Prompt 3

COLLIN BERTRAM
Professor Steven D. Krause
English 328: Writing, Style, and Technology
July-16-2004
Prompt 3
As I read more of the English 328 texts I get ashamed of my first writing assignments. It was hard to carry so much responsibility for my writing. I put as many words down on the paper as I could. All that blankness unrolling from the screen scared me; in desperation I threw words at the assignment to defend myself. And reading William Strunk and E.B. White made me feel foolish; reading Joseph Williams made me feel like a fool for feeling foolish about my Strunk and White experience. Learning can be a struggle. These two books have changed the way I write, this is hard because I write so much; I have a lot of habits to break and a lot of new ones to develop. But I canít use all of the advice in both books.
Sometimes, the advice in Strunk and White was more useful then the advice in Williams. Strunk and Whiteís ìElementary Rules of Grammarî put an end to years of confusion. The possessive singular nouns rule cleared the apostrophe issue up. The dash rule showed me what to do with that thing that I have seen so many times but have never used. I now use the ìomit needless wordsî rule. This rule hit me, and I want to master it, but thatís going to take a long time. In general, the book showed me that the way I have been writing is very flawed, it showed me that I have a lot of work to do, a lot of rules to remember. Williamsí book was more useful to me.
Williamsí book taught where Strunk and Whiteís book told. I prefer to be taught. Strunk and White made me feel stupid, like it was my fault that I had been writing bad papers. Williams taught me why I was writing bad papers and how to write better ones. Williams explained why some of the rules in Strunk and White were so useful. He explained how to use those rules in sentences, paragraphs, and whole documents, which is a lot more useful than what Strunk and White did. Williams taught me why it is important to write using his advice; it makes your writing understandable. Strunk and White said that itís important to follow their rules because anything else is wrong. I am more receptive to teachers than I am to English-nazis. So in general, Williamsís book was more useful than Strunk and Whiteís.
These two books have been really hard for me to read because they have made me work, they have shown me exactly what I have been doing wrong. Why didnít teachers tell me my writing was wordy to the point of turgidity? Were they impressed with my ability to confuse? I did master that. I have a lot of work to do; I have to make my writing understandable by tossing old habits, but then I have to make it interesting. My writing has been confusing and boring, I want it to be clear and fun.