{"id":1278,"date":"2012-12-13T01:42:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T06:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2012-12-04T13:00:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T18:00:59","slug":"precise-concrete-and-specific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/2012\/12\/precise-concrete-and-specific\/","title":{"rendered":"Precise, Concrete, and Specific"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n

Those three nouns in the post title continue to come to mind lo these many years since freshman English Composition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the summer of 1976 – yes, the Bicentennial summer. I was one month out of high school and taking freshman English composition. Dr. Gray taught the class.<\/p>\n

Two things stand out about the class:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We wrote everyday in a journal.<\/li>\n
  2. He told us everyday that in our writing we must be precise, concrete, and specific.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And…<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. I write in a journal everyday.<\/li>\n
    2. I told someone those three words this week (time will tell if they heed the advice).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      No generalities (unless required). Tell people (write it) precisely what you mean. Give concrete and specific examples.<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Don’t write about wildlife; write about deer.<\/li>\n
      • Don’t write about deer; write about mule deer.<\/li>\n
      • Write about mule deer bucks foraging for blackberries<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        This is pretty simple advice, but since it is good advice, it never grows old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        by Dwayne Phillips Those three nouns in the post title continue to come to mind lo these many years since freshman English Composition. It was the summer of 1976 – yes, the Bicentennial summer. I was one month out of high school and taking freshman English composition. Dr. Gray taught the class. Two things stand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,90,5],"tags":[154,207,128],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-education","category-writing","tag-communication","tag-education","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}