Parts of Speech

On the second day of my Technical Writing class, my professor asked us if anyone knew the parts of speech.  I remembered most of them, but I should know all of them.  This served as a reminder that one should always recall the basics.  This is true in almost any case, not just with writing.  For example, some people may need to take refresher courses or receive more training on a computer program utilized at work.  The individual may use, say, a spreadsheet application every day, but does he or she know or remember how to create a graph?  It may be a breeze for some, but consider what can happen if the individual doesn't use this feature very often, even if he or she learned it once before.  It's easy to forget even the most basic methods.

I will discuss the parts of speech in more detail in a later post.  For now, I will define all eight in very simple terms the best I can.  (I don't mean to cause any confusion, but there are various takes on the parts of speech that one academic institution will state that there are eight while another will claim there are twelve.  The eight parts I listed below are frequently, if not always, considered as the parts of speech.)


1. Noun: a person, place, or thing
For example, "Ned wants to visit San Francisco to ride a trolley."  "Ned" is a person, "San Francisco" is a place, and "trolley"is a thing.

2. Pronoun: a word that substitutes for a noun
For example, the sentence "Rita is going to study chemistry with Lee and Chris" can be changed so that all the nouns are replaced with pronouns.  The resulting sentence is "She is going to study it with them."

3. Verb: a word used for an action or a condition
For example, "Cathy ran a half-marathon yesterday" and "Cathy is ready for the half-marathon."  Both "ran" (an action) and "is" (a condition or state) are verbs.

4. Adjective: describes or modifies a noun
For example, "Even though the dog is very loud, it is very cute."  Notice there are two adjectives: "loud" and "cute."  Though "loud" describes "dog" and "cute" describes "it," both adjectives describe the same dog.


5. Adverb: describes or modifies a verb or an adjective
For example, "The puzzle piece fits perfectly" and "Her house is extremely expensive."  In the first sentence, "perfectly" describes how the puzzle piece fits ("fits" is the verb).  In the second sentence, the house is described as "expensive," and "extremely" describes how expensive it is.

6. Preposition: a word used to relate a noun or pronoun with the other surrounding words
For example, in the sentence "She is taking a nap on the bed against the wall," "on" and "against" are the prepositions.  "She" is not below or next to the bed; "She" is "on" the bed.  The "bed" is not next to a window or centered in the room; it is "against" the wall.

7. Conjunction: connects two clauses, sentences, phrases, or words
For example, "Tod tries to meet his cousin for lunch, but his cousin is always busy."  This sentence can be divided into two sentences that can each stand alone as "Tod tried to meet his cousin for lunch" and "His cousin is always busy."  In the example, the two are joined by "but" (a conjunction).


8. Article: a word that is placed before a noun
For example, "I asked him to buy a table and an orange vase at the new furniture store."  There are three articles in this sentence: "a," "an," and "the."

Another part of speech is an interjection, which is, simply, an exclamation.  Examples of interjections include "Yikes!," "Oh," and "Sh!"  Note that interjections are not always followed by an exclamation point, such as in the sentences "Hello, I am Martha" and "Well, I think that's true."  Whether "Hello" and "Well" are followed by an exclamation point depended on how strongly they are spoken.  There is a difference between "Hello!  I am Martha!" and "Hello, I am Martha."



Note: I have been very busy moving to a new place.  Thus, this post is appearing many, many weeks after my last, but my plans for this blog are beginning to evolve a bit.  One step is to post more frequently, possibly on a biweekly basis instead of the usual once-a-month-or-less.  Keep an eye out for new material!

Practice

Over the years, I've received many pieces of advice to guide my writing.  A few of the best are simple, such as "keep writing."  If someone wants to be a writer, then he or she must keep writing.  Many writers set a goal to write a little each day.  That is not always possible, but it's a good habit that one should try to perfect.  When an individual tries a physical or mental exercise, such as dancing or memorizing names, it's very likely he or she will execute the action with more ease and greater accuracy after periods of practice.  The same, of course, applies to writing.  The more a person writes, the more comfortable he or she may become with how he or she writes.  For example, a writer practicing his or her craft every day may find that he or she is using a book of grammar guidelines less and less as the weeks pass.

Some people may respond to this recommendation, asking, "Okay, but how do I practice or where do I start?"  There are various answers to that, but I usually suggest two methods to aspiring writers.  The first is setting up a system of completing and revising one or more manuscripts.  Everyone writes at different paces where one person can write ten pages in a day and another can write forty.  A crucial part of this method is setting a daily goal and sticking to it.  Occasionally, a writer will go beyond his or her goal of pages or even change the amount.  Once a manuscript is complete, one should revise it however many times is necessary until he or she is happy with it.  However, I personally think it's best to not stop writing, even if that means writing for an hour and editing for two hours each day.  This may not work for everyone, but I always juggle several stories at once.  By doing so, I have a manuscript to work on when I need a break from another.

The second method is writing exercises.  There are so many books out there that offer different types of these activities.  Writing in response to given scenarios is a common one, such as, "Imagine your cat is jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, finally settling on the top of a very high bookshelf—write about it."  One can describe the furniture and even the items on the bookshelf, going into the details of how the pieces look and react to each movement the cat makes.  (It's almost as if they are secondary characters.)  Most importantly, since the cat is the main character, the reader should know more about the cat.  Perhaps the cat is overweight and struggles with this adventure, or the cat almost fell but saved itself by digging its claws into an armchair the narrator inherited from a distant relative.  There are many directions an individual can go with such a basic and silly scene.  One point to realize is that the stories or poems that come from the exercises don't have to be great.  A story about the cat can be the start of a completely different tale or it can be a way of practicing narration.  The hopeful result of the exercises, no matter what kind of activities they are, is that the writer produces solid pieces and edits with a sharper eye.

Blog Reboot

What once was a home for links, quirky Flash animation, and barely-noticed rants reserved only for my friends and family to view is now a place where I hope to share thoughts on any number of subjects.  To some, such posts may or may not be worthy of mentioning.  However, this is the space I chose to nestle in to explore what I personally feel is interesting enough, whether it's about writing or a new video game.  Even if the conversation is one-sided, I hope this will become a reference for me to utilize in the future.  For example, if I make any grammar mistakes, my automatic response is "I'm still learning."  Every writer in all stages of his or her life and career, whether a novice or a professional, is still learning.  There is always room to know more about one's craft, mold one's voice and change technique in self-defense.  Years from now, I may look back on this post and realize that I have always been annoyingly verbose or that I should really expand the word bank of my everyday vocabulary (or that I should stick to posting about trendy videos and odd news articles).