Strunk and White vs. Williams

When I went back an looked over my previous post on Stunk and White, I noticed that I had wrote about the chapter on "Omitting Needless Words". I had a little trouble following Williams' book and couldn't find a section that discussed this exact idea, but Williams does have a chapter on Length, which would definitely be related to omitting needless words.

Often, it seems that students use more words in order to reach a certain required word mark on an assignment. I know that I am guilty of this on occasion. I also talked about how my writing is often very wordy at times and that being concise is sometimes an issue for me. I like how in the beginning of the chapter on length, Williams says, "The ability to write clear, crisp sentences that never go beyond twenty words is a considerable achievement." Like I wrote in my blog on Strunk and White, I very much strive to do this myself and like that I now have two books that can help me achieve this.

While I liked the Strunk and White book because it is easier to read, I feel as though the Williams book gives much more detail. While Strunk and White seemed to be a smaller, more manageable book, I know that I much prefered the Williams book for all the examples he provided in his book. Having these examples made the book a little more difficult to read, but gave me a good idea of what I needed to do to make my writing more concise. I could see in the examples of the poor writing concepts that end up in my own writing. Seeing an example of how I could fix this makes it easier to spot the mistakes in my own writing.

Revising with WIlliams

"The ombudsman facilitates the resolution of individual complaints which do not have a formal avenue of redress through official University channels. The ombudsman advises students on University policy and procedures, identifies and recommends changes to current practices, and communicates student concerns/issues to appropriate University officials. In addition, the Ombudsman presents workshops, conducts needs assessments and mediates disputes."

-From EMU Catalog.

This is an example of a poorly written passage according to Williams, based on clarity. In the chapter about clarity, Williams discusses that someone who is not in the field would not be sure as to what an ombudsman really is. I know I felt the same way. This passage made no sense to me because I am not even sure what this term means. So re-written, this is what this passage should look like:

"EMU provides the students with an ombudsman, a person who is available to the student to facilitate the resolution of individual complaints which do not have a formal avenue of redress through official University channels. The ombudsman advises students on University policy and procedures, identifies and recommends changes to current practices, and communicates student concerns/issues to appropriate University officials. In addition, the Ombudsman presents workshops, conducts needs assessments and mediates disputes."

The Elements of Style

While reading the book The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White, I found it to be both very useful and also a little nit-picky at times. This book was full of information that I thought I knew very well throughout my years as a student, but found that I was unsure of once reading through the book. For instance, I was never properly taught the correct times to you who or whom, which is something that as an English major, I should know but definitely do not!



Being that I am going to be either a high school or middle school English teacher, I will love having this book in my classroom. Not only will it be a great tradebook for my students to reference, but also a good refresher for me. The first chapter in particular, which talks about basic grammar would be a good starting point for my students who are unaware of basic good grammar skills.



One section of the book I enjoyed in particular was the section titled "Omit Needless Words". This chapter was a great raed for me because this is something that I often struggle in. When I was in high school, I had a teacher tell me that my writing was "too wordy". This has been something I have been trying to remedy for years, with little success. While I found the majority of this section to be very helpful, I also thought the writers got a little picky about their ideas. For instance, I don't see much wrong in the statement, "Trafalgar, which was Nelson's last battle". Strunk and White see this differently than I do, and since they are the "experts" I will give their ideas some thought.



I also found the section on using an active voice in writing to be helpful. Again, with my tendency to be a wordy writer, I ofter use a passive voice. I liked the examples given in this section. Sometimes I feel as though I am not really using a passive voice, when in fact that is exactly what I am doing. Strunk and White say in this section, "The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing." I liked what they said here because I feel as though all writing should be forceful. Being forceful is more often than not the only way to get a point across and that is the basis of writing.



As far as things I did not care for in this book, I wasn't that interested in the section titled, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused. Throughout reading the book, I found most of the sections very interesting and when I got to this part, I was slightly underwhelmed. For instance, when the writers talk about the word dependable and say it is "A needless substitute for reliable, trustworthy" I feel as though they are taking something away from the writers vocabulary. Looking through a thesaurus and finding different words is one of my favorite things to do in my writing and I feel as though Strunk and White are dismissing this valuable tool.

All in all, I did like this book and I would love to use it in my classroom to not only teach with, but also as a resource for my young writers to reference and use in their own writing.

Project!

So I know that is very hard to see, but all it says is something small and not really relevant. I had the brilliant (ok, not so brillant) idea to take a rock and write on the sidewalk. I didn't realize until after the project that sidewalk is indeed man-made, but it was all I could do! I found this project to only be difficult when it came to writing the essay. Amazingly, it only took me about 5 minutes to come up with this idea, and I realize it is not original, but time was not on my side here.

The part that was difficult was the essay part. I am still not sure if I did it correctly, but I really am hoping I did!

While doing this actually writing with the rock though, I thought about how happy I am that this is not something I have to do. I thought about Manguel's essay and how those people must have felt trying to articulate what they were feeling without the modern tools we have today. I am very thankful that this is not something that I have to deal with. Using the rock was tedious and hard to do. While pushing down, I actually jammed a finger and scrapped my hand. All in all, not a great experience!

Writing Technology

What I found interesting while reading these different readings this week, was the different tones all of them take towards the technology of writing. For instance, both Baron and Manguel talk about the methods of writing have evolved over a period of time in which to make it easier for those who are doing the writing to produce it. Baron talks about how as a writer, he feel the computer has helped him in his writing. I would have to agree with this to a point. I myself prefer to write on a computer, because it allows me to type out my thoughts as fast as I am thinking them, which is usually pretty fast!

However, I think there is something to be said about what Plato thinks about writing. He is correct in saying that it makes us a little lazier about our thought. Like I said above, it is much easier for me to just type all my thoughts on here because it is faster. However, does it even allow me to take the time to think about what my thoughts really mean? Probably not as I am realizing even as I am writing this all down.

Also, looking at this computer and having it spell check for me, I feel as though this kind of technology is kind of dumbing us down as a society. When I think about Manguel talking about pencils, those people who were doing writing with tools instead of a computer had to think more about the writing process than we do today with all the grammar and spelling checks on a computer. Much like a calculator for math, this teaches us little about what good grammar even is.

This would go along with what Ong says in his article. What does good grammar even mean? Ong believes it is just something that is "contrived" and implies that writing is arrogant. I tend to agree. Who can rightfully say it is better to get your thoughts out on paper when spoken word can be much more powerful.

What is Style?

Style is a personal thing for most writers. It is the manner in which people write things. I never understood how people think they can get away with plagerism when usually it is blatantly obvious that it cannot be that person's writing. Some people enjoy using "big" words, and some people like to be simple. Some people are wordy in their writing, and some keep it to the bare minimum.
I never understood what it meant to have good style. I think that as long as the writing is comprehensive, their is no such thing as one style being better than the other. I am however, very interested in seeing everyone else styles throughout this course!

First Post!

Ok, so this is my first post! I've blogged before, but it was a long time ago. So this is me, playing with fonts.

This could be fun!

Ok, that is me and I can now post pictures. This could be fun!