I agree with others that this post was really fun because it's almost like having a classroom discussion. It was nice to see what everyone else was thinking, and discovering if we were agreeing or not on the issues with the text. It was relieving to see that for the most part, the class agrees on issues, namely that S&W is far more accessible for younger, more novice writers while the Williams is suitable for the advanced, experienced writer.
What I liked most about reading through my classmates' blogs was observing the differences that we had. As Beth commented, these books were written with the intention of making us better writers. I often lost sight of that when I was reading the books, because I was so caught up in the chapters themselves that I lost the "bigger picture". Being reminded of that little fact makes a world of difference.
I could really relate to Rebecca when she says "I think the Williams did a good job giving plenty of examples, although some were very length and hard to concentrate on. " I think this seemed to be the general consensus with the whole class, but it also seems to be that everyone learned and benefited from the text as well. The generic statement from most blogs seemed to be "It was a hard read, but I learned a lot."
Finally, in Kiersten's second paragraph of her post comparing the Williams and S&W, she makes a great point about how even the titles of the chapters were more clear in the Williams. This is something I never would have really considered, but reading these comparisons from the perspective of others really opens my eyes to additional aspects of these texts. Lastly, it helps me to reinforce the ideas I already had prior to reading the blogs of others.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Comparing Strunk & White with Williams
In reading both the Strunk & White and the Wiliams, I think there are positives and negatives to both texts. If I wanted a clear-cut, easy answer, I'd pick up the S&W. However, if I wanted an answer that was more thorough, provided examples and detailed information, I'd lean towards the Williams.
In reading the Strunk and White, it was an easy book to read, though as others have said, is more of a reference book than anything else. This book seems geared toward the everyday writer who may be concerned about usage or other simplistic elements of writing style. Even the titles of their sections, "Elementary Rules of Usage" and "Elementary Principles of Composition" suggest as much. While nothing in the book seemed completely wrong, it didn't always go into ample detail. This illustrates their focus on clarity, but I don't think I realized the extent of it until reading the Williams and observing the difference between the two books. Again, the Strunk and White makes it very easy for someone to find an aswer to their question, though it may not be the BEST answer available, just one that S&W believe is the most appropriate.
I feel the Williams text is much more in-depth and advanced than the Strunk and White. While I have previously said that S&W seems geared toward the everyday writer, that does not mean that the same everyday writer could not appreciate or learn from the Williams text. However, this text requires more thought, as it goes into great detail and uses many examples to support ideas presented in the text. This text goes beyond the Strunk and White, and while it is harder to read, still provides a lot of valuable information. There is a great difference in the two texts that can be observed when comparing their views on "usage", as several other classmates have stated. Ironically, Williams chose a quote from White to preface his chapter on the subject!
To illustrate another example of the difference between the two books, look at the Strunk and White, p. 17, rule #9.
"As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence, end it in conformity with the beginning."
The following paragraphs clearly outline why this is necessary, and explain what the outcome may be if the rule is not followed. Additionally, they state that the topic sentence should come at or near the beginning. Later, they support that the topic sentence should "simply indicate by its subject with what the paragraph is to be principally concerned."
The information provided above is clear, concise, and easy to follow. The Williams goes into much greater detail regarding the following topic, and says on p. 89:
"How we open a paragraph determines how our readers will read the rest of it, because in our opening we tell them how to frame the conceptual space that they are about to enter."
That sentence alone offers just as much information as the Strunk and White, and while the sentence may garner more than one reading to be understood, shares more to the reader as to why the opening of a paragraph is so important. While Williams, throughout the entirety of his chapter on Coherence and explanation of topic strings, voices similar guidelines like the S&W, he lengthens this point by breaking it down into several important factors. (Thematic strings, topic strings, etc.)
Through these two books, and the example I chose, I have found that both are important to have to reference in the future. (Being a future educator, I also see the significance of having both of these books available for my students.) The focus in each book is so different that selecting which book to use depends largely on what is trying to be accomplished by the writer.
In reading the Strunk and White, it was an easy book to read, though as others have said, is more of a reference book than anything else. This book seems geared toward the everyday writer who may be concerned about usage or other simplistic elements of writing style. Even the titles of their sections, "Elementary Rules of Usage" and "Elementary Principles of Composition" suggest as much. While nothing in the book seemed completely wrong, it didn't always go into ample detail. This illustrates their focus on clarity, but I don't think I realized the extent of it until reading the Williams and observing the difference between the two books. Again, the Strunk and White makes it very easy for someone to find an aswer to their question, though it may not be the BEST answer available, just one that S&W believe is the most appropriate.
I feel the Williams text is much more in-depth and advanced than the Strunk and White. While I have previously said that S&W seems geared toward the everyday writer, that does not mean that the same everyday writer could not appreciate or learn from the Williams text. However, this text requires more thought, as it goes into great detail and uses many examples to support ideas presented in the text. This text goes beyond the Strunk and White, and while it is harder to read, still provides a lot of valuable information. There is a great difference in the two texts that can be observed when comparing their views on "usage", as several other classmates have stated. Ironically, Williams chose a quote from White to preface his chapter on the subject!
To illustrate another example of the difference between the two books, look at the Strunk and White, p. 17, rule #9.
"As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence, end it in conformity with the beginning."
The following paragraphs clearly outline why this is necessary, and explain what the outcome may be if the rule is not followed. Additionally, they state that the topic sentence should come at or near the beginning. Later, they support that the topic sentence should "simply indicate by its subject with what the paragraph is to be principally concerned."
The information provided above is clear, concise, and easy to follow. The Williams goes into much greater detail regarding the following topic, and says on p. 89:
"How we open a paragraph determines how our readers will read the rest of it, because in our opening we tell them how to frame the conceptual space that they are about to enter."
That sentence alone offers just as much information as the Strunk and White, and while the sentence may garner more than one reading to be understood, shares more to the reader as to why the opening of a paragraph is so important. While Williams, throughout the entirety of his chapter on Coherence and explanation of topic strings, voices similar guidelines like the S&W, he lengthens this point by breaking it down into several important factors. (Thematic strings, topic strings, etc.)
Through these two books, and the example I chose, I have found that both are important to have to reference in the future. (Being a future educator, I also see the significance of having both of these books available for my students.) The focus in each book is so different that selecting which book to use depends largely on what is trying to be accomplished by the writer.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Revising with Williams
In finding a selection from the EMU Course Catalog, I was especially looking for something that would apply to my favorite quote from Williams in the first chapter:
"Some of us feel compelled to use pretentious language to make ideas that we think are too simple seem more impressive." <---- That is SO true. I even would admit to being guilty of it, and I suspect there are many others who would confess to the same crime.
Here is the text I took from the website:
The EMU Children’s Institute serves as the practicum placement site for students preparing to be early childhood education teachers. Practicum students are closely supervised by professional classroom teachers and University faculty members.
Flights of Imagination, the summer day camp program at the Children’s Institute, offers exciting and varied programs for children entering kindergarten and first grade, supervised by professional teaching staff, with EMU students as camp counselors. Camp is offered as eight weekly sessions.
Activities at the Children’s Institute are play based and developmentally appropriate, and designed to meet the needs of each child in the group. Teaching staff have completed coursework and hold degrees/advanced professional degrees in early childhood education. Staff training and in-service days are conducted throughout the year.
And here is my revised version:
The EMU Children’s Institute serves as the placement site for students preparing to be early childhood education teachers. These practicum students are closely supervised by professional classroom teachers and University faculty members.
Activities at the Children’s Institute are play-based and developmentally appropriate. They are designed to meet the needs of each child in the group. Additionally, teaching staff members have completed coursework and either hold degrees or advanced professional degrees in early childhood education. Staff training and in-service days are conducted throughout the year.
Flights of Imagination, the summer day camp program at the Children’s Institute, offers exciting and varied programs for children entering kindergarten and first grade. Camp is offered as eight weekly sessions, and is supervised by a professional teaching staff, with EMU students serving as counselors.
Though I didn't find a whole lot style-wise wrong with this excerpt, I did find the sentence in the middle paragraph to be extenseively long and therefore unclear. (p.24-25) By shortening the sentences, it provides more information with less misunderstanding. In the first paragraph, I found "practicum" to be redundant and therefore changed it and I think it sounds more fluid when using the word only once.
Last, I particularily liked Williams on p.25, saying "You may have been told to write short sentences". While he goes further to say that long sentences are not bad as long as character matches actions, he hits the nail on the head with "The objective is not curtness: what counts is not the number of words in a sentence, but how eaily we get from beginning end while understanding everything in between." I feel like the long sentences in the EMU excerpt were just too wordy in places and by redirecting some of the wording and focus, everything became more clear and therefore made way more sense.
Since the third chapter focused on cohesion, I found it necessary to switch the second and third paragraphs, because the second paragraph focused on activites, of which Flights of Imagination can be qualified as.
"Some of us feel compelled to use pretentious language to make ideas that we think are too simple seem more impressive." <---- That is SO true. I even would admit to being guilty of it, and I suspect there are many others who would confess to the same crime.
Here is the text I took from the website:
The EMU Children’s Institute serves as the practicum placement site for students preparing to be early childhood education teachers. Practicum students are closely supervised by professional classroom teachers and University faculty members.
Flights of Imagination, the summer day camp program at the Children’s Institute, offers exciting and varied programs for children entering kindergarten and first grade, supervised by professional teaching staff, with EMU students as camp counselors. Camp is offered as eight weekly sessions.
Activities at the Children’s Institute are play based and developmentally appropriate, and designed to meet the needs of each child in the group. Teaching staff have completed coursework and hold degrees/advanced professional degrees in early childhood education. Staff training and in-service days are conducted throughout the year.
And here is my revised version:
The EMU Children’s Institute serves as the placement site for students preparing to be early childhood education teachers. These practicum students are closely supervised by professional classroom teachers and University faculty members.
Activities at the Children’s Institute are play-based and developmentally appropriate. They are designed to meet the needs of each child in the group. Additionally, teaching staff members have completed coursework and either hold degrees or advanced professional degrees in early childhood education. Staff training and in-service days are conducted throughout the year.
Flights of Imagination, the summer day camp program at the Children’s Institute, offers exciting and varied programs for children entering kindergarten and first grade. Camp is offered as eight weekly sessions, and is supervised by a professional teaching staff, with EMU students serving as counselors.
Though I didn't find a whole lot style-wise wrong with this excerpt, I did find the sentence in the middle paragraph to be extenseively long and therefore unclear. (p.24-25) By shortening the sentences, it provides more information with less misunderstanding. In the first paragraph, I found "practicum" to be redundant and therefore changed it and I think it sounds more fluid when using the word only once.
Last, I particularily liked Williams on p.25, saying "You may have been told to write short sentences". While he goes further to say that long sentences are not bad as long as character matches actions, he hits the nail on the head with "The objective is not curtness: what counts is not the number of words in a sentence, but how eaily we get from beginning end while understanding everything in between." I feel like the long sentences in the EMU excerpt were just too wordy in places and by redirecting some of the wording and focus, everything became more clear and therefore made way more sense.
Since the third chapter focused on cohesion, I found it necessary to switch the second and third paragraphs, because the second paragraph focused on activites, of which Flights of Imagination can be qualified as.
Strunk/White: First Impressions
I have to admit, one of the best sections in this book is the section on spelling. (p. 48) I used to be such a good speller, but I've really had a hard time spelling recently! I think it has a lot to do with the amount that I'm reading--I used to read all the time, and now that I don't read nearly as much, I think that I'm losing my ability to spell. It made me feel so much better to see the list of commonly misspelled words. I saw words on there that I myself have trouble with sometimes, and I think from the viewpoint of a future educator, I can focus on this and reference it when I need to work with my students. I think it's a really great tool for teaching, so that we identify and target these words for students, and so they know and have a bit of reassurance that everyone has trouble spelling some words and it's ok.
I felt that the section titled "Words and Expressions commonly misused" was both helpful and dated. I think that some of the expressions like "all right" are timeless, because people will never be able to identify the correct version. However, some of the expressions listed (i.e., using "but" unnecessarily after words) just seem old and dated. I think this list could certainly be updated, because I think a lot of this misuse happened in the generation before ours.
I know the assignment was to reflect on this reading as a student and writer, but the entire time I was reading this, I was in the mind of a future educator. I think the "Elementary Rules of Usage" was really helpful in the "form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's." How many times to students, and adults, misuse the apostrophe? I think this is a great reference, especially because the examples are really user-friendly, so anyone could pick this book up and understand how to properly form the possessive singular.
Overall, I found the usage rules to be the most helpful, because that's where I found myself learning and re-learning things that involved many different areas of writing, moreso than just rules in regards to essay writing.
I felt that the section titled "Words and Expressions commonly misused" was both helpful and dated. I think that some of the expressions like "all right" are timeless, because people will never be able to identify the correct version. However, some of the expressions listed (i.e., using "but" unnecessarily after words) just seem old and dated. I think this list could certainly be updated, because I think a lot of this misuse happened in the generation before ours.
I know the assignment was to reflect on this reading as a student and writer, but the entire time I was reading this, I was in the mind of a future educator. I think the "Elementary Rules of Usage" was really helpful in the "form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's." How many times to students, and adults, misuse the apostrophe? I think this is a great reference, especially because the examples are really user-friendly, so anyone could pick this book up and understand how to properly form the possessive singular.
Overall, I found the usage rules to be the most helpful, because that's where I found myself learning and re-learning things that involved many different areas of writing, moreso than just rules in regards to essay writing.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Writing As A Technology/Show and Tell
So, I'll be completely honest and say that I was stumped for ideas for my writing experiment for awhile. It took a long time to come up with something that fit the criteria. Of course, like many other classmates, I chose to go down the food route. To me, it seemed like the most logical choice, because I thought using ash and logs wasn't innovative enough. (I apologize if that was offensive to anyone who chose to do that!)
Staying within the boundaries of the four criteria was a little challenging. I finally decided to go with lasagna noodles, peanut butter, and a plastic Ziploc bag. I know that in theory, I could have "made" the noodles and peanut butter, so I still considered them to be natural, and I used the Ziploc bag as my "pencil"...filling it with peanut butter and then cutting off the tiniest corner to use my "lead" to write with.
Initially, I thought I would have a lot of trouble, because I was having such a hard time coming up with materials for my project. However, I really enjoyed this project once I figured out what I was going to do, and then, going back through the readings to relate my invention to the theories presented in their texts was interesting to me as well. For example, I was pleased when I realized how portable my writing tablet was--but then displeased when I realized though they were on a flat surface and could be carried easily, they could not be stacked, or it would all be ruined. Further, if I were to place my writing outside on a sunny day, the writing wouldn't last long before melting and running all over the lasagna noodle "paper". I found advantages and disadvantages, so I certainly learned a lot about writing as a technology, and found myself really appreciating the advancements we have made!
I think after reading the Manguel and Baron articles I understand (and appreciate) the value of the technology available for us to use in regard to writing. Before reading about the histories of writing and technology advances, I would have never thought that a pencil could have as much impact as a computer. Now, I completely understand that there have been numerous inventions and steps that have been taken throughout the evolution of writing and realize that along the way, there has been great commotion over what we now see as something so minor. Moreover, the Baron points out that "we adapt it to our lives--and, of course, adapt our lives to it." (71) It's all about the adjustments made (from both sides) that have gotten us this far. Likewise, the Manguel talks about the accessibility of books, and how their evolution has made it so convenient for us to be able to read virtually anything in various shapes and sizes.
I think the main difference when comparing the Plato/Ong articles to the Baron/Manguel, I see the value of the spoken word emphasized more in the former set, with the acceptance and improvement of writing forms and machines. Whereas Plato may have been trying to preserve the importance of the spoken word and fear the written word, Baron and Maguel seem to understand, or advocate, the movement of technological advancement.
Staying within the boundaries of the four criteria was a little challenging. I finally decided to go with lasagna noodles, peanut butter, and a plastic Ziploc bag. I know that in theory, I could have "made" the noodles and peanut butter, so I still considered them to be natural, and I used the Ziploc bag as my "pencil"...filling it with peanut butter and then cutting off the tiniest corner to use my "lead" to write with.
Initially, I thought I would have a lot of trouble, because I was having such a hard time coming up with materials for my project. However, I really enjoyed this project once I figured out what I was going to do, and then, going back through the readings to relate my invention to the theories presented in their texts was interesting to me as well. For example, I was pleased when I realized how portable my writing tablet was--but then displeased when I realized though they were on a flat surface and could be carried easily, they could not be stacked, or it would all be ruined. Further, if I were to place my writing outside on a sunny day, the writing wouldn't last long before melting and running all over the lasagna noodle "paper". I found advantages and disadvantages, so I certainly learned a lot about writing as a technology, and found myself really appreciating the advancements we have made!
I think after reading the Manguel and Baron articles I understand (and appreciate) the value of the technology available for us to use in regard to writing. Before reading about the histories of writing and technology advances, I would have never thought that a pencil could have as much impact as a computer. Now, I completely understand that there have been numerous inventions and steps that have been taken throughout the evolution of writing and realize that along the way, there has been great commotion over what we now see as something so minor. Moreover, the Baron points out that "we adapt it to our lives--and, of course, adapt our lives to it." (71) It's all about the adjustments made (from both sides) that have gotten us this far. Likewise, the Manguel talks about the accessibility of books, and how their evolution has made it so convenient for us to be able to read virtually anything in various shapes and sizes.
I think the main difference when comparing the Plato/Ong articles to the Baron/Manguel, I see the value of the spoken word emphasized more in the former set, with the acceptance and improvement of writing forms and machines. Whereas Plato may have been trying to preserve the importance of the spoken word and fear the written word, Baron and Maguel seem to understand, or advocate, the movement of technological advancement.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
What Is Style?
To me, style is everywhere. It's in literature. It's in music. It's found in magazines, newspapers, and even in fashion. I think style is a personal choice--to create your own or follow a pre-existing example. The quote "often imitated, never duplicated" came to mind when I thought about style, because I think everyone has their own effects on what they do. I don't think this is a bad thing, I feel that there are many generic guidelines and "rules" that are generally followed or adhered to, and then there's just that little bit of self-expression.
Of course, I guess depending on what you're going to do, you can play up or take out the self-expression, and it can be different in various aspects. That becomes the beauty in style--my style of fashion may not correlate to my style of writing...or it could. I think the fact that style is ever-changing and evolving makes it important for everyone to understand the basics, but also understand the vast territory that can be explored.
Of course, I guess depending on what you're going to do, you can play up or take out the self-expression, and it can be different in various aspects. That becomes the beauty in style--my style of fashion may not correlate to my style of writing...or it could. I think the fact that style is ever-changing and evolving makes it important for everyone to understand the basics, but also understand the vast territory that can be explored.
Getting Started
So, this is my first time using Blogger!
I have a LiveJournal already, so I'm pretty excited that this looks to be a "up-class" version of that.
Today, I woke up, got ready, did a few errands,and then spent the day with my best friend Jessie (another music major.)
We met for lunch at Olga's, went to the movies to see "Made of Honor" (which I highly recommend) and then went shopping.
I came home and took care of some business, and now am finishing school-like things before heading off to work from 9 pm- 2 am (we're doing inventory at bath and body works, and tonight i'll be working at a location different from where I normally work.)
...I secretly don't want to go to work at all. But it pays the bills...so I guess I have to!
(ps--the photo is of Jessie and I after our last Symphony Orchestra concert of the year this year...and I'm recovering from mono!)
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