude a villain. Murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that. How should we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than that of the west?" In 1960, after appearing seldom in movies for two decades, she played Lana Turner's housekeeper in Portrait in Black. Again, the stereotypes came out, this time from the publicity department, which explained Ms. Wong's long absence from the screen by passing along a proverb that supposedly had been taught to Ms. Wong by her mother, "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul." Ms. Wong's own explanation was this: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play."

• When he was four years old, actor Steve Buscemi was hit by a bus and got his skull fractured. This doesn't mean that he was unlucky — the accident could have been a lot worse. In addition, when he became 18 years old, he received a $6,000 settlement from the city. He used the money to pay for acting school at the Lee Strasberg Institute, where he studied with John, Lee's son, who was more laid-back than his famous father. For example, Mr. Buscemi describes an acting scenario at the institute: "They had this thing where if you were in a desert and imagining sun beating down on you, you couldn't use the stage light to imagine the sun. But John said if the stage light works, that's fine. The audience don't know and don't care." Mr. Buscemi, of course, gets results, as is evidenced by his roles in such movies as Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, and Ghost World.

• People do make mistakes. While Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., author of Slaughterhouse-Five, was on a panel at City College, a woman asked him this question: "Why did you put exactly one hundred 'So it goes's' in Slaughterhouse-Five?" Mr. Vonnegut replied that he was not aware that he had used that exact number. Also on the panel was critic John Simon, who disappeared while everyone had coffee, and then reappeared and said to Mr. Vonnegut, "One hundred and three."

Use a Colon to Direct Attention to an Appositive

An appositive renames something.

• Jeff Bridges had a good reason for wanting to star in the 1976 remake of King Kong: "I used to pretend I was sick whenever I saw [in] the TV Guide [that] King Kong was going to be on, so I could stay home from school and watch the original." Mr. Bridges, however, is critical of the performance of one of his co-stars in the remake. He says, "The monkey in that was just terrible. Oh, my God. Just terrible." Mr. Bridges has also seen another movie numerous times: The Big Lebowski, a cult favorite in which he plays The Dude. He says, "Normally when a movie of mine comes on I'll turn the channel, but when Lebowski comes on, I'll say, 'I'll just wait until Turturro licks the [bowling] ball, then I'll change the channel.'" But after Turturro licks the bowling ball, Mr. Bridges will say that he'll wait until another key moment in the movie occurs, and then he'll turn the channel. This keeps repeating itself until Mr. Bridges discovers that he has watched The Big Lebowski yet another time.

• According to Brad Pitt, his children are "the funniest people I've ever met." For example, in 2008 his daughter Shiloh went through a phase where she wanted to be called by another name: John or Peter. Mr. Pitt calls it "a Peter Pan thing" where whenever he starts to call her by her real name she responds, "I'm John." Of course, Mr. Pitt is right when he says that this stuff is "cute to parents" and he is wrong when he says that this stuff is "probably really obnoxious to other people." It's actually pretty cute to other people.

• Adrienne Janic, host of the car show Overhaulin' on TLC, attended the 2008 Christian Oscars: the Movieguide awards. She wore a dress with slits up the sides, and when she sat down, she used two napkins so that she would have enough material to cover up the top of the slits. Even so, one of the Christians present warned her about the evils of wearing such a dress. Ms. Janic replied, "Oh, I've got a mansion in hell."

• Arnold Schwarzenegger has exhibited a lot of drive in his life. One person who taught him to accomplish much was Franz Steeger, a boy in Arnold's village who held the record for chinning himself on a tree limb: 21 chin-ups. The 14-year-old Arnold tried chinning himself, and he did 18 chin-ups, but Franz told him, "You do the rest with your mind." Franz gave him a pep talk, and Arnold tried again. He did 18 chin-ups, then he did a difficult 19th chin-up, and then Franz reminded him, "You do the rest with your mind." Arnold kept going, and he broke the record with 22 chin-ups.

• Satirist Al Franken regularly made fun of disgraced President Richard Nixon, but when he produced a Saturday Night Live "Presidential Bash" in 1992, he sent a letter to Mr. Nixon, hoping that he would make a personal appearance on the show. Unfortunately, as a reply, he received a letter saying no. No problem. Mr. Franklin happily framed the letter and now proudly displays it in a room that he has devoted to his collection of Nixon memorabilia: a bathroom.

Use a Colon to Direct Attention to a List

• While Michael Kidd was choreographing the movie Guys and Dolls, Samuel Goldwyn wanted to take him out for a meal, so he asked him if he liked Jewish food. Mr. Kidd did, so Mr. Goldwyn took him to Lindy's, raving on the way about Lindy's delicious Jewish food: gefilte fish, kishke, kneidlach, kugel, lockshen, and so on. Arriving at Lindy's, Mr. Goldwyn asked the waiter what the special was. The waiter replied, "Irish stew," and Mr. Goldwyn said, "That's what we'll have."

• Ernie Banks was the first African-American athlete to play for the Chicago Cubs, and he worried about how the veteran Cubs would treat an African-American rookie. He needn't have worried. When he walked into the Cubs for the first time, three players were there: home-run hitter Hank Sauer and infielders Randy Jackson and Bill Serena. All three players shook Mr. Banks' hand and welcomed him to the Cubs. The same thing happened when he met home-run hitter Ralph Kiner. During batting practice, Mr. Banks had no bats of his own, so he asked Mr. Kiner if he could use one of his bats. Mr. Kiner had no objections. Mr. Banks hit the first pitch thrown to him into the left-field bleachers, and the Cubs were silent for a moment, then Mr. Kiner yelled to Mr. Banks, "Hey, Banks! You can use all my bats if you promise to keep on hitting like that!"

• In the winter of 1995, the weather was so cold that over four inches of ice formed on a small lake in Indiana, making it safe to walk on. However, a few warm days in February melted some of the ice, making it dangerous to walk on. Unfortunately, 12-year-old Josh Mitchell didn't realize that, and he decided to take a short cut to a friend's house by walking across the semi-frozen lake. He fell through the ice, and a dog named Levi, the pet of Denise and George Hammond, saw him and started whining. George heard the whining, investigated, and saw Josh floundering in the icy water. He ordered, "Levi, fetch!" Levi ran out onto the lake, jumped into the water, and allowed Josh to hold on to him. Meanwhile, George and Denise brought Levi's 20-foot leash out to the lake and tried to throw it to Josh, but the leash was too short. Because she didn't know how long Levi could keep Josh afloat, Denise went out on the ice, knowing that although she weighed less than her husband, she would probably fall through the ice. In fact, she did fall through the ice four feet away from Josh. She kept breaking the ice until she could reach Josh, then she kept him afloat. George called Levi, and Levi came out of the water. Two neighbors brought an extension ladder out to the lake and pushed it to where Denise and Josh were. Denise pushed Josh up on the ladder and then climbed up on the ladder herself. The ladder distributed their weight across a large area of the ice so that they didn't fall through, and they reached the shore. Denise fainted when she reached the shore, but paramedics took care of her and Josh and took them to the hospital, where they quickly recovered from their ordeal. Of course, Josh and his parents were grateful to Levi and the Hammonds, and they sent them gifts: bones for Levi, a big bouquet of flowers for Denise, and a gift certificate to be used at a pet store.

How Do I Recognize and Correct Comma Splices?

A comma splice consists of two independent clauses that are connected with a comma only.

Ex: Sally went to the movies, Bill went to the dance.

Ex: Bottom is a fool, Puck is a trickster.

Note: An "independent clause" is a clause that can be correctly punctuated as a complete sentence.

You may correct a sentence with a comma splice in several ways:

1. Make two sentences out of it.

Sally went to the movies. Bill went to the dance.

Bottom is a fool. Puck is a trickster.

2. Keep the comma, but join the sentences together with a connecting word such as and, or, but, nor, or yet.

Sally went to the movies, but Bill went to the dance.

Bottom is a fool, and Puck is a trickster.

3. If the sentences are closely related, you may join them with a semicolon.

Sally went to the movies; Bill went to the dance.

Bottom is a fool; Puck is a trickster.

4. If the sentences are closely related, you may join them with a semicolon, a transition word such as however or moreover, and a comma.

Sally went to the movies; however, Bill went to the dance.

Bottom is a fool; however, Puck is a trickster.

5. Make one of the independent clauses a subordinate clause.

Although Sally went to the movies, Bill went to the dance.

Although Bottom is a fool, Puck is a trickster.

6. If appropriate, use a dash.

Sally went to the movies — Bill went to the dance.

Bottom is a fool — Puck is a trickster.

The way that you correct a run-on sentence will depend on the context of the sentence.

Use Commas to Separate the Items in a Series of Three or More

Use commas to separate the items in a series of three or more.

Ex: I like Sarah Silverstone, Lenny Bruce, and Richard Pryor.

Do not use a comma to separate the items in a series of two.

Ex: I like Laurel and Hardy.

Note: This is a series of three clauses: 1) started out studying law, 2) switched to serious acting, and 3) finally started performing comic roles.

• When comedian Steve Allen was a teenager, he ran away from home. Very quickly, he began to steal, to beg, and to eat garbage. Mr. Allen writes about finding a discarded can of pork and beans along a road. The can contained several ants and a few beans, but Mr. Allen shook the ants out of the can and enjoyed eating what was left of the beans.

• Rick Aviles, the actor whose character killed Patrick Swayze's character in Ghost, once made his living as a street comedian in New York — after he passed the hat he would find American money, francs, yen, and marks.

• Ridley Scott has directed many different kinds of films including Alien, American Gangster, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Hannibal, Matchstick Men, and Thelma and Louise. As you would expect, he watches many, many films. At 11 p.m. he starts watching a movie, and he says that "if I'm still watching at 1, that means it's a good film."

• Werner Herzog, the director of Fitzcarraldo, The Enigma of Caspar Hauser, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, has advice on how to become a successful filmmaker: "Work as a bouncer in a sex club, work as a taxi driver, work as a butcher — earn the money and make your own film." Perhaps his most important advice is to make a film instead of making excuses for why you can't make a film. He says, "Today, with these little digital cameras, there is no excuse any more." Mr. Herzog himself stole his first camera and used it to make 11 films. He says about the camera, "It fulfilled its real destiny."

• When Groucho Marx, star of such movies as Horsefeathers with his famous brothers, was a young man in vaudeville, he once worked at an Atlantic City theater whose manager also ran a boarding house on the waterfront where entertainers stayed. This manager was a man who knew how to save a dollar. Every meal featured fish because outside Groucho's window, the theater manager kept a huge fishing net into which Groucho's breakfast, lunch, and dinner swam. Perhaps unnecessarily, Groucho says that after his engagement at the Atlantic City theater was over, for an entire week he ate nothing but roast beef.

Use a Comma or Commas to Set Off Direct Address

Use a comma or commas to set off direct address. Direct address occurs when someone is addressed directly by name or a name. For example:

"Hi, David."

"Hello, Dad."

"What's happening, man?"

"Hello, Mr. Jones."

"This concerns you, Mr. Jones, because of the cost of shutting down the plant."

• Actor John Hurt co-starred with Harrison Ford in the 2008 action-adventure movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The 66-year-old Mr. Ford has kept himself in shape, and he did his own fights and many of his character's stunts in the movie. At one point, after performing a harrowing stunt, Mr. Ford turned to Mr. Hurt and joked, "Well, you don't think they employ me to act, did you, John?"

• John Cho and Kal Penn are the Korean and Indian stars of the 2004 cult movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, but they have done much more acting than that film and its sequel. Mr. Cho played Sulu in a Star Trek movie and appeared as a hip-hop-savvy accountant named Kenny in TV's Ugly Betty. Mr. Penn appeared on TV's House and landed a role in the dramatic movie The Namesake in part because of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. He explains that Namesake director Mira Nair let him audition because "her 14-year-old son, who was a Harold & Kumar fan, [...] every night before bed said, 'Mom, please audition Kal Penn for the part.'"

• The brother of journalist Donald Liebenson once saw actor Paul Newman at an airport and asked him for an autograph for his mother, who was a big fan. Mr. Newman replied, "Sorry, pal. Tell your mom that I don't sign autographs, but I'd be happy to buy her a beer." Years later, Mr. Liebenson saw Mr. Newman at a publicity junket and recounted that story to him. Mr. Newman replied that he could remember the exact moment that he began declining to sign autographs: "I was standing at a urinal in Sardi's, and this guy came though the door with a piece of paper. I thought this was inappropriate. It wasn't just an invasion of privacy. It was an invasion of purpose."

• TV commercials for the European jeans manufactured by Diesel sometimes addressed contemporary issues. One commercial was headlined, "How to smoke 145 cigarettes a day." In it, a talking skull asks the viewers, "Man, who needs two lungs anyway?"

• Jack Riley played the character of the insulting, misanthropic Mr. Elliott Carlin on The Bob Newhart Show. Frequently, fans of the show ask him if he is anything like the character he portrayed. Because he is a professional comedian, Mr. Riley's standard response to this question is in the character of Mr. Carlin: "Bite me, you wiener."

After an Introductory Element, Use a Comma

After an introductory element, use a comma.

Note: For short introductory elements, commas may be optional.

• Frequently, silence in the wilderness, whether on land or sea, is a sign of danger. Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet, knows a man who survived an attack by a great white shark while he was diving. Immediately before the attack, the ocean grew silent. Today, the man says, "I should have listened to the silence. I'd still have my right leg."

• One day in 2010, <Lulu.com>, a Web site that allows authors to self-publish their own books in various print and electronic formats, announced a new way of publishing one's work: "We recognize electronic books and the internet are a passing fad, so we are now offering the tried and true hand-written scroll." Of course, this announcement was made on April Fools Day.

• Comedian Chris Rock has made it big in the risky and difficult business of show business, but that doesn't mean that he wants his relatives to try to accomplish what he has accomplished. Whenever a family member wants help in getting established in show business, he offers to pay their college tuition instead.

• As a young comedian, Jim Carrey made out a $10 million check to himself "for acting services rendered," and carried it around in his wallet as a physical symbol of an important goal. Later, he received $10 million for starring in The Mask 2 — and $20 million for starring in Liar, Liar. Along the way to mega-success, he achieved success as an actor in the TV comedy series In Living Color. Unfortunately, his fame did have a downside when he took his daughter out for trick-or-treating on Halloween. Perhaps exaggerating a little, Mr. Carrey says that people would say, "It's the dude from In Living Color! Here's an extra candy! Do something [funny]!"

• When Adam Sandler was a little boy, he had a Diver Dan doll. Unfortunately, he lost it. Fortunately, he had a father who cared about him and didn't want him to be unhappy. His father dressed up as Diver Dan's father, then told young Adam that Diver Dan was not lost but with him, and he thanked young Adam for taking care of Diver Dan. Today, Mr. Sandler says, "Dad would do anything to make me feel better."

• Martial arts master Bruce Lee used visualization to get rid of negative thoughts. He would imagine himself writing down the negative thought on a piece of paper. Then he would imagine himself wadding up the piece of paper and setting fire to it. After the piece of paper had burned, the negative thought would no longer enter his mind.

• When 10-year-old Alicia Marks was dancing on Dec. 27, 1920, in South London, a young student was so overwhelmed by her performance that he spent the last of his allowance on some white chrysanthemums to give to her. The young student was Patrick Dolin, who later partnered Ms. Marks when they were using the names of Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin.

Use a Comma and a Conjunction to Separate Two Independent Clauses

Note: An independent clause is a clause that can be correctly punctuated as a complete sentence.

Note: The comma goes before the conjunction (the connecting word).

Ex: I like this, and she likes that.

• Fayard Nicholas of the dance team the Nicholas Brothers loved vaudeville and hung out in the theaters, watching all the acts and learning from them. When he was 11 years old, he decided to become an entertainer, so he created an act for himself and his brother and sister. They stayed up late rehearsing the act, and when their parents reminded them that it was a school night, Bayard told them, "We have something to show you." Their parents watched the act, and then they looked at each other and said, "Hey, we have something here." Their father had them audition for the manager of the Philadelphia's Standard Theater, who quickly told him, "They're booked for next week." The Nicholas Brothers became a famous dance team in movies.

• After making the movie Get Smart, Steve Carell, who plays Maxwell Smart, knew that his seven-year-old daughter and some of her friends wanted to see it. However, he warned her that seeing the movie might be embarrassing for her: "I had to prepare her for a scene where you see me with my trousers off. I said, 'You're going to go see this with your friends, and you're going to see my naked butt. Are you going to get embarrassed? Because you don't have to go.'" His daughter asked, "Is it funny?" Mr. Carell replied, "I think so." And she made her decision: "Well, okay then." Her decision made Mr. Carell, who values funny highly, happy.

• Mitzi Green was a child star at Paramount, and she became friends with Maxine Marx, the daughter of comedian Chico Marx. During a stay-over at Maxine's house, Mitzi put a cream on her face. Maxine asked what the cream was, and Mitzi replied, "It's a freckle remover." "Does it work?" "It hasn't yet, but I keep hoping."

• We think of Paul Muni as a serious actor who undertook serious roles, winning an Oscar as Best Actor for playing the lead role in The Story of Louis Pasteur, but he was also a master of the put-on. He was born in what is now the Ukraine, and when he was in his 30s, he became an American citizen by passing a test that asked questions about American history and politics. At the beginning of the test, he spoke with a heavy accent and looked puzzled by the questions he was being asked, but as the test continued he lost his accent and boldly answered the questions. When he answered the final question, he spoke with no accent at all, and then he told his examiner, "Your honor, it's remarkable. Now that you've made me a citizen, I can speak perfectly!"

• Olga Preobrajenska was a very strong ballerina and teacher of ballet. As an old lady, she lived in a nursing home, but whenever she was fed up with the nurses, she stacked all the bedroom furniture against the door so that they couldn't come in and bother her.

Use a Comma or Commas to Set Off Parenthetical Elements

Set off parenthetical elements with commas.

She, however, is not afraid of them.

She, on the other hand, is not afraid of them.

We see, though, that she is small.

• As a very young actress, Eliza Dushku worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie True Lies. She had never really planned to act, and her mother was not even close to being a stage mother, so they were learning what to do little by little, and lots of people were giving them lots of advice, including this: "Your kid has a funny name, Judy — you should think about changing it." Mr. Schwarzenegger, however, said, "Eliza, Judy, trust me, keep her name, people will learn it, take it from me."

• Script supervisor May Wale Brown was very impressed by the professionalism shown by Henry Fonda in the making of Gideon's Trumpet, which was a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie. In the movie, Mr. Fonda used a pair of wire-rimmed glasses in his portrayal of the character he was playing. His own real glasses had heavy rims because they contained a hearing aid that he needed due to his old age. In a scene with Fay Wray, the camera focused on Ms. Wray, and Mr. Fonda was not, of course, in her close-ups. However, Mr. Fonda said his lines well, and he continued to wear the wire-rimmed glasses. When Ms. Brown told him that he could wear his own glasses (she did not want to mention the hearing aid), Mr. Fonda replied, "I want Fay to see the Gideon character when she looks at me. It'll make it easier for her."

• In 1981, Karen Allen played the only "girl" whom Indiana Jones ever loved in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and in 2008 her character met the hero again in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Of course, she was a couple of decades older, and filming took a little adjustment, although she "dove right back in, driving these big dusty, clanking old trucks on these remote locations, just like old times!" Still, Ms. Allen says, "In the beginning, I was saying, 'Oh, I don't need the knee pads. Nooo, I don't need elbow pads!' After a few days, though, you're like, 'If I put a double set on the knees, will the camera see them through my pants?' All that flinging yourself around is the hard part."

• Some superstars enjoy fame. When silent-movie greats Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford got married, they went to Europe for their honeymoon, where they were at first astonished by the mobs of people who recognized them. Therefore, they slipped away to Germany, where they were not nearly so well known. After a while, though, they decided to go back to where they had been mobbed. Ms. Pickford said to her new husband, "Let's go someplace where we are known. I've had enough obscurity for a lifetime."

Use Commas or Other Punctuation to Set Off Speaker Tags

Set off speaker tags with a comma or other punctuation.

Speaker tags are short phrases such as "he said" or "she replied" or "David yelled" or "Sally asked."

Bill asked, "How are you?"

Sally replied, "I am well."

Note: These sentences are also correct.

"How are you?" Bill asked.

"What time is it?" the stranger asked.

"Help!" he shouted.

• When friends Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon made the movie Buddy, Buddy, Mr. Matthau took a bad spill on the set. Worried, Mr. Lemmon folded his jacket and tenderly put it under Mr. Matthau's head, then asked, "Are you comfortable?" Mr. Matthau replied, "I make a living."

• When Fay Kanin started writing for the movies, she told her boss, Sam Marx, the story editor at MGM, "Mr. Marx, I know you own Gone with the Wind. I've read it, and I would be a wonderful writer for it." He smiled at her brashness and said, "I think they have in mind a more expensive writer for it." Ms. Kanin always appreciated that he used the word "expensive" instead of the word "talented."

• While studying at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Keith Haring used to create art on long lengths of paper — the paper was so long that he rolled it out the door and onto the city sidewalk. Passersby used to talk to him about his art. Mr. Haring later said, "Most of them weren't the type to go to art galleries, but a lot of their comments struck me as more perceptive than those of my teachers and fellow students." In 1990, Mr. Haring died of AIDS.

• While Andre Previn was married to Mia Farrow, he belonged to the Garrick Club. One day, the club secretary invited him to bring Mia to dinner there, but added, "By the way, you must forgive me for this, but she can't use the main staircase. The women have to go round the back." This shocked Mr. Previn, and when he told his wife about the invitation — and about women not being allowed to use the main staircase — she replied, "You have 10 minutes in which to quit the club." Fortunately, he had the perfect reply: "I've already done it." Years later, Mr. Previn said, "Unbelievable. Mia was the wrong person to try that on."

How Do I Recognize and Correct Dangling Modifiers?

"To spot a dangling modifier, look for a sentence that begins with a modifier but doesn't name the person, idea, or thing modified. Readers will think the modifier refers to the subject of the sentence that follows. If it doesn't, the modifier dangles." — The Longman Pocket Writer's Companion

Example No. 1

The following sentence says that the Courthouse was walking down Court Street):

Walking down Court Street, the Courthouse glittered in the sun.

The clause "Walking down Court Street" modifies what follows it: "the Courthouse." Clearly, this is wrong — the Courthouse was not walking down Court street.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to identify who was walking down the street.

Walking down Court Street, I saw the Courthouse glittering in the sun.

Example No. 2

In the following sentence, the writer is saying that he or she is "a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings."

Being a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings, I would assume challenging assignments to provide exposure to various career options.

The clause "Being a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings" modifies what follows it: "I." Clearly, this is wrong — the writer is not a Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to accurately identify the "Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings."

A Fortune 200 company and the world's largest producer of automotive and industrial coatings, PPG Industries allows interns to assume challenging assignments to provide exposure to various career options.

Example No. 3

In the following sentence, the writer says that "the majority of our curriculum" is "an engineering student at Ohio University."

As an engineering student at Ohio University, the majority of our curriculum is centered on three important areas in engineering: development, drafting, and design.

The clause "As an engineering student at Ohio University" modifies what follows it: "the majority of our curriculum." Clearly, this is wrong — the engineering student at Ohio University is not the majority of our curriculum.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to make clear that "an engineering student at Ohio University" describes him or her and not "the majority of our curriculum."

As an engineering student at Ohio University, I study in particular three important areas in engineering: development, drafting, and design.

Example #4

The following sentence says that the readers will be writing the Instructions:

Dangling Modifier: By writing my Instructions, the readers will understand the importance of following safety procedures in the laboratory.

Note: The phrase "By writing my Instructions " modifies what follows it; in this case, it modifies "the readers," which is incorrect.

To get rid of the dangling modifier, the writer needs to identify who is writing the Instructions.

Correct: By writing my Instructions, I will help the readers to understand the importance of following safety procedures in the laboratory.

Note: The phrase "By writing my Instructions" modifies what follows it; in this case, it modifies "I," which is correct.

More Examples

Dangling Modifier (this sentence doesn't identify what is lacking accurate, up-to-date information):

By not having accurate, up-to-date information for the cadets, problems continually arise.

Correct Sentence:

Because the manual does not have accurate, up-to-date information for the cadets, problems continually arise.

Dangling Modifier (this sentence says that the dogs will write a manual):

By writing the manual, dogs will be taken care of properly.

Correct Sentence:

By writing the manual, I will make available to pet owners information about how to take care of dogs properly.

Use a Dash or Dashes for an Abrupt Break in the Flow of a Sentence or Dialogue

Dashes are also used for emphasis.

• In a 2002 interview for Esquire, Cameron Diaz spoke about a notable practical joke that she played on unsuspecting guests at her home. She has a device that emits fart noises, and whenever a guest sits on a certain cushion located directly over the device, she uses a remote control to activate the device. Ms. Diaz says, "It's the best. It's like drugs. The first time you do it to somebody who's not expecting it — man, it's just the greatest high!" Unfortunately, the joke does have a drawback: "But you can never get away with it twice, so you have to move on to the next person."

• In New York City, comedian Bob Smith worked as a cater-waiter for a woman who introduced her dogs to him by saying, "This is Picasso, and this is Gorky — the painter, not the writer."

• Being a gorilla imitator can be a harrowing occupation, as during the filming of the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Circus an actor portraying the gorilla fainted twice because the owner of the gorilla skin refused to allow ventilation holes to be pierced in it because it was so valuable. However, one day the owner of the gorilla skin noticed something strange — the actor had been inside the gorilla skin for three hours and hadn't fainted yet (normally, anyone wearing the gorilla skin fainted after two hours). Investigating, he discovered that the actor had taken an icepick and made several unauthorized ventilation holes in the skin.

• What are the anti-aging secrets of top movie stars? How is an aging movie star able to act credibly in an action movie? Of course, diet and exercise help, although tricks can help, too. For example, wrinkles in close-ups can be eliminated through technology after the film has been shot. In addition, hemorrhoid cream can work well for short periods of time, according to award-winning make-up artist Daniel Phillips. An aging star can put hemorrhoid cream on the bags under his eyes, and for a couple of hours the skin will tighten — long enough to shoot some close-ups.

• When Ingrid Bergman arrived in Hollywood her first time, she sent fellow Swedish actress Greta Garbo — who desired privacy — some flowers and an invitation to have dinner and spend time together. Ms. Garbo accepted the invitation by telegram — three months later, when Ms. Bergman was leaving Hollywood. Ms. Bergman told George Cukor about Ms. Garbo's odd behavior. Mr. Cukor was friendly with Ms. Garbo, and he told Ms. Bergman, "Of course, Greta wouldn't have sent the telegram unless she was sure you were leaving."

Use Adjective-Forming Hyphens When Combining Two or More Words to Form an Adjective That Appears Before the Word It Modifies

When you combine two or more words to form an adjective that appears before the noun it modifies, use hyphens to connect the adjective-forming words together.

• First-time filmmaker Marc Webb did not want to direct a romantic comedy — until he saw the screenplay for (500) Days of Summer, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. The first few lines were these: "Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely accidental. Especially Jenny Beckman. Bitch." "I liked that," Mr. Webb says. "It's fun, and it says, this movie is going to be a little bit different. You might have to engage a little more." The film was a hit and may someday be regarded as a classic — Roger Ebert gave it the top-rated 4 stars. Mr. Webb himself says, "I don't think this is a profoundly probing movie, but it's a simple movie that speaks a little bit of the truth, and just dances with reality and is fun."

• Sometimes, achieving great success at a young age can lead to the problem of continually being asked about your early work despite all the good work you have done since then. One day, Orson Welles and Norman Mailer were having dinner when Mr. Mailer asked Mr. Welles a question about Citizen Kane, which Mr. Wells had created at age 25. Mr. Welles groaned and said, "Oh, Norman, not Citizen Kane." At first, Mr. Mailer was surprised, but then he realized what was the problem and said, mentioning his own youthful world-class work of art, "Mmm, yeah — it's like me and The Naked and the Dead." Other people also realized the burden that very great and very early success can have on a person. After seeing Citizen Kane, impresario Billy Rose told Mr. Welles, "Quit, kid — you'll never top it."

• Actor Will Smith is known as a rapper, TV star, and movie star. He is also known for his ears, and he says that when he was a kid, he resembled Alfred E. Newman, the funny-looking character who graces the covers of Mad magazine. In fact, one of young Will's friends told him that he "looked like a car with the doors open." Today, as a major film star, Will knows exactly where to give the credit for his success: "It's the ears! Americans have an ear fetish. Absolutely. Americans love people with big ears — Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Ross Perot. America loves ears."

• One of the ways that comedian Whoopi Goldberg knew that she was beginning to make it big was that caricaturist Al Hirschfeld worked his art on her in The New York Times while she was appearing on a one-woman show on Broadway. Mr. Hirschfeld traditionally hides his daughter's name — Nina — in his caricatures, and in his caricature of Ms. Goldberg he wrote "Nina" 40 times. Ms. Goldberg was so pleased with Mr. Hirschfeld's caricature that she sent him flowers.

• When Chris Rock was still early in his career as a stand-up comedian, his father asked him how good he was. Chris replied, "I'm one of the best in the country." His father knew him well, and he knew that Chris was not lying.

When Do I Use Italics for Titles?

Use italics for the titles of books, long pieces of choreography, newspapers, plays, and movies.

In general, the titles of long works of art should be italicized.

Title of a Book

• James Herbert, writer of such novels as Creed, knows celebrity photographer Richard Young, whose work appears in many celebrity-conscious newspapers and magazines. Mr. Herbert occasionally attends film premieres and parties where real celebrities are present, and he says that Mr. Young "always takes the trouble to photograph me just to make me feel important." Mr. Young does this even though both he and Mr. Herbert know that the newspaper and magazine photo editors are never going to print Mr. Herbert's photograph.

Title of a Movie

• Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance made many silent films together, but after he directed her in the 1923 drama A Woman of Paris, she stopped starring in his films. Nevertheless, although she seldom appeared in his films, he kept her under contract as a way to help her financially. She did appear in small roles in his movies Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952).

Title of a Long Play, and Title of a Newspaper

• Playwright Tennessee Williams hated racism. In 1947, his play Glass Menagerie played to all-white audiences in Washington, D.C. He tried to stop this from happening, but he was unable. Therefore, he wrote to The New York Times that "any future contract I make will contain a clause to keep the show out of Washington while this undemocratic practice continues." Mr. Williams could see the humor in life as well as the evil. In 1977 he was asked to leave the Shaw Theater in London because he kept laughing during a performance of The Glass Menagerie. Michael Billington writes that "his incessant hilarity at this memory of his own youth was disturbing the rest of the audience."

Title of a TV Series

• Comedians Jimmy Durante and Don Knotts once co-hosted a Kraft Music Hall special on TV. During rehearsal, the director said that when they were introduced, he wanted both of them to walk onstage doing the famous Jimmy Durante strut. In other words, Mr. Durante was supposed to be himself and Mr. Knotts was supposed to imitate Mr. Durante. However, Mr. Durante was forced to ask Mr. Knotts to show him the famous Jimmy Durante strut. He requested, "Hey, Don, do me! I don't know what I do!"

Use Italics for Emphasis

If you wish to emphasize a word or to show that a person emphasized a word in dialogue, italicize that word.

• Controversial film director John Waters has many talents, including the ability to give an entertaining pitch to people who may invest money that he can use to make his movies. Once he wrote a screenplay about a skinhead invasion of a community, and he pitched it to Dawn Steel of Disney, who listened to him, then joked, "Well, sure, when I heard 'skinheads,' I thought Disney!" Mr. Waters says, "She knew that they weren't going to do it, but I give an entertaining pitch, so she took the meetings anyway."

• While filming Some Like It Hot, Marilyn Monroe frequently had trouble remembering even the simplest lines. For example, in one scene she was supposed to open a drawer and say, "Where's the bourbon?" However, she blew the line in take after take. Therefore, director Billy Wilder ordered that the line be pasted in the drawer so she could read it. In the very next take, Ms. Monroe opened the wrong drawer — so Mr. Wilder ordered that the line be pasted in every drawer.

• Buster Keaton was a hard-working comedian. Garry Moore once asked Buster how he was able to perform his pratfalls, and Buster said, "I'll show you." Then he showed Mr. Moore the bruises on his body. Mr. Moore later said, "So that's how he did it — it hurt — but you had to care enough not to care."

• Dahlia Messick wanted to be a cartoonist, but she noticed that when she took her artwork around to the studios that the male decision-makers would only briefly look at her artwork but would ask her out to lunch. Therefore, she adopted the gender-neutral name Dale Messick and started mailing her artwork to studios. Eventually, she created the very successful comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter.

• On October 18, 1981, Wake Forest was playing Maryland in football. A rainstorm knocked out the telephone lines, so Assistant Maryland Coach Jerry Eisman, who was in the press box, started communicating with his bench by walkie-talkie. Suddenly, a voice came over the walkie-talkie: "Get off! This is a police emergency frequency." Mr. Eisman replied, "This is an emergency — it's third down!"

• MAD publisher William M. Gaines used to take the MAD writers and artists on a trip every year or two. One year, he took everybody to Rome, and they visited the Sistine Chapel, where a tour guide informed them that Michelangelo had spent 15 years painting the ceiling. MAD writer Dick DeBartolo explained why: "Yeah, but it was two coats!"

• The Nebraska Cornhuskers were losing a game, so coach Bernie Masterson sent in a sub with the orders, "Get in there and play as you've never played before." Unfortunately, the sub promptly fumbled twice. Mr. Masterson pulled him out of the game and told him, "Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn't say play as though you've never played before."

Use Italics for Foreign Words

Put foreign words in italics.

• In the 1970s, Ohio University President Claude Sowle decided to hold public meetings at which college deans would argue for money for their departments. Of course, these were spectacular events at which college deans wore caps and gowns and argued passionately for money. At one such public meeting, Dr. Henry Lin, Dean of Fine Arts, began his remarks by saying, "Ni hao, Dr. Sowle." Of course, he was speaking flawless Mandarin Chinese, and he continued to speak flawless Mandarin Chinese — which Dr. Sowle did NOT understand — for the rest of his remarks, occasionally using a Chinese abacus to emphasize a financial point. At the end of Dr. Lin's remarks, President Sowle told him, "Henry, you know I don't understand Chinese, but I've never understood you more clearly than right now — you need big bucks!" (By the way, the late Dr. Lin is the father of Maya Lin, the genius who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.)

• Portrait painting has at least one advantage over portrait photography. Queen Victoria once asked court painter Alfred Chalfont, whether photography would replace painting. The Frenchman replied, "Ah, non, Madame! Photographie can't flattère."

• An advantage of being a journalist is that you may occasionally get to interview actors you adore. For example, when Guardian reporter Libby Brooks was 13, she saw Dirty Dancing on video and fell in love with Johnny Castle, who was played by Patrick Swayze. Lots of young girls who saw the movie, including Ms. Brooks, wanted to lose their virginity to Johnny Castle. Years later, she got to interview Mr. Swayze, who repeated for her his famous line from the movie: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Ms. Brooks' interview with Mr. Swayze was never printed, and she admits today, "In retrospect, I think that my editor was less interested in Swayze than in bringing an end to my relentless badgering to let me interview him." The movie's rating prevented many girls from seeing the movie in theaters — they had to wait to see it on video. This meant that some girls were able to be cool by seeing the movie in theaters. Ms. Brooks remembers when a French teacher asked Lindsay Cameron in class, "Lequel est le dernier film tu as vu?" (What is the last film you saw?). Ms. Cameron confirmed her status as the coolest girl in class by replying, "Le Dirty Dancing."

• Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach once bought a soda to go that cost 50 cents, handed the cashier $2, and told her to keep the change. A friend told him that when you order to go, you don't need to tip, and you certainly don't tip $1.50 for a 50-cent soda. Rabbi Shlomo smiled and said, 'I know, I know. But I'm trying to make up for unzer tierla yiddalach [our sweet Jews] who don't give tips, and consequently make a chilul hashem [defame God's name]."

• The paparazzi could be annoying to Audrey Hepburn. Once, a photograph of Audrey with her newly bearded son appeared in a magazine. Because of the new beard, the paparazzi had not recognized her son, so this caption appeared with the photograph: "Audrey com il nuovo amore della sua vita." Translation: "Audrey with the new love of her life." She said, "Well, apart from the 'new,' for once they got something right." That was one media photograph she cut out and framed.

How Do I Use It's And Its?

its = the possessive form of it

Ex: The dog played with its rawhide bone.

Ex: The fox left its burrow.

it's = the contraction of it is

Ex: It's raining.

Ex: It's the day before my paper is due.

its' = ?

Its' is not a word. An apostrophe should never follow its.

• Drama critic George Oppenheimer was inducted into the Air Force, where he was a part of its Motion Picture Unit. As part of his physical, he gave a urine sample, which was picked up by a star-struck private, who put it on a tray, then pointed to another bottle on the tray and said with awe, "Cary Grant." (Note for young people: Cary Grant was the Brad Pitt of his time.)

• Violinist Mischa Elman was once present at a dinner given by Harpo Marx during which a movie producer listened to some criticisms of his recent movies, then complained of the difficulties of producing. Mr. Elman asked, "If it's so hard to make bad pictures, why don't you make good ones?"

• Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar playing Santa Claus in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. As Mr. Gwenn lay dying, Jack Lemmon visited him and asked if dying was hard. Mr. Gwenn replied, "Oh, it's hard, very hard indeed. But not as hard as doing comedy."

• John Cho and Kal Penn are the Korean and Indian stars of the 2004 cult movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, but they have done much more acting than that film and its sequel. Mr. Cho played Sulu in a Star Trek movie and appeared as a hip-hop-savvy accountant named Kenny in TV's Ugly Betty. Mr. Penn appeared on TV's House and landed a role in the dramatic movie The Namesake in part because of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. He explains that Namesake director Mira Nair let him audition because "her 14-year-old son, who was a Harold & Kumar fan, [...] every night before bed said, 'Mom, please audition Kal Penn for the part.'"

• Figure skater Christopher Bowman once performed in a costume consisting of a black velvet suit whose major features consisted of a white collar and plunging neckline. Reporters tried to find words sufficient to describe the features of the outfit, and National reporter Julie Vader said, "It's a shawl collar." When someone asked how she knew that, she explained, "I have a dress exactly like it."

How Do I Use Lie And Lay?

Lay:

Lay is a verb that means to put something or to place something. Lay needs a direct object.

Ex: Lay the book on the table.

Lie:

Lie is a verb that means to rest on a surface or to recline on a surface. Lie does not need a direct object.

Ex: You have a fever, so lie down and rest

Lay:

Lay is also the past tense of lie.

Ex: Last night, she lay in bed.

Note: "Sic" is used to point out a mistake that appears in the original source.

• Theatrical maven George Abbott both wrote and directed plays. Therefore, he was very particular about language. When he was in his late 90s, he fell while on a golf course. His wife pleaded, "George! George! Get up, please. Don't just lay [sic] there!" Mr. Abbott looked up at his wife and corrected her: "Lie there."

• After soprano Leslie Garrett won the Cleethorpes Cup at the Cleethorpes Festival, her father took her to a pub to celebrate. While her father wasn't watching, Ms. Garrett drank a concoction known as a Blue Country, consisting of a pint of Guinness and a shot from every bottle in the bar. The next morning, she woke up with a hangover — unfortunately, she needed to audition that afternoon for a grant that would pay for her college education. Desperate for help, she attended a warm-up session with her voice teacher. However, her voice teacher saw that she had a hangover and was unable to sing well, so she told Ms. Garrick, "You've ruined your chances — I hope you're proud of yourself." Ms. Garrick went to the audition alone, where a kind receptionist noticed how haggard she looked. The receptionist invited her to lie down, and she moved Ms. Garrick's audition time to last, giving her the maximum amount of time to recover. The time for rest worked, and Ms. Garrick recovered her voice and sang superbly, thus saving her college education and her future career as a principal soprano with the English National Opera.

• To illustrate his Caldecott Medal-winning picture-book, Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey needed to know what the underside of a duck's bill looked like in flight. Therefore, Mr. McCloskey brought a live duck home, wrapped it in a towel, and put it on a couch in such a way that its head stuck out. Mr. McCloskey then lay underneath the duck's head and sketched what he saw.

• Young dancer Alicia Alonso had two operations on her eyes to repair detached retinas, forcing her to lie still for months until the physicians allowed her to get up from bed. As she lay in bed, she practiced dancing using only her fingers, moving them as she visualized the movements of the dancers in such ballets as Giselle. When she finally got out of bed, she was unable to stand by herself, but she got herself in shape again and became a world-famous ballerina.

How Do I Use Lose And Loose?

Lose is the opposite of win, and the opposite of find.

Loose is the opposite of tight, and the opposite of tied up or restrained.

• Children's book writer Phyllis Reynolds Naylor did a lot of writing when she was young, and she illustrated the stories she wrote. When she learned to draw lace, suddenly the heroines of her stories began to lose their clothing so young Phyllis could draw their lacy underwear. On another occasion, her mother explained the facts of life to her, and so young Phyllis wrote a "Manual for Pregnant Women," complete with her own drawings. After she showed the book to her mother, the book turned up missing.

• Barry Bonds' father, professional baseball player Bobby Bonds, taught him many things. For example, he taught him competitiveness by playing pool with him at home. The winner of the game would get candy, while the loser had to do push-ups. Barry says, "When I played with my dad, he was such a competitor — he couldn't lose." In addition, Bobby taught his son not to lower himself in reaction to racists. When Barry was young, occasionally he got into fights with white boys who disliked him because of his color. One day, young Barry came home and told his father, "I don't like white people right now." Bobby told him, "Don't ever come in my house like that again. Be proud of who you are. Do not allow their stupidity to make you stupid."

• French actor Françoise-Joseph Talma took his art seriously. Even when he was near death due to severe illness, he hoped to return to the stage. Mr. Talma had lost much weight, and his skin hung loosely on his body; however, when his friend Alexandre Dumas visited him, Mr. Talma touched the loose skin on his own cheeks and said, "What a truthful air this will give to the role of the aged Tiberius."

• Vince Lombardi was a great high school football coach before he became a great professional football coach. His St. Cecilia Saints, a Catholic team, won 25 games in a row before being held to a 0-0 tie by rival Union Hill. After the game, Mr. Lombardi and his wife met superfan and nun Sister Baptista. All of them were crying. Mrs. Lombardi said, "We didn't lose the game." Mr. Lombardi said, "But we didn't win." And according to Mrs. Lombardi, "Then we started crying all over again."

• Sometimes, nurses ask silly questions. When Quaker humorist Tom Mullen was in a hospital, he was standing up when he suddenly felt dizzy. He managed to buzz the nurses' station before he passed out, and when the nurse arrived, he was lying on the floor, semi-conscious, trying to get up. The nurse looked down at him, then asked, "May I help you?" Mr. Mullen wishes today that he had been conscious enough to reply, "No, I'm just crawling about at 2 a.m. looking for loose change."

Where do Periods Go When I Use Parentheses?

If a complete sentence is INside the parentheses, then put the period INside the parentheses

• French comic filmmaker Jacques Tati carefully observed people and things, as they gave him ideas with which to work. Before creating his movie Traffic, he went to a highway and observed. One of the things he noticed was that many people driving away on holiday do not look happy. He also noticed a car that contained a dog that stared at a field that the dog could have played in. (I highly recommend his M. Hulot's Holiday, which, like his other films, doesn't need dialogue.)

• When war correspondent and photographer Margaret Bourke-White received permission to fly on a bombing expedition during World War II, J. Hampton Atkinson piloted her himself, saying, "I'm going to fly you myself because if you die, I want to die, too." (Fortunately, neither of them died.) By the way, while photographer Ms. Bourke-White was attending the University of Michigan in the early 1920s, she kept something strange in her dormitory room bathtub — a pet milk snake.

• Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman once asked his 85-year-old grandmother whether her old age had brought her happiness in any way. She replied that her old age had made it easier to get rid of telemarketers. For example, if a telemarketer started telling her about "broadband internet," she simply told the telemarketer, "I'm in my 80s!" The telemarketer would assume that she was too old to understand or care about the definition of broadband internet and so the telemarketer would hang up the telephone. (Actually, she understands perfectly well what broadband internet is.)

If a complete sentence is NOT inside the parentheses, then put the period OUTside the parentheses.

• Kip Keino won gold medals in the Olympics in both 1968 (1500-meter race) and 1972 (3000-meter steeplechase). He never made much money from his running — approximately $20,000 — but he used it wisely. He returned to his native Kenya, where he bought land and a house and started an orphanage. Another Olympic medal-winner, Native American Billy Mills, met him in the 1980s. At that time, Kip and his orphanage were taking care of 68 children, and 100 orphans had already grown up and gone into the world to lead their adult lives. As of 2007, Mr. Keino was still taking care of orphans.

• Back when John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, was the vicar of Holy Trinity Church, he recognized the importance of education (as he still does). He says that "it was clear to me that if we did not tackle education, we were going to be in real difficulty." And he — and the teachers, and the parents — did tackle education. In 2006, a young man whom he had known 18 or 19 years ago came up to him and asked, "Do you remember me, sir?" However, it had been so long ago and the young man had changed so much from when he was a boy that John Sentamu did not recognize the young man, who gave him a hint: "You came and pulled me out of bed when you were chair of governors, and told me I must go to school." John Sentamu said, "OK, I remember you now. What are you doing?" The young man replied, "I'm a lecturer in physics." John Sentamu says about this encounter, "I suddenly realized that we can make a difference."

How Do I Use Principal And Principle?

Principal: two meanings

• the head of a high school or an elementary school (noun)

Ex: The principal is a pal.

• chief or foremost in importance (adjective)

Ex: He is the principal actor in the play.

Principle: a basic truth, a rule, a standard, a moral standard

Ex: The principles of economics are difficult to understand.

• Kenny Ortega was able to choreograph the movie Dirty Dancing because he had relevant experience from high school. Whenever a new hot record came out, he and his friends would meet and play the record over and over — sometimes 50 times — before the next Friday night's dance. Those dances were known for their bottled-up sexual tension. Mr. Ortega says, "It was not uncommon for our high-school dances to be shut down because of all the gyrating and rubbing up against each other. The vice principal would routinely come out on the stage and announce, 'If there is any more dirty dancing in here, the dance will be cancelled.'"

• Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, rescued thousands of Jews from the Holocaust by directly disobeying his country's orders and giving visas to Jews so that they could escape to freedom. A devout Roman Catholic, Mr. Mendes knew that he was risking his career, his reputation, and his own money by rescuing Jews. However, he said, "I cannot allow these people to die. Our constitution says that the religion or the politics of a foreigner shall not be used to deny refuge in Portugal. I have decided to follow this principle. Even if I am discharged, I can only act as a Christian, as my conscience tells me. If I am disobeying orders, I would rather be with God against men than with men against God." The Jews used the Portuguese visas to escape to neutral Spain.

• Ryan White became HIV-positive as a result of his hemophilia, and he faced prejudice when other people learned that he had AIDS. Other children called him "faggot," "homo," and "queer," although he wasn't gay, and they sometimes wrote obscenities on his school locker. In addition, someone slashed the tires on his family's car, and someone shot a bullet through his family's living room. (Fortunately, no one was hurt.) Because of the prejudice and the danger that they faced, Ryan and his family moved from Kokomo, Indiana, to Cicero, Indiana. In Kokomo, Ryan had been forced to sue in order to be permitted to go to school, but in Cicero, the principal of his school made him feel welcome and educated the other students about AIDS. Being made to feel welcome raised Ryan's spirits and improved his health, and he soon became a nationally known spokesperson on AIDS issues before dying of AIDS on April 8, 1990. One of the people singing at his funeral was Elton John, who had become a friend during Ryan's illness.

The American Style is Put Commas and Periods Inside Quotation Marks

The British style is to put commas and periods outside quotation marks, while the American style is put commas and periods inside quotation marks.

The American Style

• Chris Lemmon, the son of actor Jack Lemmon, wrote a memoir of his father titled A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father. In the book, and in interviews about the book, he tells stories about the two of them chasing a couple of poodles through the yard of actor James Coburn. Chris and Jack look up, see Mr. Coburn glowering at them through a picture window, and they point to each other and say, "It's his fault." By the way, the late Mr. Coburn was actually a nice guy. Chris said in an interview that "he was just one of the biggest teddy bears you'd ever want to meet on the face of the earth."

• When Yousuf Karsh went to Peter Lorre's home to photograph the famous actor, he saw a sign by the driveway: "Beware of Ferocious Dogs." The "ferocious dogs" turned out to be a couple of frisky Pekinese, a breed of very small, toy-sized dogs.

• Tim Gill is a gay business executive of the company that manufactures Quark XPress. He serves as a role model by being open about his sexuality. Once, a gay man came up to him and thanked him very quietly for being open about being gay. Mr. Gill told, "It's really okay — you can say it." The gay man then spoke up loudly and with pride. On another occasion, Mr. Gill mentioned in a speech to the National Press Photographers Association that he had a boyfriend, and afterward a transgendered person — a woman who had become a man — came up and also thanked him for being open about being gay.

• Shawn Edwards, a movie reviewer for Fox-TV in Kansas City, loved movies from an early age. When he was in the seventh grade, he and some friends used a room at their school as a movie studio. Mr. Edwards calls the studio "the claymation joint," and he remembers, "We convinced the science teacher we were working on a science project, built these sets out of papier-mâché and started shooting our epic. It was about a group of cavemen who hunt for a dinosaur for a big celebration and [to] please the volcano before it gets mad." When Mr. Edwards was attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, Spike Lee filmed School Daze there. Mr. Edwards had broken his ankle during football practice, but he showed up at an audition for small parts and extras. He remembers that the people casting the movie looked at him as if they were thinking, "Baby, there's not a part in this movie where you can be walking around with a cast." But Mr. Edwards said, "I don't sing. I don't dance. I can't act. And I'm not that funny. I just want to be in the movie." He got lucky and appeared in a scene in which "Da Butt" was played. Mr. Edwards says, "I totally hate that song now because that's all I heard all spring. It took three freaking days to shoot" that scene.

Use Quotation Marks for Dialogue

When you quote word for word what a person says, enclose that person's words in quotation marks.

• In 2008, Charlize Theron, 32 years old and an Oscar-winner as Best Actress in the movie Monster, and AnnaSophia Robb, 14 years old and the lead actress in the kids' movie Because of Winn-Dixie, starred together in the movie Sleepwalking. Normally, actors will study each other's work before acting together; however, Ms. Robb had seen very few movies starring Ms. Theron. Why? She explains, "My parents won't let me see them, especially Monster." Of course, winning an Oscar for Monster was very satisfying for Ms. Theron, especially because it was so hard to get the movie made and to find distribution for it. Ms. Theron says, "There wasn't one person in this industry who wanted that film made. We had our financiers calling us at 3 a.m. and asking us what the hell we were doing. They didn't like the way I looked [the beautiful Ms. Theron put on weight for the movie and looked ugly], and they wondered who would want to see this movie. When we finished, we couldn't pay a distributor to take it. We were hours away from signing a straight-to-video deal with Blockbuster when we found a distributor. For that reason alone, the Oscar was especially sweet."

• In 1994, genocide occurred in Rwanda, when in 100 days hate-filled Hutus murdered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, often using machetes as their weapon of choice. Paul Rusesabagina, who managed a hotel in the country's capital, Kigali, saved the lives of 1,268 refugees by turning his hotel into a place of safety. Like so many other heroes, he denies that he is a hero. Like so many other heroes, he became a hero gradually, refusing to turn his back on a few people who needed help, then many people who needed help, then over 1,200 people who needed help. He says, "Initially, I was not concerned by what was going on. There was a government, there was a war, the United Nations was there. But when I saw the government completely dismantled, I had to take responsibilities. The very first day, I had 26 neighbors in my house. When I had to leave my house, I was not going to leave those people behind. So it became a very big extended family, from 6 to 32, and then 400 and something. That is how it happened — people kept on coming to the hotel. And toward the end, I had 1,268 people. It would have been easier to care for six people — my wife and four children and myself — than caring for a thousand. But if you turn your back, leave a thousand people, that's on your hands. That is cowardice." Don Cheadle played Mr. Rusesabagina (and was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar) in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda.

• Robert Mitchum's last movie was Dead Man (1995), directed by Jim Jarmusch. In it, Mr. Mitchum's character carried a big shotgun, so Mr. Jarmusch gathered together a bunch of antique shotguns, took them to Mr. Mitchum's house, and asked him to pick the shotgun he wanted to carry in the movie. Mr. Mitchum looked at the antique shotguns, then asked, "Which one is the lightest?"

• Jack Lemmon's first big movie was It Should Happen to You, starring Judy Holliday and directed by George Cukor. Jack was an enthusiastic actor, and Mr. Cukor kept telling him to act less. Eventually, Jack became upset and yelled, "If I do it any less, I won't be acting!" Mr. Cukor replied, "Exactly."

When Quoting Part of a Sentence, You May Not Need to Use a Capital Letter

• When American soldiers shot civilians at My Lai in South Vietnam, Hugh C. Thompson and two crewmembers, Glenn Andreotta and Larry Colburn, witnessed what was happening from a helicopter overhead. They landed the helicopter between some advancing American soldiers and a group of Vietnamese civilians consisting of children, women, and old men, and they stopped the American soldiers from killing the Vietnamese civilians. Later, Hugh C. Thompson and his crewmembers took off in the helicopter, and crewmember Mr. Andreotta saw movement in a body-filled ditch. They landed the helicopter and rescued a two-year-old child from among the corpses. Why did they intervene to stop as much of the slaughter and save as many lives as they could? Hugh C. Thompson explained that "what was going on wasn't right."

• Eileen Daffern was 93 years old in 2007, but that did not stop her from being an activist, especially when it came to resisting nuclear weapons. She says, "The great challenge is to make people realize the power they have to change the world. It can be changed, you know." She is healthy for her age, she inherited good genes from her parents, and she takes pride in her appearance. When her mother was 90 years old, Eileen saw her looking at her appearance in the mirror. Eileen says, "Her gestures were those of a young girl preening herself. ... I, too, look in the mirror." In fact, when she sees photographs that make her look "too ancient," she gleefully destroys them.

• When Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was a small child, he was playing in his backyard when a child reached through a hole in the wooden fence and gave him a present: a small toy lamb. Young Pablo quickly retrieved a favorite possession — a pinecone and presented it to the child, whom he could not see, on the other side of the fence. The adult Mr. Neruda believed that "maybe this small and mysterious exchange of gifts remained inside me also, deep and inexhaustible, giving my poetry light." In 1971, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

• While in seminary, TV's Mister Rogers visited a church where he heard a sermon that he thought was terrible and violated everything that he had learned about writing and delivering sermons. However, the woman sitting next to him had tears running down her face, and she whispered, "He said exactly what I needed to hear." That day, Mister Rogers learned that "the space between a person doing his or her best to deliver a message of good news and the needy listener is holy ground."

• According to the Rabbi of Sadagora, we can learn about God from the inventions of Humankind. From a train, we can learn that "because of one second we can miss everything." From a telegraph, we can learn that "every word is counted and charged." And from a telephone, we can learn that "what we say here is heard there."

Use Single Quotation Marks Within Double Quotation Marks

• Best-selling novelist Jackie Collins got kicked out of her school at age 15, so her parents asked her, "Hollywood or reform school?" Joan, her sister, was making movies in Hollywood, so Jackie chose Hollywood. Joan gave her a lot of freedom, meeting her at the airport and saying before disappearing, "OK, learn to drive, I can't look after you, I've got to go off on location, goodbye, here's the keys to the car, here's the list of people who can help you if you get into any trouble." Jackie says, "And I appreciated that, because [...] I was a street-smart kid, and I wanted to be by myself." For a while, Jackie appeared in movies — "always playing the Italian girl" — and she was able to take care of herself. When she went out for a part in a movie, guys would tell her, "Well, honey, let's have dinner and discuss the part." Jackie says, "And I would always say, 'Take your part for yourself,' and I would leave. So I was always that street-smart kid, you know?"

• In Snow Angels, directed by David Gordon Green, many interesting moments occur when Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell act with three-year-old Gracie Hudson. During the making of the movie, Ms. Beckinsale and Mr. Rockwell were Gracie's "Pretend Mommy" and "Pretend Daddy." Mr. Green states, "Everybody always says, 'Don't work with animals and kids,' but those are the two greatest things." Gracie, of course, didn't understand about cameras and saying lines, so almost everything she said and did was unscripted. The exception: At one point, Mr. Green wanted her to say, "Can I play outside?" Mr. Green says, "That was the only thing that I needed her to say in the whole movie, and for that I had to give her Skittles."

• English comedian Terry-Thomas was appearing in The Brass Monkey with actress Carole Landis, when the director began to worry about getting the movie finished quickly. The director asked Ms. Landis, "Let's get this thing in the can. Can we work faster?" Ms. Landis replied, "Not unless you can print on the film, 'Sorry, folks, about the poor quality, but we had to do it in a hurry.'"

• Opera singer Helen Traubel once lunched in New York at a small French restaurant. At the table next to hers, a soldier and his new wife were having a wedding party. Ms. Traubel was sitting near enough to overhear the bride tell a friend, "This is a nice wedding, but I've always wanted the kind where someone sings, 'Oh, Promise Me.'" Ms. Traubel offered her services — gratis — and the bride cried with happiness when Ms. Traubel sang the song.

• In 1959, Duke Ellington decided to take his band on a European tour. Some band members flew across the ocean, but Duke and seven members of the band decided to sail across. Of course, he was treated with respect and ate frequently at the captain's table, and some of the first-class passengers asked him for a concert. On the last night of the voyage, Duke and the seven band members with him played for the captain and the first-class passengers, but Duke and his band members didn't stop there. They played next for the passengers sailing in cabin class, then for the passengers sailing in tourist class, and finally they played for the crewmen in the crew's quarters. According to Michael, Duke's nephew, "That's how he was about not leaving anybody out. He used to say, 'I never put anybody in a secondary position.'"

When Do I Use Quotation Marks for Titles?

In general, use quotation marks for the titles of short works of art, such as a short story, a short poem, a song (as opposed to an album), and a single episode of a TV series.

"Title of a Song"

At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada, Margaret Murdock appeared to have won the gold medal in the small-bore rifle competition by out-scoring fellow American Lanny Bassham, 1,162 points to 1,161 points. However, the Olympic officials discovered an error in the scoring. One judge had recorded a 9 instead of a 10 for Mr. Bassham. Now the two were tied at 1,162 points apiece. More drama ensued. The tiebreaker awarded the gold medal to Mr. Bassham, leaving the silver for Ms. Murdock. However, Mr. Bassham felt that since the two scores had been equal, Ms. Murdock deserved to stand at the top of the podium with him. At the awards ceremony, he clasped her hand and helped her to the top of the awards podium, and they stood together as "The Star-Spangled Banner" played. Mr. Bassham said afterward, "I wanted to show that I felt that her performance equaled mine. There was no way she deserved to stand lower while the anthem was played."

• Thomas Dolby, who is probably most famous for his song "She Blinded Me With Science," found it easy to give up smoking at age 28. He met actress Kathleen Beller, and she told him that if he smoked, she would never kiss him. Mr. Dolby says, "I really wanted to kiss her. So that did the trick." They married and had children.

"Episode of a TV Series"

• Some of the plots and dialogue on The Dick Van Dyke Show came from real life. The episode "A Bird in the Head Hurts!" was about a bird stalking Ritchie to get locks of his hair for her nest. (This actually happened to a neighbor of series creator Carl Reiner.) The advice given to Laura Petrie in the episode — "Let him wear a pith helmet" — was actually spoken by an ASPCA officer. In the episode "Never Name a Duck," the Petrie family acquires two ducks as pets for Ritchie. (In real life, the Reiner family had acquired two ducks as pets for the children.) One duck died and the other duck soon appeared to be ill. The line about the ill duck — "He looks pale!" — was spoken in real life by Mr. Reiner's wife, Estelle.

• Actor Patrick Macnee had a chance to display his riding ability in the Avengers episode "Silent Dust." He actually rode the same horse that Sir Laurence Olivier had ridden in Henry V when he made the speech "Once more into the breach, dear friends." Then, the horse was two years old. At the time of the filming of the Avengers episode, the horse was 22, but still wonderful. Diana Rigg also rode on a horse, but during filming she confessed to Mr. Macnee that she had never been on a horse until the day before yesterday. When he asked what she had done the day before yesterday, she replied, "I went and had a lesson."

Keep Related Words Together

Words that go together should be kept together.

For example, the word "only" often modifies a number. When that happens, keep the word "only" and the number together.

• Pablo Neruda and Rafael Alberti were both portly poets. They used to take walks together in Paris along the Seine and would use a complete set of the works of Victor Hugo in a bookstore to measure their girth. Mr. Alberti might say, "Good Heavens! I have already outgrown Volume V of Les Misérables!" And Mr. Neruda might reply, "I haven't put on weight. My paunch juts out only as far as Notre-Dame de Paris."

• When young-adult novelist Robert Cormier was the 8th grade, his family's house burned down, and the suit that he was going to wear to his 8th-grade graduation ceremony burned up with it. Fortunately, the Cormiers' neighbors contributed money to buy clothing for them, and young Robert was able to wear a suit to his graduation ceremony. As an adult, Mr. Cormier did good deeds for other people. His novel I Am the Cheese contained a telephone number, which happened to be his. He once received a call from a girl in a psychiatric institution who felt that she could identify only with the protagonist in the novel. Mr. Cormier says that he and she "had a long talk about how this Adam [the protagonist] in the book was really a reflection of her own life, even though the circumstances were much different." In the novel, Adam calls his friend Amy Hertz three times. That is the telephone number that the girl in the psychiatric institution called, and many other young people also called it. Sometimes they would ask for Amy. If Mr. Cormier answered the phone, he would pretend to be Amy's father. If his youngest daughter, Renee, answered the phone and was asked if Amy was there, she would say, "Speaking."

• After writing her first novel, The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton became depressed and suffered from writer's block. It was her boyfriend, David Inhofe, who figured out that she was depressed because she wasn't writing. Therefore, he came up with an idea to make her start writing again. She would have to write two pages a day. He would stop by in the evening, and if she hadn't written two pages, they wouldn't go out. It worked. She wrote That Was Then, This is Now. Her publisher accepted it immediately. By the way, S.E. and her boyfriend got married. She wrote her third book, Rumblefish, on Thursday nights, because that was when her husband played poker. S.E. lets her husband read her in-progress manuscripts because he always says, "That's nice, honey," which is the only thing she wants to hear when she is in the middle of writing a book.

Keep Related Words Together

Words that go together should be kept together.

Often, the word "only" modifies a number. When that happens, keep the word "only" and the number together.

• A couple of beefy movie stuntmen thought they could easily defeat martial arts expert Bruce Lee in a fight because he was only 5-foot-8-inches tall and weighed only 145 pounds, so he demonstrated his strength and skill to them. He placed them a few feet from a swimming pool, gave each of them an inflated bag for protection, and then told them to assume any stance they wanted. He then said that he would attempt to give one kick to each of them, without a windup or a running start, that would send the stuntmen into the swimming pool. Mr. Lee gave one kick, and the first stuntman flew into the pool, then he gave another kick, and the second stuntman flew into the pool.

• Hard-hitting Hall-of-Fame shortstop Honus Wagner was a kind man. When he was the coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of his players struck out with the bases loaded. Mr. Wagner comforted the player by saying to him, "Do you know, I went up to the plate with the bases full once, and it was in World's Series time, too. A little hit of mine would have scored the winning run, and do you know, I struck out, too." Actually, Mr. Wagner fibbed a little. He did go to bat with the bases loaded during a World-Series game, but he hit for extra bases instead of striking out. By the way, the most valuable baseball card in history is the very rare 1910 Honus Wagner card. Mr. Wagner himself is the reason the baseball card is so rare. A tobacco company issued the baseball card, putting it in packs of cigarettes, and Mr. Wagner told the tobacco company to withdraw the card. He knew that the photographer who had taken his photograph for the baseball card had been paid $10. He did not want the photographer to lose out on the money, so he sent the photographer a check for $10 and a letter that stated, "I don't want you to miss a chance to sell a picture, but I don't want my photograph used to sell cigarettes to kids." For many years, the photographer proudly displayed that letter in his shop window. The tobacco company stopped issuing the card, and only the few that had already been issued stayed in circulation.

• As an eight-year-old girl, Tatum O'Neal made Paper Moon; for a while afterward, her father, Ryan O'Neal, would not let her make any more movies. However, one day a teenaged Tatum told him that she wanted to use her earnings from Paper Moon to buy a horse ranch. He explained, "You made only $16,000. That won't buy it." Soon after, Tatum made $350,000 (and got a percentage) by acting in The Bad News Bears.

• During World War II, the Japanese occupied Malaysia from January 1942 to August 1945. After the occupation of the town of Seremban, a Japanese executive decided to use a pond to raise ducks; therefore, he ordered that the pond be fenced in, then he released 600 ducklings into the pond. However, the Malaysians did not appreciate the Japanese executive's plans. At the end of two months, only 300 ducklings were still alive, and at the end of three months, only 60 ducklings were still alive. When the Malaysians were questioned about the disappearance of the ducklings, they suggested that the ducklings didn't know how to swim and therefore must have drowned.

How Do I Recognize and Correct Run-on Sentences?

Definition

A run-on sentence consists of two independent clauses that are connected without any punctuation.

Ex: Hector is a good husband Paris is a bad husband.

Note: An "independent clause" is a clause that can be correctly punctuated as a complete sentence.

How to Correct a Run-on Sentence

You may correct a run-on sentence in several ways:

1. Make two sentences out of it.

Hector is a good husband. Paris is a bad husband.

2. Join the sentences together with a comma and a connecting word such as and, or, but, nor, or yet.

Hector is a good husband, and Paris is a bad husband.

3. If the sentences are closely related, you may join them with a semicolon.

Hector is a good husband; Paris is a bad husband.

4. If the sentences are closely related, you may join them with a semicolon, a transition word such as however or moreover, and a comma.

Hector is a good husband; however, Paris is a bad husband.

5. Make one of the independent clauses a subordinate clause.

Although Hector is a good husband, Paris is a bad husband.

6. If appropriate, use a dash.

Hector is a good husband — Paris is a bad husband.

The way that you correct a run-on sentence will depend on the context of the sentence.

Use a Semicolon to Join Two Closely Related Independent Clauses

Note: An independent clause is a clause that can be correctly punctuated as a sentence.

Two closely related independent clauses may be joined with a semicolon.

Ex: The Yankees are in first place; the Mets are in last place.

Two independent clauses may be joined with a semicolon, a connecting word or phrase such as however, moreover, or as a result, and a comma.

Ex: The Yankees are in first place; however, the Mets are in last place.

• On January 2, 2007, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, suffered a seizure and fell from a New York City subway platform and between the rails of an oncoming subway train. Wesley Autrey immediately leaped down to help him. Because Mr. Autrey did not have time to get Mr. Hollopeter back onto the platform, he covered Mr. Hollopeter's body with his own in the drainage area between the two rails. The train engineer hit the brakes, but the train went over the two men. After the train stopped, Mr. Autrey yelled to the people on the platform, "We're O.K. down here, but I've got two daughters up there. Let them know their father's O.K." Later, Mr. Autrey said about his daring rescue, "I don't feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right." Mr. Hollopeter's father, Larry, said, "Mr. Autrey's instinctive and unselfish act saved our son's life."

• In 1994, when she was acting in John Waters' Serial Mom, Kathleen Turner discovered that she had rheumatoid arthritis. She exercised regularly, as the doctor ordered, and she had surgery as necessary; however, for long periods of time she was unable to wear anything but slippers, although she loves shoes. In an interview with Rachel Cooke that was published in March of 2008, Ms. Turner said that she was very pleased that she had been able to wear shoes for two weeks. She had gone into a shoe store, tried a pair on, and cried, "I can wear these!" The shoe-store employee assisting her said, "Of course you can, dear." Ms. Turner admits, "I scared the h*ll out of him."

• Al Jolson was a huge entertainer in vaudeville, but his career declined. Eventually it was resurrected when the 1946 movie The Jolson Story, which starred Bert Parks and won an Oscar for Best Score, came out. How forgotten was Mr. Jolson? He watched the movie in a theater, feeling very proud. At the end of the movie, which was a huge hit, people cheered, and Mr. Jolson overheard a woman say, "It's too bad Jolson couldn't be alive to see this." When Mr. Jolson was big in show biz, he was huge. He often starred in musicals on Broadway, and when he felt like it, 20 minutes into the musical, he would tell the other members of the cast, "Go home." Then he would sing and entertain solo for two hours. The audience never complained; after all, they had not come to see and hear the musical. They had come to see and hear Mr. Jolson.

Use a Semicolon to Join Two Closely Related Independent Clauses

Note: An independent clause is a clause that can be correctly punctuated as a sentence.

Two closely related independent clauses may be joined with a semicolon.

Ex: The Yankees are in first place; the Mets are in last place.

Two independent clauses may be joined with a semicolon, a connecting word or phrase such as however, moreover, or as a result, and a comma.

Ex: The Yankees are in first place; however, the Mets are in last place.

• Movies are rated G, PG, R, and X; so are movie trailers. Gay comedy writer Bruce Vilanch noticed that the movie trailer for Chasing Amy was rated R because of a brief kiss between two women — the trailer had no violence, drug use, or bad language. However, movie trailers rated G showed such things as dinosaurs trying to eat people, men with guns shooting other men with guns, and people screaming as their cars head straight toward a cliff.

• Ian McEwan wanted to learn to speak correctly when he was young; therefore, he arranged for his best friend, Mark Wing-Davey, whom he calls "a rare and genuine middle-class type," to say the word "did" whenever Ian mistakenly said the word "done." One day, Ian gave an oral presentation in history class on the reforms of Pope Gregory VII. Ian mistakenly said the word "done," Mark said the word "did," and the history teacher became angry at what he thought was Mark's rudeness. Fortunately, Ian was able to explain what had happened.

• Young people's author Richard Peck has received many letters from the readers of his books. Some are funny, as when someone wrote, "Our teacher told us to write to our favorite author. Could you please get me the address of Danielle Steele?" Other letters are serious; for example, someone wrote to him about Remembering the Good Times, a novel that recounted a suicide and educated the readers about the warning signs of suicides. The person wrote, "The only trouble with your book is that I didn't find it in time."

• S.E. Hinton practically invented young adult literature with her first novel, The Outsiders, which depicts teenagers with gritty realism. "S.E." are the initials for Susan Eloise, and she began the first draft of The Outsiders when she was 15. However, she says that no one ever believes that, so she usually says that she started the first draft when she was 16. And since her editors don't think that anyone will believe that, they often say that she started the first draft when she was 17. At any rate, her first novel was accepted for publication on a day that was important to her: the day she graduated from high school. The novel, which has sold millions of copies, made readers of many boys; she often gets letters that say, "I didn't like to read, but then I read this book."

How Do I Use Than and Then?

"Than" is used in comparisons: better than, more than.

"Then" is a time word: If this happens, then that will happen.

• For a while, writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur ran a movie studio in which they produced their own scripts. They had a policy of not responding to letters, instead hiring someone to burn their mail each day, unread. However, they did read a letter from a movie theater owner in Iron Mountain, Michigan, which was printed in the Exhibitors' Herald, a movie trade magazine. The letter complained that the Hecht-MacArthur movie The Scoundrel was bad for business and annoying to the Iron Mountain movie-goers. Hecht and MacArthur spent all day composing an insulting letter, saying among other things that the citizens of Iron Mountain were so backward that they lived in trees. After mailing the letter, Hecht and MacArthur read the reply in the next issue of the Exhibitors' Herald. The movie theater owner had written, "Messers Hecht and MacArthur, I have received your letter, framed it and hung it in the lobby of my theatre, where it is attracting a great deal more attention than did your motion picture."

• Playwright Charles MacArthur was rewriting a speech in his play The Front Page when producer Jed Harris walked in, looked over his shoulder at the writing, said "That's no good," then yanked the paper out of the typewriter. Mr. MacArthur let out a roar of rage and started for Mr. Harris, who ran for his life as Front Page co-writer Ben Hecht restrained Mr. MacArthur. Later, Mr. MacArthur and Mr. Hecht added this scene to their play.

• Frank Sinatra spent money freely. A valet once brought him his car, and Frank asked him what had been the biggest tip he had ever received. The valet replied that it had been $100. Frank gave him a $200 tip, and then he asked the valet who had given him the $100 tip. The valet replied, "You did, sir. Last week." Sammy Davis, Jr., imitated Frank's free-spending ways, with the result that he met with an accountant, who advised him to cut down on his expenses or face financial ruin. The next day, Sammy sent the accountant a gift: a gold Cartier cigarette case inscribed, "Thanks for the advice."

• George Carlin's mother, Mary, was a kind woman. When George was a child, he would sometimes talk her into having a meal at the Automat. While they were there, she would often see a man nursing a cup of coffee because he had nowhere to go, and she would give George a quarter — which bought a lot more then than it does now — to give to the man. George says, "She really did have a generous heart." So did George, who used to be part of a comedy team with Jack Burns. (After they split up, Jack became very successful with Avery Schreiber.) One day, George and Jack were goofing around in a Chicago hotel when for some reason Jack threw a paperback out of the window. Suddenly, they remembered that Jack had put his pay in the paperback for safekeeping. They went to the window and watched twenties and fifties float down to the ground, knowing that the money would be long gone by the time they ran down the stairs and reached the street. A nice guy, George split his pay with Jack.

How Do I Use Their, There, and They're?

there = a place

Ex: Put it over there.

they're = they are

Ex: They're in the car.

their = possessive of "they"

Ex: Their coats are in the closet.

Note: We also use the word "there" in phrases such as this: "there were." However, these phrases can be wordy:

Wordy: There were three things that I had to remember.

Not Wordy: I had to remember three things.

• Groucho Marx was occasionally afraid of losing his stardom and his money. In his autobiography, Groucho and Me, he explains how this fear started. While working on a movie titled A Day at the Races, the director, Sam Wood, said to him, "Groucho, you see those women over there? Well, ten years ago, twelve of the fourteen were stars and earned fifteen hundred dollars a week and more. Today they're extras, getting ten and a half dollars. Pity, isn't it?" As soon as the day's shooting was done, Groucho rushed to the phone, called his insurance agent, and bought an annuity to provide for his old age.

• While filming the B horror movie Evil Dead in rural Tennessee, actor Bruce Campbell withdrew some money from a local bank, then realized that it smelled funny. He told the bank teller, "This money smells like dirt." She wasn't surprised, saying, "Makes sense. Folks around here still bury it in their backyard."

• Lieder singer Lotte Lehmann was frightened of Arturo Toscanini because of his reputation, and she found working with him a "fearful pleasure." Still, shortly after singing for him for the first time, she was relieved to sing a few lieder for a Beethoven association. Before performing, she told a friend, "Oh, I feel so calm. An easy program, a nice appreciative audience, and no Toscanini there to be frightened of." At that moment, she looked out at the audience — and saw Toscanini.

• Some convicts are wise guys. In 1986, police in Green Bay, Wisconsin, placed an order for license plates for their unmarked police cars. Wisconsin convicts made the license plates, and on each license plate they put the initials "PD" — short for "Police Department." Deputy Police Chief Robert Langan rejected the license plates and sent them back, saying, "They were a dead giveaway."

How Do I Use To, Two, Too?

"To" is used (among other uses) in infinitives: to walk, to talk.

"Two" is a number: one, two, three.

"Too" means "excessively" or "very": too hot, too hard, too soft. It can also mean "also" — I'm going, too.

• Walter Slezak was an actor — he played the part of the German submarine captain in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat. Because his father was the famous opera singer Leo Slezak, he was able to make his stage debut very early in life. At the Cologne Opera House, the director of the opera Lohengrin created a startling trick with perspective. At first, a boat carrying Lohengrin seemed far away, then it seemed very close to the audience. The trick worked through the use of two boats. The first boat was actually very small, and the Lohengrin seen in it was actually a child, wearing a fake beard to seem like the adult Lohengrin. The second boat was large and carried the adult tenor singing the part of Lohengrin. At one performance, the tiny but bearded Lohengrin was four-year-old Walter Slezak.

• Mary Badham, who played Scout in the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, did not want filming to end, so on the last day of shooting the movie, she deliberately flubbed several takes. However, her mother finally told her to say the lines because if shooting took much longer, the Los Angeles traffic would be very bad. During the making of the movie, the child actors frequently made Gregory Peck a target of their water pistols, so when the last take was completed, he stepped away quickly and laughed as the lighting crew poured buckets of water on the child actors. By the way, Mary was feisty. She was a 9-year-old who was playing a younger child, and when someone told her that she was little for her age, she replied, "You'd be little, too, if you drank as much coffee as I do."

• Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, disliked making the movie The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, and the critics hated it, but it did provide one happy memory for him. The movie featured 150 boy pianists, and one day the movie studio made the mistake of giving the boys' weekly salary to the boys instead of to the boys' parents or agents. The boys happily gorged themselves on way too many hot dogs and way too much other junk food, and then filming resumed. One boy vomited, and this caused a chain reaction, as one boy after another upchucked the results of a junk-food orgy.

How Do I Use Who and Whom?

Use "who" and "whom" to refer to people. "Who" is a subject. "Whom" is an object.

Use "that" and "which" to refer to things.

• Comedian Fred Allen once met a fan who told him that she had traveled to New York all the way from San Francisco to see him broadcast his radio program. Mr. Allen replied, "Madame, if I had only known you were coming all that way just to catch my little old show, the least I could have done was meet you halfway — say, about Omaha."

• Back when vaudeville was alive and well, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel were performing together. Mr. Cantor made an ad-lib that got a big laugh, and then Mr. Jessel made an ad-lib that got an even bigger laugh. Not knowing anything to say to get a bigger laugh than Mr. Jessel, Mr. Cantor took off a shoe and hit Mr. Jessel on the head with it. Upset, in part because of the huge laugh that Mr. Cantor had gotten by hitting him, Mr. Jessel started complaining to the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, this so-called grown-up man, whom I have the misfortune to be working with, is so lacking in decorum, breeding, and intelligence, that when he was unable to think of a clever retort he had to descend to the lowest form of humor by taking off his shoe and striking me on the head. Only an insensitive oaf would sink so low." Mr. Cantor had the perfect response to Mr. Jessel's speech. He hit Mr. Jessel on the head with his shoe again.

• British comedian David O'Doherty once performed in front of 40 people, 20 of whom were members of the Active Elderly Association, which meant that much of his audience were in their eighties. Unfortunately, his act was not meant for people in their eighties, so he was performing routines about iPhones and about spying on a naked lady doing aerobics when he was 12 years old. During intermission, he figured that all the old people would leave, but they were still present when he walked out for the second half of his act. He asked them, "Why are you still here?" One of the old people replied, "The bus doesn't come to get us until 11." He also used to do readings of children's books in libraries. Ten minutes after he began reading one book, a small boy raised his hand and asked, "Does this get good soon?" Mr. O'Doherty says, "It was so profound. How many times — not just at a gig, but in a relationship or at a family get-together — have you wanted to raise your hand and ask that?"

• Sam Mayo was a British music-hall comedian who was popular for a time, but whose comedy fell out of favor and forced his retirement. After retiring, he used to stand outside of music halls listening to the applause given to other performers as tears ran down his cheeks.

• Comedian Robin Williams earned great fame as Mork of the TV sitcom Mork and Mindy. Mork was an outer-space alien, and when Mr. Williams was asked at an audition to sit in a chair while in character as Mork, he did exactly that — and sat on his head. Fame really did come quickly. At an ice-skating rink, Mr. Williams stepped into a telephone booth to make a call. He was recognized by fans, who gawked at him through the glass. Mr. Williams says, "I felt like I was in the San Diego Zoo."

How Do I Use Who and Whom?

Use "who" and "whom" to refer to people. "Who" is a subject. "Whom" is an object.

• Actress Jessica Lange has won two Oscars, and her advice to anyone who is nominated for an Oscar is to have a few words that you can say "just in case" you win. She also says that the best speech ever given by a winner was very short. Tommy Lee Jones said, "Thanks for all the work." In Hollywood, getting work is very important.

• Comedian Drew Carey sometimes has the persona of a very outspoken and sarcastic person, but he does good deeds. After the taping of an episode of Mr. Carey's TV sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, a man in the audience refused to leave until he had spoken to Mr. Carey. Of course, celebrities sometimes attract weird — and dangerous — fans. However, after Mr. Carey learned that the man was a former Marine like himself, he talked to the man for approximately 90 minutes. An unnamed source who spoke to Kathleen Tracy, author of Home Brewed: The Drew Carey Story, said, "It turns out the guy had just been discharged. He was depressed and was really having a hard time adjusting to life outside of the service. He didn't know what his future held and felt aimless." Mr. Carey had felt the same way, so he knew what the man was feeling — and he was able to give him some encouraging words. In addition, Mr. Carey once organized a benefit for Antonio, an employee at the Improv, whose son had been shot and was racking up expensive medical bills. Another anonymous source who spoke to Ms. Tracy said, "Hardly anybody knew that Drew had done that, because it isn't something he'd ever advertise. But that's the kind of guy Drew is." Antonio also is capable of great kindness. When Mr. Carey was a young comedian struggling to be successful, Antonio gave him free food.

• Director Werner Herzog originally wanted Jason Robards to star in his movie Fitzcarraldo, in which a 340-ton steamship is carried over a mountain (the people involved in making the film actually did this) in the Peruvian rainforest, but Mr. Robards contracted amoebic dysentery and was unable to keep on filming the movie. Therefore, Mr. Herzog hired Klaus Kinski, whom critic Giles Harvey describes as an "incendiary, egomaniacal, tantrum-prone bull." Of course, Mr. Kinski acted in such a way as to live up to Mr. Harvey's description of him, and a Native American chief who had been hired for the movie told Mr. Herzog that he was more than willing to kill Mr. Kinski. Mr. Herzog declined the offer — which was appreciated.

• Even big-time directors like Francis Ford Coppolo don't have as much power as people tend to think they do. In 1997, he wanted to cast Johnny Depp — whom he regards as "one of the three greatest actors of his generation" — as the lead in The Rainmaker, but the movie studio would not let him do that because at the time Mr. Depp was not the major star that he is now. Therefore, Mr. Coppola had to tell him, "Listen, they absolutely forbid me to cast you in this." Mr. Depp replied, "But we thought you were a god!" Mr. Coppola says, "A lot of people think that being a name director, you do absolutely what you want to do and only what you want to do. Maybe Steven Spielberg's earned that right with his extraordinary career. But he would be the only one who has that type of power."

How Do I Use Your And You're?

your = possessive form of you

Ex: Your coat is in that closet.

Ex: Your car is at the carwash.

you're = contraction of you are

Ex: You're standing in the rain.

Ex: You're an incredibly sensitive woman.

• When she was a little girl, actress Samantha Morton attended drama club with other little kids. For one lesson, she was supposed to improvise a scene with another little girl. The two girls stood in front of the group, and the drama teacher whispered to little Samantha the theme of the improvisation: "The other girl's stolen your hamster." Samantha responded by improvising in her own way. She says, "I beat the crap out of this girl, and they didn't ask me back."

• The day that Carey Mulligan, star of An Education, passed her driving test, three cars driven by paparazzi followed her. She tried to do such things as changing lanes to get rid of them, but she ended up driving into cul-de-sacs and making U-turns and getting lost. Eventually, she pulled over, and one of the paparazzi got out of his car and walked to her car and motioned for her to roll down her window. She did, and the paparazzo said, "We know where you're going. We can't take pictures of you there. But do you want us to show you how to get there?" She accepted his help — somewhat reluctantly — and he said, "Okay, I'll show you where it is, and then we'll leave you alone. Just follow me." He led her to the place she was going — it was only two minutes away! Then next day, she went shopping and forgot to feed the parking meter — the same paparazzo fed the meter for her!

• One problem that many actors have is acting in bad weather conditions of extreme heat or extreme cold, often at unpleasant times such as night or very early in the morning. In her acting, Laura Linney deals with industrial-strength issues such as death, illness and personal failure. However, she says, "You know what's more difficult, what they don't teach you in drama school? How to act at 4:30 in the morning in the freezing cold or boiling heat. That's more challenging than any sort of emotional work. And it's like childbirth. You forget about it once a movie's finished and you're on to the next." While acting in the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma, Russell Crowe ran into the problem of an unpleasant acting environment: "We were surrounded by four-and-a-half feet of snow doing scenes where we're talking about the drought."

Good Deeds

Look at the punctuation in the following accounts of good deeds. Can you figure out the rules of punctuation that the writer is following?

• In just his second month as a police officer, Brian Bardsley saved the life of a little boy in a fire in a burning first-floor apartment on Chicago's West Side. He crawled approximately 25 feet, unable to see more than a few inches in front of him, but he found the 4-year-old boy whom he knew was in the apartment. The boy wrapped his arms around Mr. Bardsley's neck, and Mr. Bardsley carried him to safety. Diane Harris said, "I wish I could thank him. My grandson would have been a goner." Mr. Bardsley, who used the training he had received as a firefighter in a previous job to make the rescue, said, "I'm very excited. I'm glad I got a chance to help someone. That's why you go into this job." In the same fire, firefighter Michael Oquendo used a sledgehammer to break through five rows of glass blocks to reach and rescue a man who was trapped in the basement and was breathing through a vent in the blocks.

• On 23 February 2005, Neena Saloiya, who lives independently, has been blind from birth, and was a student at Woodsworth College in the University of Toronto, brushed a hot electric element with her oven mitt, which caught on fire and started a big blaze in her apartment. She called 911 and then let her guide dog, Ziggy, lead her to safety down 20 flights of stairs. She said about Ziggy, "He pushed me with his head as if to say, 'Go this way.'" Her apartment was gutted and she had no insurance, but people rallied to help her. All she had was a cell phone, the clothing she was wearing at the time of the fire, and Ziggy, but officials at the University of Toronto got her a place in a suite that she shared with three other students. She said, "It's going OK. It's a change for them too, especially having Ziggy there, but they're handling it well, so it's nice." Ms. Saloiya received other help as well and was looking forward to going back to her apartment after its renovation. She said, "I would like to say thank you to people."
Appendix B: Fair Use

This communication uses information that I have downloaded and adapted from the WWW. I will not make a dime from it. The use of this information is consistent with fair use:

§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Release date: 2004-04-30

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Source of Fair Use information: <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107>.

