328 blog

The superblog colabiration

2005-03-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

Ready to get blown away? 3...2...1

I just got done reading a whole lotta blogs, and I found some interesting shizzle in all of them. Let's take a look see, shall we?

In Sarah Bammel's blog, she talked about how Strunk and White AND Williams both brought up omiting needless words, but they did so in different ways. Strunky and White just come out and say "Elimnate Needless words." Williams says, "Elimnate the mediscourse, defeat the dragon, cross the moat, and then, you may ask the mighty wizard one question." Maybe not to that extreme, but I found it much more spelled out in Strunk and White as opposed to Williams.

However, she said Williams was better, because essentially, Williams was clearer. At this point, I looked at the screen and shouted, "What the fargle?" Well, no I didn't. Williams to me was writing in such a style you had to have a degree in English to read him. Strunk and White, to me, spelled things out in black and white. To me, it wasn't quite clear what stance on things Williams even took. At least Strunk and White said what they needed to say in short as possible. It was real easy to read.

En guarde.

here we go again with Williams

2005-02-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

Were we not supposed to do something with our latest readings and something about the paper we were given to look at? I could be wrong here, but, what the hell?

This paper was really opinionated and not really cohisive and clear. In the end, I wasn't too sure what the assingment was, because there was so many different topics.

At the end of chapter four, there is a qoute that talks about having a good first line, and then not knowing what to do with the rest of the paper. That's what happened right here. It started off good, and then just bottomed out. The author completely strayed away from her topic (if there was one) and really ends up being a description of many different things. Well, it would be a description if it wasn't for all the opinions.

Williams style

2005-02-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Guess who's back
Back again
J-Roc's back
Tell a friend
Guess who's back
guess who's back
guess who's back
guess who's back

And that's good enough for me. Ok, what I got out of reading this book and from class is that style is not just as easy as proper grammer and spelling,but saying what you mean correctly. Clarity, if you will, is the name of the game. I'm going to take a passage from a column of mine, and try to dissect this and let you know what I'm saying.

"You might say I love coaching, but you’d be wrong. I’m passionate about it. Passion and love have similarities, but they are two different things. There are many kinds of love (agape, brotherly, romantic) but only one kind of passion. Love may make you think about a person for hours on end, but passion can make you talk one subject for hours on end, and you won’t even notice. You may to go to sleep with some one because you love them, but passion sometimes is the only thing makes it worth it to get out of bed in the morning. Passion makes you crazy to the outside world, but sane to yourself. Love makes you change. Passion transforms you. I have transformed for coaching and running."

I do love to coach, but you would be wrong to say that. I am passionate about coaching. Passion and love are very similar, but they are two seprate ideas. There are many kinds of love, but there are not many types of passion. Passion has only one defintion, where as love has many different ones. For example, love may make you think about someone when they are not even there, but having passion about something will make you talk on the subject more than you wanted to, because you are very excited about it. Love for someone will make you "go to bed" (don't make me get graphic here, Steve), but when you have passion about something, when you feel terrible and you don't really want to go on anymore, passion about something makes it worth it to care on with yourself. Your dedication and passion to something may make you seem weird and crazy to other people, but seems very normal to you. You will change your ways for someone you love, even though you might not want to. Passion will make you change your ways and you will want too. I have changed my ways because I wanted to change my ways for coaching and running.

done like dinner.

Jeremy

2 for, 2 against Strunk and White

2005-02-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

Well, sorry this is so late everyone, but here goes. Two for Strunk and White, two against? I think I can do that, let me go one and one.

One argument for Strunk is actually comes on page 23, something talked about in the introduction, and that's the elimnation of needless words. Makes a lot of sense to me. Adding more words just clutters up your sentances and can really confuse your readers. Shortening your sentances makes it simple and sweet, and easy to read.

Strunk and White tell us to refrain from using words. I don't think this is necessary, because using larger words increases our vocabulary. Why should we refrain from using larger words if we know how to use them? As long as it does not impede the writing process by having to look up the word, then I say go for it.

On page 28, Strunk and White tell us to keep related words together. I think this is an excellent idea, because then the message has a less likely chance of being mixed up. The examples for these are perfect. Two sentances both trying to convey the same thing. One sounds like George only paid two dollars to take us out to dinner, the other one saying it only costs us two dollars to call mother that George took us out to dinner. The second is much more on target (unless it really did cost only George two dollars).

On page 7, the rule they state is to not break sentances in two. While most of the time, this is a great idea, I don't think this should be a permanent rule. I like the idea of breaking the sentance to add effect.

I write a column online. To add a more dramatic effect to my point, sometimes I break my sentances. For instance, I wrote a column on change recently, and it went like this,

"Hell, change is not only necessary, but it's vital. I have one older brother who is 23, not too much older than me. His name is Chris. He still acts like he was 7. No joke. He still watches Saturday morning cartoons, still plays with action figures, still talks to himself and has a problem working with people. We have tried to get Chris to change, but he refuses to do so. Me and my younger brothers all agree that if he does not change, he will never move out of the house, never get a job, and never become a productive member of society. He will eventually drive my parents insane, and they will kick him out, and he will have no where to go. So he needs to change, or else. Same with the gas situation. Either a new fuel system is found, or our future generations are going to suffer a serious setback. Same with social security. That will need to be changed, otherwise, it might be us who are 75 and eating cat food, because it's the only thing we can afford."

To drive my point home, I broke the sentances, so I could expand off of them. Instead of saying, "Social Security and the gas situation need to be changed for these reasons," I broke them up so I could talk about the individualy.

Intro to destruction

2005-02-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

What's up? Your probably reading this because you have to. That's cool. My name is Jeremy Fabris, and let me break it down for you like this.

I'm working my way towards a degree in journalism. So a lot of writing I see there I usually use as a standard for good writing. But also, I know that the circumstances can change. For instance, you probably wouldn't post profanity in a newspaper. Having that is not a good example of writing. However, I write a column on the internet, and profanity is frequently used there. Use of profanity there is not a real big issue because it is just part of the language there. The writing standard over there is it must have good grammar and spelling and must have good formating. A lot of people have sidebars in the columns they write over at this particular site, and we critique each other on how well they are used. We critique each other on how well we stay on topic, and over all readability.

Where I'm trying to go with this is that I have a standard for writing, but I also realize with different writings comes some different parts of standards. Grammar and spelling and format are always important. Language is not, because not everybody uses the same language.

Done like dinner.

Jeremy