Lesson 07 – Practical Notes

Regarding the text of the Courses, the writing style I present is mostly aligned with standard grammatical and punctuation practices. There are, however, a few quirks in my writing style that need some explanation.

The first is my somewhat frequent use of ‘ellipses’ punctuation in sentences. Ellipses are three dots (…). Ellipses are formally used to signify that words have been left out of a sentence. But I use them in an informal manner. Most often I like to use them as if you were actually talking to someone, speaking your train of thoughts. When speaking to someone in real life, you sometimes pause while speaking… considering your next words… then you resume talking. I like to mimic those real-life pauses with the ellipsis.

Sometimes when you are speaking, then you pause, the next stream of thought coming through your words may begin deviating a little from your original stream of thought… you go on a tangent… your thought stream redirects a bit, now traveling down a side path stream of thought. I like to use the ellipsis for those little detours, too.

Another writing tidbit is that I like to use ‘single quote marks’ to emphasize a word or phrase. I do this to help convey to the reader that I intend a somewhat different meaning for the word or phrase. Or I may want to much more strongly emphasize it. Often I want to bring your attention to a deeper, cynical, or alternative meaning to the word, rather than its common meaning.

In sentences you might see words Capitalized Here and There, where normally you would not expect to see that. This is to enhance the importance of certain words or phrases. For example, I always like to capitalize the words Natural Hygiene, Nature, and Natural Laws. I do this on purpose to strongly convey how important it is to make these words, and their meanings, a very important part of your life.

This writing technique was inspired in me by the founders of the country called the United States of America. The first paragraph of the USA Constitution reads like this:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Notice how the capitalized words Grab Your Attention. That’s the same way I like to use that writing technique.

Another technique I sometimes like to use are bolded words, italicized words, or both, to stress their importance in a sentence, or when describing a concept. Bolded words emphasize direct, important facts. Italics emphasize the deeper meaning, context, or intention of the word or phrase. Bolded and italics together means Important! Pay extra attention when you see words or phrases emphasized like that.

So those are the main quirks in my writing style. Now you know my intention when you see them.

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In the Courses you will be studying, here and there you will see words that are dashed underlined. The definitions for those words are instantly accessible by a built-in feature called ‘tooltip’. To see its definition, simply click (or tap on touchscreen devices) on the underlined word. Click (or tap) outside of the tooltip to close it.

This feature, and other available user features, are shown and described in the website tour guide. When you first access the Courses, you’ll see a small popup window appear, asking for you to take a quick tour of the available features of the TI website. It’s a good idea to zip through the short tour, so you can learn where to find these features, and how to use them. You can always re-visit the tour by clicking (or tapping) on the yellow globe button that floats in the bottom right corner of the page.

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Finally, a very important habit to do as you move through your studies:

Keep in mind that it is very important to complete all steps in all courses and all tests to be eligible to receive your Certificate of Completion and Proficiency. All lessons, topics, and tests must be marked as complete as you finish them. The yellow “Mark Complete” button is at the bottom of every Lesson, Topic and Test page. This enables the system to keep track of your progress.

And remember that you can revisit any lesson or topic whenever you want. Use the Search Box to find quotes, concepts, and facts in any Course, or throughout the whole NHEP, whenever they pop into your mind. Strive to fully comprehend everything you learn. It will be worth it!