tsurara

School's winding down, the newbies are flooding in and the threadsuck ratio is getting a bit high. I think a basic grammar, spelling and thread-creation tutorial is in order. Read it. Live it. Love it.

I. Before You Create a Thread

1) Choose the Most Appropriate Category

Please put your thread in the most appropriate category. New users should poke around a bit to see what categories and subcategories exist before starting threads in inappropriate areas.

If your thread gives away specific plot details, please put it in the Spoiler forums.

2) Check to See if an Active Thread Exists

Active threads are any which have recieved new posts within the last 30 days, are stickied, or exist in the "anime" section's series specific subforms.

Please check to see if any active threads exist before posting a new one. Multiple threads for the same topic will be merged or closed.

3) Is it Personal?

Personal topics which can't easily be spun into a larger thread or discussion are not allowed in the forum. Threads about your personal love life, accomplishments, or sorrows belong in your blog or profile.

A good rule of thumb is this: if more than 50% of your post consists of a personal story or personal information: you shouldn't be posting it in the forum at all.

4) Is Your Thread Against the Rules?

Advertisments of products or websites, "Rate My ________", and any information about where to aquire illegal downloads of media are forbidden.


II. Composing Your Thread

1) Creating a Title

Titles should be to-the-point and tell anyone browsing the forum, at first glance, what the topic is.

Examples of Crappy Titles:
-"Ummm... well"
-"Would you..."
-"If you could"
-"Something Interesting"
-"A Great Anime"

These titles communicate absolutely nothing about the topic being discussed. Looking at them gives a viewer no clue what the thread inside is about.

Examples of Good Titles:
-"An Introduction"
-"Skydiving: Yes or No?"
-"Three Wishes"
-"Lolicon vs. The Law"
-"Lucky Star Discussion"

These titles give more specific information about the topic at hand.

*Please take care not to spoil plot details, character deaths, etc. in your titles. ie. "Gintama Dies!" (he doesn't... but you get the idea)

2) Think of a Discussion Starter

Your thread must either provide a service or provoke a discussion! This means you need to include either useful information or a question.

The easiest way to do this is to start writing your thread with the question or point at hand.

If you want to start a thread about what everyone thinks about Lucky Star. Please be sure to include the question: "What do you think about Lucky Star?" Rather than writing a rant about your own stance on abortion: include the central question "What do you think about abortion?" If the point of your thread is to teach people how to use "GIMP", include the statement "This thread is going to teach you how to use GIMP."

Once your thread has a point, you can fill in other details and information.

3) Do Not Copy-Paste

Your posts should be written by you! We can all use google, we don't need you to do it for us. Using another person's words without proper quotations and credit is plagiarism and one of the most serious infractions you can get around here! Don't do it.

You can use brief quotes (properly credited) to back up your statements or enforce your points. Do not copy entire articles, quote without quotation marks, or make posts that contain absolutely none of your own writing.

If you want to include an article please LINK to the article, do not past the body into your post.

4) RE-READ Your Post Before Submitting

Can you understand yourself? If you can't, that's a pretty bad sign.

5) Spell Check

Some of us spell well enough to skip this step... but for those of you with a poorer grasp of English: you need to spell check your work. If your spelling is so poor that it prevents readers from understanding your intention: you need to find some way to improve.

Spell checking can be accomplished by previewing your posts through WORD or a similar word processing program (copy/paste). If you don't have a word processor handy, there are a number of free spell-checking programs available online.

III. Incredibly Basic Grammar

1) Complete Sentences

In the English language, a sentence requires a subject and a verb. That means someone or something (a noun) and an action word (a verb) must be included.

Any sentences missing a subject or a verb aren't sentences at all, but sentence fragments.

2) Capitalization

Use capital letters in the first word of any new sentence, people or place names, or when writing titles.

ex. The dog is fat. Mexico Hamasaki Ayumi "Prison Break"

3) Tense Mixing

There are special cases in which your tense may vary slightly within a post (in a dialogue, quote, stating a hypothetical, progressing through time, etc) but generally speaking, you should not switch tenses often within a single sentence, story or piece of writing.

ex of tense mixing. "This morning I went to the cafe. At the cafe I drink a coffee. Then I went to the movies. I see this movie about serial killers. It was good." (past, present, past, present, past)

better: "This morning I went to the cafe. At the cafe I drank a coffee. Then I went to the movies. I saw this movie about serial killers. It was good." (all past)

to be continued...

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