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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Monday, May 24, 2010

-Vocabulary -

In my Internship, my duty was to write stories; here are the words I learned to improve my writing and basic terms I must know while writing stories:

Theme
: Is why you are writing the story: the point of the story, the message.

Plot: Is what happens: This, and then that, and then this, and then that.

Active Voice
: In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action.
For example:
Steve loves Amy. Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the subject.
Here's another example:
Melissa told me about it. Melissa the subject of the sentence, is doing the action of telling.

Passive Voice
: In a passive voice the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, "Steve loves Amy," a passive sentence would say:
Amy is loved by Steve. The subject of the sentence becomes Amy,but she isn't doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve's love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy.
Tip: When writing a story is better to write active voice sentences because it makes it easier for the reader of the story.

Transition
: A transition can be a single word, a phrase, a sentence, or a entire paragraph. In each case it serves the same purpose: to signal to the reader that you are moving from one idea, argument, or moment in time to another.
Tip: This helps the reader anticipate or comprehend the new information that you're about to present.
Examples of transitions words: However, but; while, then, after, etc.

Sentence Fragment: It fails to be a sentence in the sense that it cannot stand by itself. It does not contain even one independent clause. In less technical terms, you might say that every sentence should contain a verb and a point. (In other words, it should express a complete thought.) If it's missing either or both, it's not a sentence.

For example: While writing a story. This leaves us hanging, because we need to know the complete thought. While writing the story... what?

The nutgraf
: The nutgraf, or thesis statement, tells the reader what the story is about. It's usually a single paragraph near the top of your story.