yesterday i presented a chapter of my senior thesis to a classroom of students and a number of professors. i find i am wracked with anxiety days before a public speaking engagement. writing, for me, is comfortable – not because it is easy (it is HARD), but because i have a method for doing it. after years of practice and feedback, i’ve found my sea … Continue reading on (novice) presenting

It’s no new discovery that our generation says “like” an awful lot.  Even though parents and teachers hammer it into our heads that using “like” makes us seem shallow and incompetent, we just can’t resist. Here are a few examples, which I took directly from conversations I heard outside of my door: “Like, that was like, SO funny.” “I was like, hey, and then he … Continue reading This article is, like, super interestiiinnnnnng: New York Times redeems the use of “like.”

Endless Bummer, ink on paper, Kate Wadkins Barnard may have one of the best feminist zine collections in the city, but this past Saturday the 2012 NYC Feminist Zinefest surely surpassed that little shelf in the Wolman Library. A showcase of visual artists, poets, journal writers, social critics, comic writers, and other feminists who write and publish zines, the Zinefest featured a wide array of … Continue reading The feminist librarians of New York present: the Feminist Zinefest 2012

If you’ve ever had an internship in media, chances are that you’ve experienced the joy of transcribing interviews. After spending hours transcribing an interview the other day, I started to think about how the interviewer and interviewee were speaking–how they often started a sentence, paused, and then went in a different direction; how that pesky “like” inserted itself even in the speech of mature adults. … Continue reading Speak, Listen, and Write

After reading excerpts from Richard Lanham’s Revising Prose, I realize that I succumb to The Official Style: I use grandiose language when a smaller, simpler word would suffice because I like the cadence.  The Official Style makes me seem smart even when I am unsure of my argument and/or evidence.  Lanham’s image of “The Official Style seizing its prey like a boa constrictor and gradually … Continue reading A Revision Resolution

Sometimes, the mere act of clicking on Microsoft Word gets me down. I know what’s coming–a dreadfully blank document that must soon become a 6-8 page essay on Spain’s political structure, ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War or whatever else I am currently studying. Luckily, I recently found this new program called Omm Writer that makes the sometimes stressful and painful act of writing an … Continue reading Really Cool Writing App!

My dance teacher avidly believes that dancing improves one’s Math skills. To some extent, I completely agree. A dancer must be able to count beats of any form: whole, half, one-eighth, one-sixteenth, and sometimes, even smaller than that. A dancer must also readily be able to divide a 64-count phrase into four equal phrases, sixteen counts per phrase–remember the multiplication table you learned in third … Continue reading Can Dancing Help Your Writing?

in my most recent writing center conference, i worked with a student on her application for an environmental policy fellowship. no amount of “expertise” can prepare a writer for the gauntlet that is the application essay. when i think of my own experience looking for jobs, fellowships, et. al., i must withhold a list of unsavory expletives. how is one to describe oneself in 1,000 words? … Continue reading tao of the back-door brag