Prompt1

Collin Bertram
July-14-2004
English 328: Writing, Style, and Technology
Dr. Steven D. Krause

In the past four years college has given me a lot of information. Some of this information is useful and some of it is better forgotten. Three years ago when I was attending WCC I took a humanities class. Everyday the students would sit at their desks in a room lit only by the glow of an old projector. We sat and watched the professor show us pictures of ancient works of art while telling stories about the times she had seen these statues or paintings. I don’t know what I learned from that semester-long class. If I see a picture of an old piece of artwork I can only say, “Hey, I’ve seen that before.� However, this class does not represent my entire college experience. I have had classes that taught me lessons of great value. Usually, the best thing a class can do is suggest a book to study. I have had to buy many books for many classes, the most useful on so far is The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.
The Elements of Style is full of lessons that are very useful to me as a student. The lessons are not fun or exciting; they are invaluable. As I work towards a major in English, Language, and Literature I write many papers. My guess is that most of my English and Literature teachers have read this book, and as a result look specifically for infractions of the rules given in Strunk and White’s book. Teachers always paint glaring red commas all over my graded essays; I await the day when I receive back a pure and chaste paper devoid of all offensive graffiti. Lesson four of the section ‘Elementary Rules of Usage� says, “Place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause� (5), this lesson helps me understand where a sentence might need a comma. In lesson two of this section it says, “In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last� (2); I never knew that the comma went in between the second and last term. This book is useful, but it has defects.
The book contains a few things that are quite wrong and generally useless. The book says in the section “Misused Words and Expressions�, to use the word nevertheless instead of however (48-49). I would never say nevertheless. The word sounds fastidious. Later on, in the essay “Approach to Style�, suggestion number two says, “Write in a way that comes naturally� (70). If I wrote in a natural way most of the rules set out in the first four sections would be broken. It is useless to tell me to write naturally after so many rules, and as a student teachers don’t usually want me to write entry’s in a diary for grades. The book had a lot of things similar to this particular contradiction, but what is wrong or useless to me may be gold to Charlie.
The Elements of Style is a very important book. I gleaned many useful lessons from it, and am sure to continue to do so. This book has even helped me write this paper; which is amazing because I read it only days ago. College courses often order students to purchase numerous expensive books that can be sold back for pennies. I will not get rid of this book anytime soon.