north by Northwest United States?

Do you capitalize cardinal directions (e.g., north, northwest)?

Answer:

Only if they refer to a specific region of a country (eg: Northwest America). Do NOT capitalize if they are used as directions (eg: Looking north...).

Read more:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_north_south_east_and_west_capitalized#ixzz19LaFOHux

Who versus Whom

Haven't done a straight grammar mix-up in a while. So I found a really cool grammar girl entry on this one.

Use who when you are referring to the subject. Use whom when you are referring to the object.

Quick and dirty tip: Like whom, the pronoun him ends with m. When you're trying to decide whether to use who or whom, ask yourself if the answer to the question would be he or him. That's the trick: if you can answer the question being asked with him, then use whom, and it's easy to remember because they both end with m. For example, if you're trying to ask, "Who (or whom) do you love?" The answer would be "I love him." Him ends with an m, so you know to use whom. But if you are trying to ask, "Who (or whom) stepped on Squiggly?" the answer would be "He stepped on Squiggly." There's no m, so you know to use who. So that's the quick and dirty trick: if you can't remember that you use whom when you are referring to the object of the sentence, just remember that him equals whom.

Thanks grammar girl. I don't know who you are, but a bit your not as hot as the cartoon of you on the website.

A Journal Article Takes 12 Weeks to Write

All to often I forget that writing takes time. If I have learned anything about preparing my first manuscript for submission is that it is long and arduous. Also, that you have to not attach any sort of emotion to the words you write because they are all going to be hashed to death beyond recognition and reincarnating in a form that sounds more like your professor's and not yours. Just saying.

So start early and start often.

Some books I will adding to my repertoire:
Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success
How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

Getting Rid of the Fuzz or Decluttering your Writing

"All writers edit their prose, but great writers edit viciously. The point of editing is to eliminate ‘fuzz’, or excess words which don’t add value. Zinsser compares removing ‘fuzz’ to fighting weeds – you will always be slightly behind. Two examples of fuzz are ‘also’ and ‘very’. Work at keeping them out of your text and your writing will improve."
-The Thesis Whisperer a good writing blog to follow......

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources (the "When to use a newspaper article reference question")

I just had a very good question from one of my REM 100 students:
"For the term paper are we allowed to use newspaper articles or should we stay clear of them?"

I have often wondered when to use popular sources in papers? The answer is basically, depends on the source's stake in the material and the audience in question.

"To understand this difference [b/w scholarly and popular sources], it may help to recognize that when you write for a departmental class, you are writing for an audience more expert than the common reader. When writing about Republican and Democratic voting patterns on stem cells, science reports from a general interest magazine like Newsweek might be considered sufficiently authoritative. But when you write about stem cells for a Biomedical Engineering class, your teachers and classmates are considered more expert than the average non-scientist reader. For this audience, your sources must have stronger science credentials, must generally be working scientists, not journalists.

Newspapers are not as easy to classify as other sources. Newspapers are not scholarly sources, but some would not properly be termed popular, either. Every source must be questioned for its stake in the material. The New York Post is known for its conservative political bias, for instance, and for its high opinions of Fox television shows (owned by the same parent company). You might be able to trust its sports coverage, but it would not be considered a neutral source for political news. But some newspapers have developed a national or even worldwide reputation for fairness and accuracy. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The London Guardian are a few examples. On issues of fact, major mainstream magazines such as Newsweek and Time are also generally reliable.

Finally, it’s worth noting that many Internet sources are less reliable than print sources."
-Yale Writing Center

Environmental versus Natural Resources, a worthy distinction?

Maybe not a "worthy" distinction, but one that has come up more than once when dealing in environmental economics.
"Environmental economics was once distinct from resource economics. Natural resource economics as a subfield began when the main concern of researchers was the optimal commercial exploitation of natural resource stocks. But resource managers and policy-makers eventually began to pay attention to the broader importance of natural resources (e.g. values of fish and trees beyond just their commercial exploitation;, externalities associated with mining). It is now difficult to distinguish "environmental" and "natural resource" economics as separate fields as the two became associated with sustainability."
-Wikipedia

So I work for a department entitled: Resource and Environmental Management. Environmental management refers to the management of interaction by the modern human societies with, and impact upon the environment. While resource managment refers to the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations. This I think is a worthwile distinction. Now about the management part............

Queens versus American English (analyse v. analyze)

So I continue to fail students who use the queen's English in my assignments. It's not cause I hate the queen, it's cause I thought they were wrong. Turns out there is in fact a "Canadian English" that is allowed to poach from either American or British (queen's) English.

"Canadian English should not be described as a mixture of American and British English with an insignificant number of Canadianisms added. Canadian English, like all ‘Englishes’, possesses an important characteristic, referred to as wholesale borrowing, which has allowed it to develop a very rich vocabulary. Canadians have in the past and will most likely in the future continue to borrow freely from both American and British English; however, once a lexeme is borrowed, it has the possibility to evolve differently. In other words, Canadians appropriate it to suit their needs. "

And when it comes to the analyse v. analyze....

"Canadians unlike Americans have a choice in matter pertaining to spelling. Canadians can choose to spell the following words either the American or British way: center/centre, practice/practise[5], analyze/analyse, color/colour. However, consistency must govern usage. Thus, if a Canadian in a formal paper chooses to use British spelling, he or she must take care to use all British suffixes where there are common suffixes to chose from. This is the advice given by the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary in the Style Guide section under Appendices. The aforementioned dictionary is considered, and for good reason, the authority on matters pertaining to style."
-Canadian English


So bottom line: Canada has its own English. It's just either British or American English, but not both.