Words R Us

This is an interesting correlation, but is it really causation?

Wouldn't the rigor of classes taken and other extracurricular activities also play a role in GPA? Wouldn't that also be a variable in their research? And a stalker button? Why would they even install that anyway?

This post might interest those of you wondering whether you can list Hawaii Creole English as a second language on your college application (or, as in this case, once you arrive at college). The comments below the post are interesting as well.

"Be concise, Be honest, Be an individual, Be coherent, Be accurate, Be vivid, Be likable, Be cautious in your use of humor, Be controversial, and Be smart" HOW?!?!?!?!?!?!? Quite a bit to take in and remember while working away on a concise paper which may or may not decide our future. Just a few small nuggets of gold (interpret as you please): "If you go over 700 words, you are straining their patience, which no one should want to do." "Not everyone has to be the star at everything." "The whole application is a series of snapshots of what you do. It is inevitably incomplete. The colleges expect this. Go along with them." "If you write about Nietzsche, spell his name right." "Subtlety is good." "Be funny only if you think you have to. Then think again." "It is fine to write about politics, religion, something serious, as long as you are balanced and thoughtful. Don't pretend you have the final truth." "Colleges are intellectual places, a fact they almost always keep a secret..." From this, I take: Be human. But be an awesome human.

4. Be coherent.  I thought that this website was really helpful because I am known to like to write a lot and sometimes want to write so much that I ramble a lot.  I don't want to sound busy but not scattered or superficial either.

I feel like by setting up some of these guidelines, it is kind of changing our experiences or ideas we want to write. We have to find something coherent to the question and on top of that be likeable. what if what you think is likeable isn't the same as what the college people want?

"Dyslexic brains are organized in a way that maximizes strength in making big picture connections at the expense of weaknesses in processing fine details. ... The other big misconception is that dyslexia is fundamentally a learning disorder which is accompanied only by problems, rather than a different pattern of processing that can bring tremendous strengths in addition to the well-known challenges. ... dyslexic brains are especially good at putting together big pictures, or seeing larger context, or imagining how processes will play out over time"

These writing experiments seem like ways to burrow through the language environment that is our niche...

Not really linguistics-related, but so interesting that I thought we should share (Mr. Maretzki shared with me).

Nice BBC clip explaining and illustrating the McGurk effect. "The McGurk effect is a compelling demonstration of how we all use visual speech information. The effect shows that we can't help but integrate visual speech into what we 'hear'."

Although this is on a Santa Ana College website it still gives you a great idea on how colleges want you to write your essays.

This site gives examples about the process to go through in writing a college essay.

The official College Board website about writing a good college essay.

"An area of the brain called the Visual Word Form Area, or VWFA, is activated whenever it sees something that looks like a word-and is so adept at packaging visual input for the brain's language centers that activation happens within a few tens of milliseconds. ... Instead of being "luminance-defined," words can be "motion-defined," distinguishable from their background not by color or contrast, but by their apparent direction of movement. Against a field of dots moving one way, words made up of dots moving in the other direction will "pop out" to most viewers, even if the word and background dots are the same shade."

Example of the motion-defined words used in the study: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/september/videos/973.html

Essays should be more about how an experience affected a writer, and should give insight about the writer than just telling a story. Doing so will personalize the essay more and let the reader set the writer apart from the other thousands of applicants.

The writer can make their essay sound more personal by focusing on specific events or qualities within a larger event.

The writer needs to be able to convey how they changed or show specific qualities that they gained from events that impacted their lives. rather then just explaining a story in their lives because the admissions officer wont be able to know the real you.

I thought this article was great because it added onto the other previous articles posted onto Diigo. It gave me even more tips on how to write my College Essay. 1. Write as you speak. 2. Be original. 3. Show genuine enthusiasm. 4. Create some mystery. 5. Focus. 6. Use active verbs. 7. Use short sentences and simple words.