328blog

Prompt 5

2004-07-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

Collin Bertram
Eng 328: Writing, Style, and Technology
Professor Krause
July-19-2004
Prompt 5
Writing is a very large part of my life. As a student at EMU I am assigned many things. My teachers tell me to read a lot, they tell me to write a lot. For a long time I thought I knew a lot about writing. I thought I knew what good writing looked like; I thought I could tell if writing was poor. If a text was difficult for me I thought that the writer was really good at what he did and his work was too complicated for me. I never stopped to think about the importance of whether or not the text was understandable. I never cared to look into the technicalities of writing, to ask the question, “What makes this text easy to understand and this one impossible to understand?” The A’s I received on my papers convinced me that I was a mater writer. Looking back, the stuff I wrote is too much work for the reader. But I have learned that there is a lot left for me to find out about. The two books I was assigned for class, The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) and Style Toward Clarity and Grace (Williams), changed the way I look at writing.
Strunk and White’s book, The Elements of Style, amazed me when I read it for the first time. I had no idea that less could ever be better. You see, I am the kind of person that dumps a whole bag of coffee grounds into a filter for one cup of coffee. When I do something, I do it extensively. With writing, I have convinced myself that the more big words, the longer the sentence, the more flowery the language, the better the writing. Why? -I don’t know. No one has ever directly taught me that. But now, some one has taught me not to do that. Strunk and White did me a huge favor when they told me to, “Omit needless Words”, “Use the Active Voice”, “Do not construct awkward Adverbs”, “Avoid Fancy Words.” This is a huge favor because I thought people who were authorities on writing wanted all of those things that Elements of style told me to get rid of. I believed the opposite about writing, or at least I performed the opposite while writing. However, Williams’ book was an even greater experience.
Style Toward Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams had a larger impact on me than The Elements of Style. Williams made sense of all that I had so recently thought was writing gospel. He took everything I didn’t like about Strunk and White and said the opposite, he took everything I liked about Strunk and White and just explained it better; everything about how to be more clear, everything about writing less and being concise. Williams made a huge fire out of the spark I saw from Strunk and White. He did a lot they didn’t’ do. He said that a lot of their orders were just folklore. He said real writers don’t care about things like beginning a sentence with because or and, they don’t care about the use of this or which with reference to a whole clause, or split infinitives. Reading selections that proved these rules to be nothing but folklore was a load off of my mind. Strunk and White had a nice and pretty idealized fantasy world; but I read a lot, and the novels I read do not concur. Williams must have been reading real authors while Strunk and White were complaining about how stupid their students were. And I prefer to take advice from people I can respect.
These two books have revolutionized my writing. They have changed the way I look at writing. When I read something now I know why it makes sense, or I know that a bad writer is just some one who writes stuff that you can’t understand. Complicated ideas don’t have to be turgid. I don’t have to be turgid to be a good writer.

Prompt 4

2004-07-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

Collin Bertram
ENG328: WRITING STYLE, TECHNOLOGY
Professor Krause
July-18-2004
Prompt 4
Reading blogs on line was kind of informative; it was also kind of uninformative. At first I had trouble finding peopleís blogspots, but then I realized I could type their addresses in rather than using the links from their web sites. That was frustrating. A lot of the web sites didnít work well enough for me to use as links toward blogspots. But I am sure they will be working soon.
I learned that Ed and I agree on the Strunk and White book. We both thought that we could use it sometimes but not always. He said that it, ì . . . would never make a good text book for early composition classesî. I think heís right. Students wouldnít get enough information out of that book; a teacher would have to either explain a lot in class, or give out supplementary information. But when Ed said that the book was contradicting itself when it said, ìDo not Overwriteî, and then ìDo not Explain too muchî, I donít follow or agree. The book isnít trying to help people write other instructional books. The rules or suggestions at the end would be very different if it was supposed to advise you on writing a book similar to itself. If that were the case it would not have said to write naturally. Instructions found in a book are never really naturally written, they probably shouldnít be. Anyway, I donít really think the authors had anything useful in mind. They just wanted a lot of people to do things in one way instead of many, incidentally that one way was their way.
I agree with most of Billís blog post. Yes, language will always be changing, and for the most part prescriptive grammar is a failure in the long run. Lessons that my elementary school teachers said were important have already changed. A lot of what we are learning now will be different by the time I am teaching. Especially all that MLA stuff, that changes from year to year and no one ever knows or even cares what the rules say most of the time anyway. But, I donít think the changes the book made from things like he being changed to she reflects too much about the idea of language being fluid. That is a change in the culture of this country and many others, not a change in language. Grammar rules are not affected by civil rights, neither is spelling. But, if more people and a larger variety of people write (other than white men), the change in language will probably change more, and change faster.
I agree with what Ed said, and I agree with what Bill said, even if there were some parts that didnít seem believable. If I were to evaluate the overall ideas of these two blog users I would vote in agreement with both of them. The general consensus is that the book had a lot of stupid attitude behind it that just isnít reasonable, but the book is a useful way to improve your writing to some extent.

Prompt 3

2004-07-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

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 canÃt 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 WhiteÃs Ã¬Elementary Rules of GrammarÃ® 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 Ã¬omit needless wordsÃ® rule. This rule hit me, and I want to master it, but thatÃs 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. WilliamsÃ book was more useful to me.
WilliamsÃ book taught where Strunk and WhiteÃs 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 itÃs 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, WilliamsÃs book was more useful than Strunk and WhiteÃs.
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 didnÃt 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.

Prompt2

2004-07-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

Collin Bertram
Professor Steven D. Krause
English 328: Writing, Style, and Technology
July-15-2004

In its programs, activities and employment, Eastern Michigan University does not discriminate on the basis of physical or other disabilities. Anyone who believes that in some respect Eastern Michigan University is not in compliance with the Rehabilitation Act and its regulations should contact the executive director of Human Resources. Prospective students with disabilities who are otherwise qualified for admission are invited to apply. Students encountering difficulty with access to full participation in University activities should contact the dean of students.

Eastern Michigan University does not discriminate on the basis of physical or other disabilities in its programs, activities, or employment. So, Eastern Michigan University invites students with disabilities that qualify for admission to apply. But, if anyone believes that Eastern Michigan University has not complied with the Rehabilitation Actâ€™s regulations they should contact the executive director of Human Resources. Students should contact the dean of students if they canâ€™t fully participate in activities that the University hasnâ€™t made accessible to them.

These two paragraphs say the same thing, but one of them is hard to understand. I left the first paragraph alone; it is exactly the way it appears in the EMU catalogue. I changed every sentence according to Joseph M. Williamsâ€™s rules in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. The first sentence had the subject and the verb in the wrong place. In Williamsâ€™s book, chapter two says to put the subject first, the verb after the subject and the compliment last. I made the sentence clearer by; it is easy to see who the characters are and what they are doing. The second sentence and the third sentence were misplaced; they were out of order. Williamsâ€™s chapter on coherence explains why the order must change: whoever wrote the first paragraph broke the thematic string. The thematic string means the flow. The paragraph flows better when I switch the two sentences. My third sentence makes it seem like Eastern Michigan University is responsible; their second sentence dodges responsibility. Williamsâ€™s chapter on Emphasis explains how emphasis can be manipulated. The catalogueâ€™s second and fourth sentence contained nominalizations. I changed those nominalizations into verbs. This makes them clearer sentences. Williams talks about nominalizations in chapter two. Overall, I gave the University some responsibility, and I made the paragraph less turgid.

Prompt1

2004-07-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

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 donâ€™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, â€œHey, Iâ€™ve seen that before.â€� 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 Whiteâ€™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 â€˜Elementary Rules of Usageâ€� says, â€œPlace a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clauseâ€� (5), this lesson helps me understand where a sentence might need a comma. In lesson two of this section it says, â€œIn a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the lastâ€� (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 â€œMisused Words and Expressionsâ€�, to use the word nevertheless instead of however (48-49). I would never say nevertheless. The word sounds fastidious. Later on, in the essay â€œApproach to Styleâ€�, suggestion number two says, â€œWrite in a way that comes naturallyâ€� (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 donâ€™t usually want me to write entryâ€™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.

beginninblog

2004-06-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

wow, I think this is great.