EMU'S FINEST

prompt #5

2005-03-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

The “Key element(s)” of style

Writing is something that takes lots of time, preparation, and thought. There are very many rules when it comes to writing style and clarity, but there are a few Key elements of style that are a bear necessity when it comes to writing. After reading Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and reading Williams’ Style: Lessons Toward Clarity and Grace, I have pinpointed a couple of those key elements and will explain to you why they are considered “key elements” when writing is involved. The things we consider important in writing are the same mistakes that we make in our writing very often, so hopefully this discussion of the elements will broaden our knowledge of clear writing and enhance the productivity of our future writings. Trim end words, stop repeating words, clarity within word order, and omit needless words, are all vital to writing clarity, and they are indeed the “key elements” of writing in which I have learned from reading the two books mentioned above.
From Williams’ Style: Lessons Toward Clarity and Grace, I learned that “we can just lop off final unnecessary words until we get to the information we want to stress, leaving that information in the final stressed position.”(p 68) The importance of this is, our beginning sentence starts off strong then after we get our point across, it tends to die fast. This causes the emphasis of our sentence to be drawn to the wrong part of the sentence leaving the main point unrecognized, therefore the idea is unclear, and hard to understand.
Repeating words, also found in Williams’, is a “key element” for writing. When repeating certain phrases over and over, it tends to confuse the reader and makes the story/paper weak and unclear. It is hard to read a paper that says the same few words over and over, it removes the emphasis off of the phrase. After reading the word so many times you loose the significance of the point that the teller tried to make when first introducing the point. This leaves the level of understanding lower than what it could be if some of the words were omitted and replaced with a synonym.
Clarity within word orders, the last of the “key elements” found in Williams’, is something that writing can not go without. To make the writing entirely clear and direct you must place words in the right order, run away from separating words that should be together. When I say words that should be together I do not mean compound words but more like thoughts, that show meaning, when broke apart the meaning is not forceful, leaving us not sure of what was meant by the sentence.
Out of Strunk and White’s book the elements of style, he states one of the vital “key elements” of writing, it is omitting needless words. He says, “a sentence should have no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”(p 23) Strunk and White talk about not making every sentence short but to let each word have meaning. Let each word be strong and important to your sentence, if it can be omitted without changing the contents of the sentence then by all means omit it.
These elements that I listed above are the elements that I believe are the most important, and vital to an effective writing/paper.

Promt #4 WILLIAMS IS DA MAN!!!!!!

2005-03-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

Here today gone tomorrow, when will this Blog ever end!!!!!!!!!!!

When I first tried to do this assignment I could not find anyone to relate to but now it is a little bitt latter and I found some that relate. I read Nick’s blog and he took it just like I did. Nick said, “Strunk and White is the book that lays out all the rules for you without hardly any explanation at all, more so it tells you how to write not why.” I think I might of wrote something exactly like that. When we were in our groups in class on Wednesday that is very similar to what I said when I talked about the book. I believe that Strunk and white only told us rules, he did not help us apply any rules to our writing.
I know that I am supposed to write about 500 words but I am not finding that much to talk about. I am going to try but it is not that easy.
I kept on looking and this is something else that I found easy to relate to what I think.
“Overall, Williams is better. Williams goes into more details on what is expected and clarifies what he is trying to say.” I read this from Sarah Bammel’s blog. She knows what to think. I agree with her one hundred percent. I did not find much stuff dissing Strunk and White but there are many people who actually like the book. I do not know why Jen and Rob like the book as much as they do but it all goes along with different styles that we have.

Lots OF Love, RACHAEL MOORE

P.S. Michael you spelled my name wrong, its RACHAEL. but thanx for reading it anyways.

Metaphor

2005-03-10T09:50:00.001-08:00

METAPHORS

I had a hard time figuring this stuff out but I tried to be creative and not use the same ones everyone else had.

Writing is Fried Chicken while Writing Style is your own personal recipe.
~ This means that fried chicken just like writing can be done by almost anyone, but your own recipe is personal, like your own flavor of writing, created by you and only you. It creates your writing to be distinct and have its own style, like recipes make your chicken taste different than someone else’s.

Writing technology is different hair styles.
~ This means for the more extreme occasions calls for the more extreme or fancy hair style, like for the bigger assignments cause for the more use of technology. If you have a small rough draft you can just write it with a pencil but if you have a 20 page paper you need sources from the internet, visuals from pictures/magazines and it must be typed up, or even a power point presentation is more complex and extreme than a five page essay written.

A funny text I received in my phone made me think of this assignment is:
Sex is like spades, you need to have a really good partner or a great hand.

Metaphor

2005-03-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

Metaphor

I had a hard time figuring this stuff out but I tried to be creative and not use the same ones everyone else had.

Writing is Fried Chicken while Writing Style is your own personal recipe.
~ This means that fried chicken just like writing can be done by almost anyone, but your own recipe is personal, like your own flavor of writing, created by you and only you. It creates your writing to be distinct and have its own style, like recipes make your chicken taste different than someone else’s.

Writing technology is different hair styles.
~ This means for the more extreme occasions calls for the more extreme or fancy hair style, like for the bigger assignments cause for the more use of technology. If you have a small rough draft you can just write it with a pencil but if you have a 20 page paper you need sources from the internet, visuals from pictures/magazines and it must be typed up, or even a power point presentation is more complex and extreme than a five page essay written.

A funny text I received in my phone made me think of this assignment is:
Sex is like spades, you need to have a really good partner or a great hand.

Prompt #3

2005-03-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

Strunk and white’s element of style and Williams Style: toward clarity and grace were both interesting reference books. In Williams book there were a few things that related to Strunk and White’s book but there were no one’s imperticular that related exactly to me. Both of the books have some of the same content in it like the clarity and the usage but the books differ in many ways.
I think that the info in Williams book is more useful than the info in strunk and white’s book. Williams book is more useful because it describes the examples, it shows you how to use them and the benefits of using them. Strunk and White’s book just tells rules gives one example and goes on to the next. Williams books does not tell you that you must do it like this or it is wrong, but the little white book is either your way or the highway. Williams book is more up to date, it does not make you feel that your writing is wrong if you don’t follow every rule that he talks about. Williams understands that everyone’s writing style is different and that no there is not one type of style that is the right way or the wrong way. Williams book also has more content than the other one so he can say more.
I think that Strunk and White’s approach is better than Williams because it makes people listen and take heat to what he is saying. When reading the elements of style you feel that if you do not follow the rules than your writing is wrong. He demands you to follow the rules but Williams just tells you that you could do it like this or like that and leaves it kinda indirect. Although the books are both very similar they are both very different as well. One is more persuasive and strongly written, while the other book explain in paragraph forms how to use different forms of proper English and the wrong ways. Strunk and White’s book stands strong on there views so that you think that you must follow the rules or you are not a good writer. That is a good technique to make people follow the rules that he states but they are not always the best rules.
All in all I think that both of the books are good reference books if you come across parts of your writing where you feel unclear or confused on how to get the point all the way across. Although I believe one to be out dated I still think there are some good points in the book and I would turn to both of them for help if I needed it.

Style Chapters 4-6

2005-02-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

Style
please some one help this girl Rochelle learn how to write. Her writing style is unbelievably horrible. Reading her story was like reading a story from a second grader. Some of the things wrong with her story is; her sentences and paragraphs were choppy, she had mixed thoughts and phrases, and she was very unclear. Although I did not name all of the things wrong with her paper it was enough to do the assignment.
I read the next three chapters of Joseph M. Williams “style”. As I read the story, I thought about Rochelle’s story. There are tons of rules that she could use to help her out but I just chose a few to talk about.
1.) Repeating words. (Pg 71) In the book, Williams writes a sentence using infringe and patents too many times. He then rewrites it, omitting words that are said too many times and helps to make the paragraph more clear. Rochelle needs to do that to her paper because she uses the word favorite about 100 times.
2.) Trim the ends. (Pg 68) Williams talks about cutting the end of a sentence off if it is not needed. There are many sentences that are not needed all together. For example Line 14 she talks about how expansive the parking lot is and that they realize they have a long walk ahead. Then she says many families dread the long walk so they get on the trolley. She could have just omitted the part about many families dreading the walk because she already mentioned that it was expansive and they realized what a long walk they had ahead.
3.) In chapter 6, Coherence II, he talks about paragraph intentions and points. One that I think relates to Rochelle’s paper is principle 4: “a reader will feel that a paragraph is coherent if she can read a sentence that specifically articulates its point.” (Pg 97) In her writing, Rochelle jumps from one point to another, starting with one and finishing with something totally different. For example line 55, Rochelle at first starts talking about how the games are fixed and then goes on talking about how the games cost so much. Next she talks about finding a pattern, and still, in the same paragraph, she talks about playing a month game, that she really did not explain that well. All in all, she did not compose the story well and she should read “Style” and revise her paper.

elements of style promt 1

2005-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hello classmates, this is Rachael.

I read the book, The Elements of Style, and it seemed very similar
to books that I have read before. To me, it just seemed like another English
book of some sort. The book seemed like it was written for a more educated level than high school, it is like the college english book. The book did have some interesting points that would make you double think about your writing style. For instance one part that I like a lot was chapter five the list of reminders were actual reminders to a certain extent. But, there is always a contradiction to
every rule, he says on rule 8, do not use words like little and pretty,
but then he says in rule 14 to avoid fancy words. I don’t know if
every one else took this the same way I did but to me I took it like
saying that you should not use simple elementary words like pretty and
little, we should use more complex words but then he says to not use
fancy words like “twenty-dollar” words when there is a “ten-cent” word
handy. To me pretty would be considered a ten-cent word. So I did get rather cofused in certain parts of the book but for the most part i believe the book will be handy.
I know that writing has rules but some rules come natural after so long like capitalizing the beggining of each sentence and adding end punctuation to the end of every sentence. There are also some rules that are so complex that you never really remember them like the rule at the beggining of the first chapter of adding appostrophe to show posession like darius's or curtis's, and then the apostrophe after jesus'. some of those rules are rules that I never did remember and it is very easily forgotten. That is me as a writter, some people might find them rules to be easy but me, no, it is one of the hardest things about writing.
overall this book is a handy book to have when revising or doing a homework/paper assignment.

style promt 2

2005-02-18T10:51:00.000-08:00

1) When doing hair and becoming a licensed beautician, the beautician must know more than just how to style the hair. You must learn how to take care of the hair by learning how to keep it healthy, treat damaged hair, and you must know how to use chemicals. Cutting the hair is something you must learn also and applying perms and colors because if it is not done properly it can and will damage the hair.

1r) Becoming a licensed beautician requires more knowledge than just knowing how to style hair. You must learn how to achieve and maintain healthy hair, apply chemicals properly, and cut hair correctly. If these basic skills are not done right, the hair can and will get damaged.

This is part of a three page essay that I had to complete for my cosmetology 101 class at skill center in Flint. The essay had to be written to see what all I have learned about the importance of doing hair besides making a quick dollar.
I chose this paragraph from my essay to revise because when I read Joseph M. Williams book “Style”, it made me think of different mistakes that I commonly make when writing, and I found a rule that described my writing to a tee. In chapter 2, page 18-19, #3 and #3a, I found a sentence that sounded exactly like a sentence that I would write. I first read the sentence and I wondered what was wrong with it. After I found out I knew that I make the mistake all the time and I should get practice trying to fix it. It is not exactly a rule but it shows a choppy sentence and the revision sentence. It tells what is wrong with the first one, it says, “not because the writer used too many abstract nouns, displaced its actors, and confused the sequence of events, but because he separated parts of the sentence that he should have kept together and because he used more words than he needed.” Now when you read my first small paragraph, read this, then read my second paragraph, you know that this rule was made exactly for me. I revised the paragraph to make it clear and more understandable.

what up

2005-02-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

Intro-
My name is Rachael Helen Moore. I plan on majoring in mathematics or English, but have not declared it yet. I am a sophomore, and live on campus at Eastern Michigan University.

Writing experiences that’s have occurred in my career are not too many. I did write a commencement speech for my high school graduation, and I participated in a writing competition a few years ago to win a trip to D.C. I do write poetry and sometimes I perform it, but not too much

I think the writing style that I have is more of an entertaining, short and simple, not too factual, rather easy going, and light weight style. This style grew on me as a writer because of the audience that receives what I am saying. Poetry has to be alive and breathe taking, and public speaking has to be similar or close to the same. My writing style is one that comes alive with emotions and should not only be looked at but also performed.