Writing Style
I hear inner Strunk and White voices of “don’t overwrite”, “write in a way that comes naturally,” and so forth, going through my head. I have visions of endless Williams examples and illustrations on clarity. I see weeks of blog writings flashing through my memory. From all of this, I now own and believe in a firm and personal definition of what style is and what good writing entails. William Strunk and E.B. White’s book The Elements of Style, along with Joseph M. Williams’s book Style Toward Clarity and Grace helped lead me to this point, which is: what is the point?
What really matters when we consider the style of writing? What makes good writing good? Every writer could collectively sit down together and never come up with an answer to these questions because every writer has a different opinion on what matters. As a writer and a reader, I believe what really matters in style is the affect a piece of writing has on readers. Although every reader is different in the way a piece of writing impacts her/him, there is still an unspoken knowledge that all readers want to come away from a piece of writing a changed person, with a challenged view on a subject matter, with a new interest, or a passion for a previously unknown matter. What is the point? The point is that style, no matter how it is presented, needs to have an affect on each and every reader. No writer wants to sit down and hear echoes of their seventh grade English teacher pounding messages of “use correct grammar and punctuation!” or “watch your spelling!” in their brains, restricting them from all creativity. For that
matter, no reader wants to pick up two pieces of writing from two different writers and se...
... middle of paper ...
...
From these books on style, I’ve learned that the content of the writing is not as important as the presentation of it. If a piece of writing is clear, concise, understandable, and formatted well, a reader will be affected by it. Of course the content is important as well, but the point is no reader will want to give a piece of writing the time of day unless they are attracted to it in the first place. If they are attracted, they will be affected. Style is personal and unique, but style can also follow guidelines which will in turn help a
writer to fulfill her/his purpose and make the life of a reader less complicated and more enjoyable.
Works Cited
Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. New York: Longman. 2000.
Williams, Joseph M. Style Toward Clarity and Grace.Chicago:The University of Chicago
Press. 1995.
Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) inception in 1906 there have been laws in place to protect the amateurism status of its student athletes. Over the last 100 years the NCAA has morphed into a multimillion dollar business. The success and revenue that student athletes have brought the NCAA and its member institutions has sparked a debate of whether or not to compensate players for paying. Research in the field has focused on the debate and reasons to pay players and reasons not to. There has been little attempt to assert the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the student athletes. The purpose of this study is to examine what the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of the student athletes towards NCAA amateurism laws. Informal face to face interviews with Division 1 student athletes at universities in Indiana will be conducted to get an analysis of the attitudes, opinions, and feelings Division 1 student athletes have towards NCAA Amateurism laws.
...ts hellish nature can be argued to be captured in the photos. This challenges the second impossibility then, as one could imagine the burning of the bodies as it is visually represented in the photos. Thus, the four photos snatched from Auschwitz challenges to refute the two impossibilities that Didi-Huberman outlines in his article, Four Pieces of Film Snatched From Hell.
The Roman Empire was able to extend its boarders and create a civilization based on the cultural belief that they were the civilized people and all others were barbarians. Though many of the people in Rome were not well educated the elites in the Empire “would pass from forum to forum, s...
Questioning the holocaust ever happening can be disputable, yet evidence of gas chambers inside surviving Nazi camps proves murders were in fact committed inside the camps. Concentration camps were estimated to have killed 6 million Jews, yet the total number of deaths committed in such a structure has people doubting whether these camps were capable of such slaughter. However, evidence found in the surviving structures reveal that camps like Auschwitz had the capability to exterminate thousands. A supporter of this theory is Filip Muller, a surviving Jew forced to dispose of dead bodies into gas chambers, better known as a Sonderkommano. In his book Eyewitness Auschwitz, Muller reveals blueprints found in Auschwitz labeled “Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp,” discovered in the Nazi archives (174). These blueprints are similar to the surviving concentration camps such as Treblinka, Warsaw, and Belzec. Each exter...
Schneider, Raymond G. "College Students' Perceptions on the Payment of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes." College Student Journal 35.2 (2001): 232. Questia School. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.
“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.
I agree with what Allen states in the article “The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer” because of how much my writing skills had evolved over the years. When I first started in high school, I believed I was a horrible writer and I struggled a lot just to write a few paragraphs. However, after determination, and several trials and errors, I was able to improve greatly on my skills. In Irvin’s article, “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” goes over the myths about writing. When I first started to write essays, I believed some of the myths that Irvin talks about in the article. Such myths were the five paragraph essay and the use of “I.” However, the more experience I gained in writing, the more I realized how the five paragraph essay is more of a suggestion. The format might had helped when I first started, but I had grown apart of it now. In addition, I had learned how the use of “I” is situational. In some of my past essays, I have used “I” to help develop my essays. In Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer,” it mentions the importance of Reading Like a Writer. When I first started writing essays in high school, my essays were cookie cutter. The essays were not imaginative and lack literary devices. However, the more I payed attention to how an author writes, the more creative my essays become. I am able to include methods that give creativity in my writing,
However, others argue that these athletes are producing revenues not only for the schools, which gives these students scholarships, but also for shoe companies, television networks, and the conference in which these schools belong. Moreover, the equity problem could obviously be solved if all collegiate...
An important part of this research comprise pictures taken by Jewish victims. French philosopher and art historian Didi-Huberman, who analyzed the images of Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, described these photographs as the “images in spite of all,” since they reflect the resistance of the Jewish victims. In Lithuania clandestine pictures were taken in the Kovno ghetto by George Kaddish, an amateur photographer. His photographs depicted the ghetto streets and portraits of the Lithuanian Jews. The work suggests that Kadish, while recording the life in the ghetto with his camera, resisted the Nazi regime that wanted to completely erase not only the Jews but also any traces of their existence. In contrast to the Nazi imagery, he depicted the Jews
Christian encounters many people who try and lead him down a different path including Worldly Wiseman. Worldly Wiseman encourages Christian to take the get rid of his burden, and take the short, easy route to his destiny, instead of the long, hard route Christian is currently taking. Christian finds that even though the short route is described as ‘better’ by Wiseman, Christian knows that he needs to stay on his own route because he finds relief: “I don’t care what I meet in the way as long as I can also find deliverance from my burden” (Bunyan 16). Worldly Wiseman focuses his life on getting rid of all burdens, and focusing on worldly comforts. Christian, on the other hand, keeps his burden, and pushes th...
Lochman, J. E., Boxmeyer, C. L., Powell, N. P., Qu, L., Wells, K., & Windle, M. (2012). Coping
“Johnny Football” is the latest collegiate athlete to rekindle the fiery debate of paying college stars. The overwhelming majority of students do not get the luxury of having a top university willing to pay for their tuition. Many think, for the elite, the institutions need to go a step further and pay these amateurs based on their performance. Others suggest that the NCAA should have equal pay for all student-athletes. Opening athletes for sponsorship from non-college affiliated businesses is the judicial method of compensating athletes.
Before discussing about the useful and changes in the security concept, it is necessary to understand the meaning of security and the concept of security itself. The most frequently definition of security used by scholars is from Barry Buzan, in his book People, States, and Fear said that “security, in any objective sense, measures the absence of threat to acquired values, in a wiki sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked” (Buzan, 1991:4). Ayoob said that “security - insecurity is defined in relation to vulnerabilities - both internal and external - that threaten or have the potential to bring down or weaken state structures, both territorial and institutional, and governing regimes” (Ayoob, 1995: 9). Another notion, “... security implies both coercive means to check an aggressor and all manner of persuasion, bolstered by the prospect of mutually shared benefits, to transform hostility into cooperation” (Kolodziej, 2005: 25). Final, “security is not just a social ...
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.
Shirur, Anand. "Evolution of Money by Anand Shirur." Evolution of Money. 07 Dec. 2013. .