Journal and Grammar Girl Podcasts

Part 1: Journal

I revised my thesis. The original thesis for the paper was: To acquire a sense of identity despite many forces that may oppose an individual’s choices and ambitions. However, one must not ignore advice from people that love and care for them especially family, in pursuit of their objectives. The new thesis is: Parents need to understand and respect the opinion and feelings of their children by enabling their children to make independent decisions and children should realize the importance of family, and they should not disregard the advice given.
I have identified the following points as the most practical

Parents have the best interests of children at heart, although these interests may collide with what their children want
Parents need to adjust their mindset from conservative and long-held thoughts to the present situation
Generation gap leads to miscommunication between the parents and the children
Parental relationship is important in providing encouragement and advice, and in enhancing understanding with the children
Children need to listen to their parents first, and they should not dismiss everything their parents say even if they do not agree

Chris was radical, as evidenced by his change of name and rebellious nature. He did not take the time to listen to his parents, and he did not consider their concerns. On the other hand, Chris’ parents were not right in their decisions. Chris’ parents made the decision for him, and they made sure that they had the final word. Their refusal to listen to any of his suggestions shows the effect of the generation gap that exists between them. They are adamant as they insist on Chris going to college and securing a white-collar job, and they do not seem to realize that times have changed. Chris chose to be rebellious, as a way of showing his parents that he did not agree with the decisions they made.

Part 2: Grammar Girl Podcasts

Hyphens Episode 93

The podcast discusses the right way to use hyphens, and it highlights the difficulties that people have when using hyphens. The main goal of the podcast is to demonstrate how people can hyphenate some of the compound words. There are many rules aimed at guiding people when using hyphens, and this can sometimes be confusing. The writer recommends hyphenating words when they appear before nouns, and not hyphenating them when they appear after nouns. Although this is the general perception, there are exceptions to this rule, and the only way that people can use hyphens with certainty is by consulting a dictionary or a style manual. It is important for one to understand the words, which are hyphenated. This is because hyphenating words can change the meaning of that word. People use hyphens when they are joining a prefix to a word that has to be capitalized, such as Un-American, and when joining a letter to a word, such as X-ray. Hyphens are also important when writing numbers. An example of using hyphens in the right way would be in the sentence: the eighty-year-old man was too old to dance.