Week 6 Post

Well, in the flurry of taking the test, I guess I didn't realize that we were supposed to post on the blog for week six. But, here I am. Better late than never, I guess... right?

Week six was all about studying for the test, and a lot of that had to do with making sure I wasn't confusing or messing up certain words--whether in their meaning, or in their spelling. 

As I'm an auditory learner, spelling has generally come very naturally for me. It is easy for me to translate sound into text. However, this gets a bit tricky when two words sound exactly the same, but have different spellings or meanings. What tends to help me in these situations is to make up a rhyme, a song or some other form of fun association to keep the words straight. Such "sing-songy" studying tips do wonders helping me keep it all straightened out in my mind. 

I know that you guys have probably heard the "I before E, except after C!" and if you haven't, now you have. This makes it easy to remember that receive is always spelled 'ei' while field is always 'ie.' The funny thing about the English language, however, is that it has so many exceptions to every rule, it gets hard to make and follow a rule at all! 

When it comes down to it, what helps me most is repetition. I use all three of my learning methods--auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. I say the word, I see the word, I hear the word in my head. Generally, after enough repetitions, it will stick. I remember having a particularly difficult time with the work "definitely" in middle school. One day, after I got sick of endlessly googling the proper spelling and never remembering it, I spend just three minutes sitting and forcing the word--the way that it looked felt, and sounded on my tongue--into my memory. I haven't forgotten it since. 

For this week's editing mistake, I thought I'd give you all a good laugh.