A Writer's Choice
"The words we use to communicate our impressions cannot alone constitute a vocabulary sufficient to describe style, but they are part of one…" (Williams 18-19). This excerpt from Joseph M. Williams' Style Toward Clarity and Grace conveys a common theme in his book: Style is complex, and it is a matter of choice. Although writers across the nation may have been taught similar features of style and therefore produce similar products, they may choose to use or disregard those elements of style at will.
Writing parallels many other versatile fields - such as art, music, and dance - with the notion that in order to break the rules, one must first understand them. A creator needs a foundation to build on; in writing and style, this foundation is a combination of accuracy, consistency, clarity, and concision.
Accuracy is arguably a facet of style. With their list of commonly misused words and expressions in Elements of Style, Strunk and White stress the importance of using language correctly and even identify its relationship with style. "Many of the words and expressions listed here are not so much bad English as bad style, the commonplaces of careless writing" (39). The authors do acknowledge that there is no ultimate authority who deems which words must be used over others, but their matter-of-fact tone and occasional jabs at writers who misuse certain words seem to forecast misfortunes for those who do not follow a recommended word usage.
Williams is less concerned about such strict guidelines because "not all of us will agree on what counts as correct" (170). He attributes some rules to folklore, some to special formality, and a lot to personal choice. However, he acknowledges that precision may be ne...
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...ingway was a renowned author said to have a distinct style: short sentences and paragraphs that used simple vocabulary. He also tended to avoid putting commas in places where many writers and language experts - Strunk and White, for example - would deem them necessary. And he won a Pulitzer Prize.
Despite their solid rules and guidelines, Strunk and White never impose their own definition of style. Williams doesn't either; he depicts it, however, not as one entity but a flexible, evolving collection of writing applications. One can conclude, then, that style ultimately comes down to the methods that writers define and use to create their end results.
Works Cited
Strunk, William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. Needham, NY: Allyn & Bacon, 2000, 1979.
Williams, Joseph M. Style Toward Clarity and Grace. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
The book Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is about the world famous story of assassinating President Abraham Lincoln. This book takes the reader into the lives and minds of the four main conspirators responsible for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the attempted assassination of the Vice President, Andrew Johnson , and the Secretary of State, William H. Seaward. Not only will the reader learn about the details of the planned assassinations but the background of all conspirators involved, each one of their motives for committing the crimes, and all the differences between the actual killings and what was supposed to happen if everything went according to plan. In this gripping novel the writer, James Swanson, takes the reader through a key point in American history in order to learn the truth of what must have happened while chasing Lincoln’s killer.
The mystery of how John Wilkes Booth pulled off the most influential and notorious assassinations in history is revealed in Killing Lincoln. The author of this book, Bill O’Reilly, built up the plot of the story through vivid historical details and pieced them together like a thriller. He tries to explain all of what happened on one of the most interesting and sad days in American history. Many conspiracies and Civil War ideals are on full display in the book. I agree with most of O’Reilly’s ideas but there are some that I am not really sure about because of his point of view like many of the conspiracy theories. Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly was a very compelling read which described the Civil War, lives of the conspirators, and the eventual assassination of the sixteenth president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln.
Pittman, Benn. The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. New York, NY: Moore, Wilstach, and Baldwin, 1865. 83-87. Print.
"Abraham Lincoln." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (July 2010): 1-3. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 24, 2011).
heart” (116). Booth has adopted the idea to stab Lincoln “from Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar,
Author’s style is defined as the distinct literary manner that makes his or her expression of content unique from other authors; Katherine Anne Porter and Emily Dickinson have different styles that contribute to a better understanding of the themes of their work. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” Porter uses the strea...
“Style is how you write, and you write well when you are interested. A writer’s own interest in the story is the essential thing. If there is a flash of warmth in him it is repeated in the reader. The emotion is bigger than style.
Baldwin and his ancestors share this common rage because of the reflections their culture has had on the rest of society, a society consisting of white men who have thrived on using false impressions as a weapon throughout American history. Baldwin gives credit to the fact that no one can be held responsible for what history has unfolded, but he remains restless for an explanation about the perception of his ancestors as people. In Baldwin?s essay, his rage becomes more directed as the ?power of the white man? becomes relevant to the misfortune of the American Negro (Baldwin 131). This misfortune creates a fire of rage within Baldwin and the American Negro. As Baldwin?s American Negro continues to build the fire, the white man builds an invisible wall around himself to avoid confrontation about the actions of his ?forefathers? (Baldwin 131). Baldwin?s anger burns through his other emotions as he writes about the enslavement of his ancestors and gives the reader a shameful illusion of a Negro slave having to explai...
Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).
In his work, “A Talk to Teachers,” James Baldwin poured out his point of view on how he believed American children should be taught. Throughout the essay, Baldwin focused on a specific race of school children: Negros. Perhaps this was because he himself was an African American, or even for the mere idea that Negros were the most vulnerable for never amounting to anything — according to what the American society thought during the twentieth century, specifically the 1960s when this piece was published. With the focus determined, the reader is able to begin analyzing Baldwin’s main appeal through the essay. At first glance one could argue that the essay has no credibility with Baldwin’s lack of not being a school teacher himself; however, when further evaluated one could state that whether or not he was a school teacher has nothing to do with the fact that he establishes his credibility, he appeals to morals, emotions with authority, and values, which thus outweighs the possible negativities associated with his argument.
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
For a writer to better understand style, multitudes of books and helpful guides have been published. Many are written as lists of rules about word choice, constructions to avoid, common stylistic traps, and other such things. One of these is The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Another type are the books that go into more detail that further explain why some things work in writing and some things don’t. Style Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams would fall into this category. Although written in a different manner they share the same goal; to present some of the most important rules in writing and style.
Zoos bring human kind closer to wild life. Though, sometimes that means taking the animal out of its natural habitat. Some animals have lost most of their habitat and are on the verge of extinction. In this way, the zoo helps the animals rather than using them as a form of human entertainment. Zoos also allow humans to study different kinds of animals more closely. Some zoos on the other hand manipulate the animals to acquire as much revenue as possible rather than being concerned with the welfare of each animal.
The notion of writing has been defined in many different ways by writers. According to Byrne (1997), “writing is producing a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways”. In other words, a writing or a text includes sentences arranged in a coherent and grammatical way to connect the ideas together. In addition, writing is interpreted as the act of expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings to other people in writing symbols so that readers can
Pantzar, Mika. "Tools or Toys: Inventing the Need for Domestic Appliances in Postwar and Postmodern Finland." Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale, Spring 2003. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.