I am deciding to end this series on interesting introductions with video games for a couple of reasons, the most pressing of which is that I wanted an excuse to write about Super Mario 64. Released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996, Super Mario 64 is not the first game I played, nor is it my favorite. But when I look back on some of my favorite opening moments in video games — openings that are...
I first decided to watch Jordan Peele’s Us on a relatively bright morning … on my phone … while I was on an airplane. This is far from the best context to get a good impression of anything, much less a densely loaded horror film like Us. The fact that these opening moments stuck with me despite all of this makes it worth examining for this series on interesting introductions. Here’s a link to the...
Literature is full of great beginnings. There are plenty to choose from — Austen’s “truth universally acknowledged,” Dickens’s contradicting description of the best (and worst) of times, Orwell’s clocks’ striking thirteen, etc. — each with their own merits. But I want to start this series on effective introductions with a line that I will always hold dear — the opening paragraph to J.R.R...
How do you feel about epigraphs? My partner once said she hated them, at least in the context of academic writing. Why not just get straight to what you want to say? Many readers find them pretty easy to skip over (as I’m sure at least a couple of you did when approaching this blog post) and if used incorrectly they can easily become unnecessary filler, pretentious excess, or both...
Generally, there are few things that unite teachers more than a mutual aversion to grading. For some, the marking up of assignments and assigning of earned grades may be a mere annoyance; for others, the unavoidable nature of subjectivity inherent to that process, plus the amount of feedback necessary, multiplied by the time consumed makes for one distasteful equation. That being said, there are...
Most people don’t usually experience quiet moments of realization while cleaning out a cat’s litter box, but this is sort of how the writing and editing process goes: Here I crouch, sifting through environmentally-friendly litter and scooping out poops. Several paces away, my handsome tuxedo derpface sits primly, tail curled around his hind legs, silently judging. After I’ve bagged the waste and...