Language and Communication

Updated May 16, 2024

I’m a writer (like it or not). I took the usual English courses in school, and pursued a concentration in Electronic Journalism as part of by Bachelor of Science program at George Mason University. I also stay current with the English-language style and usage guides.

Journalism

Liberty High School
- Journalism I
George Mason University
- COMM 203: Introduction to Journalism
- COMM 303: Writing Across the Media

Literature and Composition

Chantilly High School
- English 9
Liberty High School
- English 10 (Advanced Studies)
- English 11 (Advanced Studies)
- English 12 (Advanced Studies)
George Mason University
- ENGL 101: Composition
- ENGL 201: The American Experience
- ENGL 202: Texts and Contexts
- ENGL 302: Advanced Composition, Social Science
Books and Independent Study
- Garner, Bryan, JD – Garner’s Modern English Usage
- Kennedy, X.J.; Dana Giola (ed.) – Literature
- Modern Language Association – MLA Handbook
- Strunk, William Jr., PhD; E.B. White – The Elements of Style
- Turabian, Kate – A Manual for Writers
- University of Chicago Press – Chicago Manual of Style

Other Topics

Chantilly High School
- Debate
- German I
Liberty High School
- German II
- German III
- German IV
George Mason University
- COMM 100: Introduction to Oral Communication
Mango Languages
- Mandarin Chinese – Unit 1: Building the Basics
Books and Independent Study
- King, Stephen – On Writing

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

Literalism is simply not an effective way to extract meaning from the Bible.

Because it prescribes government of the people, liberal democracy can be only as strong as the people who live under it.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

You ask me for a method of obtaining perfection. I know of Love and Love only! Our hearts are made for this alone.

One man, however little, must not be sacrificed to another, however great . . . [or] to a majority, or to all men.

It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.

To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once.

I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.

‘Chance’ is nothing but an expression of human ignorance. We don’t know the reasons and causes and design of all things, because we are not God.

Suppose for instance, that the same body, which has the power of raising money by taxes, is also entrusted with the application of that money, they will very probably raise large sums, and apply them to their own private uses.

Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws. . . .

[Pure] democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

Now, the psychological discovery is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero.

Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death.

The chief reason for drinking is the desire to behave in a certain way, and to be able to blame it on alcohol.

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.