Fitting Quotations

Fitting Quotations Fitting Quotations Fitting Quotations By Maeve Maddox Incorporating direct quotations effectively is an important writing skill. Here is an example of an ill-fitting quotation in an article about media doctor Mehmet Oz who was recently the subject of a Senate hearing. It’s from an article by Terrence McCoy in The Washington Post (print and digital): â€Å"I recognize that oftentimes they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact,† Oz said at a U.S. Senate hearing, adding that he â€Å"personally believes in the items I talk about in my show.† One obvious problem with this example is the use of pronouns that don’t go together. Not so obvious is the fact that the quotation differs from what Oz actually said. Quotation marks represent a covenant between writer and reader, a promise that the words enclosed by them are exactly what the person being quoted said. Here’s the original response to Senator McCaskill’s question: I actually do personally believe in the items I talk about in the show. In quoting Oz’s original statement, the writer has fallen into a crack between direct and indirect quotation. The word he is outside the quoted material, but the writer (or editor) has added an -s to believe to make it agree with he. Without noticing that the pronoun I does not fit with the preceding he, the writer adds a my that was not in the original quotation. The writer could have reported the words as an indirect quotation, putting only part of it in quotation marks: he â€Å"personally believes† in the products he talks about in his show. Or, he could have introduced the quotation with a colon: â€Å"I recognize that oftentimes they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact,† Oz said at a U.S. Senate hearing, adding: â€Å"I actually do personally believe in the items I talk about in the show.† A quotation should not be dropped into an essay or a news article without adequate introduction. It should agree grammatically with surrounding text, reproduce the exact words that were said, and it should not stand alone. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and ToesStory Writing 101Grammatical Case in English

7 Vehicular Violations of Proper English

7 Vehicular Violations of Proper English 7 Vehicular Violations of Proper English 7 Vehicular Violations of Proper English By Mark Nichol Advertising in the form of signage printed on vehicles is a road hazard when exasperating errors and extraneous elements in the mobile messaging distract motorists. Here are photographs of seven moving violations, with commentary. The motto painted on this truck not only commits a quintuple-overkill foul but also is flatly incorrect. The worst infraction, beyond the extraneous quotation marks framing the message, appears to be the placement for emphasis of an additional set of quotation marks around only. (If one wishes to employ one set of quotation marks inside another, the interior ones in American English, at least should be single; in British English, the order is reversed. But here, neither set is necessary.) But that’s still not enough the word is also placed at a jaunty, pseudo-italicized angle, underlined, and printed in a different font and color than the rest of the slogan. Just one or two forms of accentuation would have been sufficient. The worst error, however, is that the company is not the â€Å"only† overhead-door professional (note the insertion of a missing hyphen in the previous phrase); it may be the sole provider of overhead-door services in its home city, but then the motto should close with â€Å"in town.† But why not simply say, without quotation marks or any other emphasis, â€Å"Our overhead-door service rises above the rest!† Was that motto already taken? This sign sports merely mild mistakes, but they’re insistently irritating, like a small burr in one’s sock. Note the extra letter spaces between the (unnecessary) open and close quotation marks bracketing â€Å"We’re Affordable.† The hyphen in â€Å"Clean-Outs† (which should be â€Å"Cleanouts†) also hangs in midair, as do the hyphens separating the elements of the phone number. There is so much wrong with this superficially satisfying vehicle signage. First, too many fonts compete with each other. Then, the letters in the slogan â€Å"Quality Is Our Main Ingredient† are too widely spread, while those in the next line are too compact and then the elements of the phone number are nearly segregated into different time zones. The middle word in the phrase after Flik, strictly speaking, shouldn’t start with an uppercase letter; of is one of the â€Å"little words† that doesn’t merit capitalization in display type. (However, capitalizing it is a defensible style choice.) But the inexcusable error is the misspelling of member. Nobody at the sign shop and nobody at the client company noticed that? Really? Busy, busy, busy. Too many colors, too many fonts, too many words. The key crime, however, is the common error of mistakenly styling a plural construction as if it were a plural one. This sign implies that love flowers belong to Mom. The message, however, should read, â€Å"Moms Love Flowers.† No job is too small, but sometimes words are to should be too. This asininely assertive window panel proves that everyone has the right to appear stupid, too. The oddly inconsistent swelling treatment of the letters in each line notice how the characters in the lines beginning with everyone and to grow and recede in size from left to right, but the words in the third and fourth lines are uniformly sized might distract viewers from the unfortunate fact that but is amusingly misspelled and the wrong spelling of you’re is employed. Write English correctly, or . . . . This fortunately ephemeral expression is head-slappingly hilarious. One hopes (and presumes) that the â€Å"sineor† girl who sprayed this signage a couple of years ago assuming she graduated is not employed in the wordsmithing world. These images are from the websites Apostrophe Abuse, English Fail Blog, Funnies.com, The Great Typo Hunt, and The â€Å"Blog† of â€Å"Unnecessary† Quotation Marks. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Examples of Passive Voice (And How To Fix Them)Telling a Good Poem from a Bad One50 Musical Terms Used in Nonmusical Senses

Industrialization in development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Industrialization in development - Essay Example n the Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the 18th century and spread to other parts of Europe and North America in the early 19th century {Stearns, Peter N., and John H. Hinshaw,1996). Industrialization had occurred by the end of the 19th century in some southern European countries and in Japan, and during the 20th century, particularly after World War II (1939-1945), in eastern Asia. In many developing nations, industrialization started even later during the 80’s and 90’s.Today, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom are among the worlds major industrialized countries. Of the late China, Singapore, and many other European nations have also joined this list. Along with these many prospective developing countries like India, Brazil and South Africa have also made great strides. The  process  of  industrialization usually includes a movement from rural to urban living and a shift from home to factory production. Increased mechanization in agriculture generally leads to increased agricultural productivity and enough food for large urban populations. Agricultural productivity growth is necessary for modern industrial growth to become self-sustaining. Other conditions are also necessary for industrialization to occur, and the next section describes three differing theories on this process that were developed during the 20th century. Industrialization was not a process of smaller period, but it was slow phase change of the economy and the manufacturing methods. It led to the mechanization of the process. The production of goods was decentralized, giving small groups of workers a sense of active participation in and control over their work. Costs were high, however, and the volume of production was relatively low. Industrialization greatly heightened output and made key goods, sometimes called commodities, more accessible. Industrialization has a great impact on modern economy. It made rich more richer and poor still poorer, due to

Life Expectancy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Life Expectancy - Essay Example Statistics reveal that life expectancy at birth, presently, has increased so much that on an average, it â€Å"exceeds 79 years† across the OECD, with a â€Å"nine year gap† between Japan and Turkey, the countries with highest and lowest life expectancy respectively (OECD, 2011, p. 78). This difference in the level of increase in life expectancy in developed and developing countries is a result of the varied factors and conditions present in both categories of countries. However, extensive studies that have been conducted over the past several years have identified that medical innovation, with respect to advancements in medicines and treatment, is the main reason behind increase in life expectancy in both developed and developing countries. Contrary to popular notion that growth in income level or income inequality affects life expectancy, OECD social indicators have evidenced that between the â€Å"mid-80s and mid-2000s,† there is â€Å"no relationship† between increasing life expectancy and income growth or between â€Å"rising† life expectancy and income inequality changes (OECD, 2011, p. 79). Furthermore, lower â€Å"infant mortality rates† and the fact of older people being able to live â€Å"longer† have characterized the increase in life expectancy, and this has been possible only due to the various medical innovations that took place over the past decades. Thus, this underlines the fact that medical innovation is directly responsible for the increase in life expectancy not only by decreasing infant mortality rates, but also by prolonging life of aged people. For instance, death rates arising from â€Å"coronary heart diseases† in the US have declined by â€Å"three-fou rths† since the 1960s, cancer survival rate has increased from â€Å"49%† to â€Å"67%† and deaths from HIV/AIDS have decreased by an astounding â€Å"80%† (Lilly USA, LLC, 2012, p. 2). However, in order to

Collective Action Problem Essay Example for Free

Collective Action Problem Essay Problem Statement: Competitors Coca- cola and Pepsi-cola have to decide whether or not to offer discount pricing. Matrix:-    Pepsi cola    Coca- cola Pricing Strategy Discount price Regular price Discount price $4b,   $2b $8b,   $1b Regular price $2b,   $5b $6b,   $4b * b means billion    Description: Both companies can choose one outcome by offering a discount price or a regular price. The payoff for each firm depends upon the pricing strategies of both firms.     For coca- cola the worst case scenario is $2 billion payoff when it offers regular prices while Pepsi-Cola charges discount prices. Similarly, for Pepsi- Cola the worst case scenario is $1 billion. Solution: A dilemma is involved because each party would like to have maximum benefits by offering the discount and hoping that the other doesn’t.   The only secure means both companies have of avoiding meager profits is to offer discount prices. The ideal scenario would have been when both were offering regular price as they would have earned $6 billion (Coca- cola) and $4 billion (Pepsi-Cola). But, it’s difficult to trust each other and thus, they both go for the conservative strategy and settle down for profits of $4 billion and $2 billion for Coca-cola and Pepsi-Cola respectively.

My Amazing Grandfather (Grandpa) :: Personal Narrative Profile Essays

Personal Narrative- My Amazing Grandpa I don't have a lot of fantastic memories of childhood. There were no spectacular family adventures, no unique family projects that taught some sort of moral lesson, no out-of-the-ordinary holidays. We ate family meals together, but most of the time the children and adults lived in different worlds. The kids went to school, did homework, and played; the adults worked. I was lucky, though. When I wanted a little of both worlds, I could always turn to Grandpa. I remember vividly the weekends at his house. Sitting on his lap, going to wrestling matches, walking down the street or through a park--these were things I did with Grandpa. I wasn't just a kid to him: I was his granddaughter, and I was special. He was special too. Grandpa was a giant of a man. He stood six feet two inches and weighed over 250 pounds. He moved with purpose and carried himself with respect. Tom was a proud man, a good man, and all who knew him said so. Even if you didn't know him, you would notice his inner strength, his patience, his self-esteem. Grandpa wasn't a scholar. In fact, he didn't even make it through grade school. He was born at the turn of the century, and educating black men wasn't a necessity then. He went to work when he was sixteen, and for the next forty years he worked in a coal factory. Then he worked in a steel mill for another twenty years. He stopped working only because the steel mill closed and he was too old to find another job. When I was with Grandpa, I could be a child and yet see things through grown-up eyes. "You see that tree, Cookie," he would say. "That tree was here before those houses. God put that tree there; man put the houses. Which is more beautiful?" If I climbed a tree, he didn't say, "Get down." He said, "Climb it right so you won't fall." "You appreciate what you work for," he used to say. He taught that lesson well. He never let me win any game; he taught me to win by learning to lose.

Deontological ethics Essay

Attempting to explain the differences and similarities of virtue theory, utilitarianism and deontological is basically from my own understanding of each. I am having much difficulty reading the materials as well as sitting at this computer for any length of time. I believe my reading visual is deteriorating at a rapid pace because of the straining to my eyes. Virtue ethics focuses on a person’s character and morals. This person will always try to do what is right because he was taught at an early age and by someone he loves and wants to always please by doing the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Utilitarianism focuses on the consequences of your actions. What I mean by that is that if you steal something and not get caught, there are no consequences. No one knows that you stole and therefore you do not have to answer to anyone but yourself. Deontology focuses on the outcome of the act whether right or wrong. The person steals food from a grocery store because his children are hungry and he does not have the money to buy food. Although it is his responsibility to feed his children, stealing is clearly wrong. The consequences did not matter at that particular time; he did what he felt he had to do. Recently there was an incident on my route where a woman called in to my job and conveyed to my superior that I was talking about Jesus on the bus and she was offended. I was called in and reprimanded and told not to speak about religion on the bus. My response to her was, is that right? Quite a few of my regular passengers know that I am a minister and talk to me regularly about the Bible, Jesus and the Christian faith. Based on the virtue ethics, I was taught to speak the word of God in season and out of season, when it is time or easy and when it is not a good time or hard. This is my first and most important job and regardless of the consequences, I will continue to preach the word and pray for anyone who desires to hear it. I will always try to please Jesus in whatever I do.