Amy's Style Responses
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http://comp.missouri.edu/wiki/index.php/Amy
Ah, The Response Assignments
For these five assignments, I am asking you to both write about and utilize the material from the Style text by Joseph Williams. Each response will have three sections, but it should still read as a cohesive and balanced whole. The first section (paragraph) will be a summary of the chapter you have read. The next, a thoughtful analysis of the material/argument that Williams makes, and the final one, a personal response to the chapter. You should be responding somewhere between 350-400 words, the equivalent of about one double-spaced page.
The purpose of these short assignments is to evaluate your ability to be concise AND clear, and as a bonus, you get to learn better ways to be concise and clear WHILE you do it.
You'll post each of these on your own assignments page.
Response #1: Chapter 1
This chapter was about writing clearly and how we use vocabulary in our writing. The author talks about how we can use different types of verb to be more clear to our audience and that we don't need to use big vocabulary to make our paper good. We need to make sure we are writing to our audience by being clear and making our point clear. The author also mentions that sometimes we don't write clearly because we are intimidated by our audience, which can sometimes just mean a new teacher.
I think the author was trying to say keep it simple and be clear. Think about your audience and make your paper based on them. Its easier to be clear if we use simpler verbs an not use big vocabulary terms our audience wont understand.In our "style" book chapter one I think Williams is trying to address the problem that we need to write more clearly. We write using big words or confusing phrases to sound elaborate because we are intimidated by our audience. We should be revising our work for clarity. Williams says we should consider the type of verbs and nouns used in a paper. We should use simple verbs and be straight forward to be clear about what we are saying. Williams shows examples of some of the best works of literature and how they are somewhat confusing to the reader. The author is explaining what is wrong and confusing about our writing and trying to tell us how to be more clear.
I think the author is right in some ways because we do need to be very clear and make sure that the reader understands what we are trying to say. Although, I do believe we still need to use vocabulary and use elaborate phrases at our reading level. I believe our writing should be clear but still advanced, I don't think we should come across in our writing at the level of a 5th grader though, unless thats our audience.I found this chapter very insightful and relatable to my writing. I don't need to overcomplicated my writing, and there are better ways to make my paper sound better. I've learned not to be intimidated by my audience and write what I want to write and be clear what my point is.
--the first 2 paragraphs tend to both look like summaries to me; the second one should focus on the success or failure of the author in getting his point across.
Response #2: Chapter 3
This chapter was similiar to chapter 1 in the sense that the impotance of clarity is important. By changing the way we put events in order and phrase sentences we can can help our audience understand what we are saying better. Sometimes we write sentences that sound unclear and dense, which make the reader struggle to understand. The main characters need to be sunjects of verbs and the verbs need to express specific actions.
I think the author was really trying to emphasize the impotance of clarity, if the reader doesnt understand than your point wont get accross. I think the author also mentions alot that you need to turn nominalizations into verbs. Williams shows on many pages examples of how to change your order of words and type of verbs to sound clear and make your writing easy to read.
I found Williams writing a little hard to follow but I deffinitly understood how important it is to be clear in my writing. If I dont write clear to my audience they wont understand the point Im trying to get accross and I wont acomplish anything. I learned how important it is to consider what your verb and action is. I learned I really need to simplify my writing for a clearer understanding, but not make it sound at the level of a 3rd graders writing either.
---no chapter 5.
Chapter 5:
In this chapter the author talks about the importance of coherence and how we need it to make our papers flow better. It is important to make sure our audience is clear as to what our writing means seems to be the mesage in this book so far. Our audience cannot understand us if we do not make ourselves clear. It is important for your paper to flow from thought to thought.
I think the author did a good job showing how important it is to be clear and for your audience to understand you. I think the main point the author has made in this book is how important clarity is.
I think I need to use coherence more, sometimes my writing can be confusing and I word my sentences weird. I also need to work on flow sometimes my writing jumps around alot. I think these things will improve my writing alot and Im going to try to use them more.
Chapter 7:
In chapter 7 Willaims talks about consision.He gives six steps to writing consisely. He says that we should keep away from being redundant and using useless words. These useless words include words like practically, actually and basically. We should also stay away from doubled words like full and complete, any and all, and first and foremost. Williams also says we need to delete redundant words like terrible tragedy, future plans, and true facts. The author says we should replace phrases with a word like(carefully read what you have written) with edit. We need to get rid of extra wording and information that the reader can infer. The main point in this chapter was to consider your wording and shorten it to be more concise, this will make you a better writer and influence your audience more.
I think Williams was try to get accross his point of clarity and simplicity like he has done throughout his "style" book. In this chapter he tells his audience about the importance of not using extra words and how to shorten phrases. Williams gives examples to make his audience understand his ppoint clearly. Williams gives specifics about what to do and how to be a better writer.
I found this chapter to be very helpful, I know I make these mistakes alot and Im sure Im using extra wording in my text now. This will help my writing if I can use it effectivly and more often. I found the examples given by Williams to be very helpful and it helped me understand clearly. This also showed me what to look for in my writing to improve it. I found his point of view to me very insightful.
--good response, some proofreading on the spelling next time.
No chapter 10
