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Your name: Cole Youngner
Your home town: St. Louis, Missouri
Your major(s): Philosophy, Psychology
Are you fluent in any language(s) other than English? Limited skills in Spanish
What are your career plans? I’ll have to get back to you on this one. Seriously, ask me again in a few years.
What is your favorite book or author and why? Favorite book would have to be Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. I related to it completely when I read it in high school, and it made me comfortable with myself. I also enjoy Nietzsche from time to time.
What is your most frequent grammatical error? Run on sentences which sometimes even become paragraphs.
What is your biggest grammatical pet peeve? Overuse of passive voice. It used to be my biggest problem. Then, I realized that active verbs often make your sentences and writing more powerful.
What is your favorite word? Nihilistic
What is your favorite procrastination method when you have a paper to write? There are way too many to list here. A few include: all things Star Wars, X-box, pitchfork.com/youtube, “tivoed” episodes of LOST, 30 Rock, The Office & South Park.
Describe (in a short paragraph) a significant breakthrough in your development as a writer: I was never a great writer in high school because I never took the time to write outlines or several drafts of my essays. Somehow, I would do fairly well and just managed to keep getting away with my lack of a writing process. In my first philosophy class during freshman year I didn’t do so well on my first paper. I thought I had worked so hard on it. Being a freshman in my first semester, I of course freaked out. However, I went all out on the second paper: wrote multiple drafts, went to office hours with my TA, and got multiple edits/revisions from friends. I got an A, but more importantly, I realized that doing well is not impossible and is much easier when you plan and work ahead of time.
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