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.

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.

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.

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.

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!)