Curt's Style Response 5
From Mizzou Wiki
The last chapter is about the ethics of writing. The author starts the chapter by saying style is not just making sentences clear and easy to read, but also how subjects and verbs are arranged to create different rhetorical meanings. A general guideline is given on how to write: Write to others as you would have others write to you. Being an ethical writer is important for reputation and the literate society. Several examples are given of unintended and intended misdirection in writing. The author shows how a sentence can be misleading if the subject in a sentence is not a human character. It is explained that some authors believe complex writing is justified when discussing a complex or new idea. It is obvious that Williams disagrees. The last portion of the chapter analyses the ethics and rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence. The first part is generalized to express how Jefferson’s ideas connect to a greater meaning. The second singles out the king as a tyrant and the Third focuses on the colonists. The way Jefferson arranged the sentences affects how readers interpret them. This may be an example of manipulation that is beneficial to the reader. The chapter ends by saying an ethical writer is one that imagines the reader’s experience and is not malicious.
This chapter is much different than the previous chapters because rhetoric and ethics are more abstract topics than how to make a sentence or paragraph easily understandable and interesting. Several examples are still used as in other chapters, but there are not as many and the examples are more in depth. The author gives good examples of what he believes is unethical writing and ethical writing. He also does a good job of explaining what he thinks makes those writings unethical or ethical. He explained his analysis of the three parts of the Declaration of Independence too many times, but other than that the example was helpful.
I hadn’t thought much about the ethics of writing before reading this chapter, but I had a general awareness of it. I have noticed several times how advertisements or letters from major corporations can be very deceptive. It is true that this makes you very untrusting of companies. I have never had a reason for writing misleading text and I will avoid doing so. I also agree with the author that writing densely is very rarely necessary and is unkind to readers. Writers should make their ideas as easy to understand as possible.
