Essay #4: Style Guide Analysis

Kennie Rose English 101 Fall 2010 Essay #4: Style Guide Analysis

ASSIGNMENT Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at teacher comments and writing prompts, which are genres that explicitly structure the writing you do in the classroom. For the next assignment, we will look at texts that lurk silently in the background, but which nonetheless have a powerful effect on your work. Style guides are books that offer practical advice from professional writers. In many cases, your teachers will have read some of these guides and will follow their principles when providing you feedback. Instead of just forcing you to adopt a certain style, my goal is to encourage you to think more critically about these issues. To facilitate this process, I have uploaded selections from three different style guides: Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, David Williams' Sin Boldly, and Donna Gorrell's Style and Difference. In this essay, I want you to join the discussion started by these authors. Your task is to carefully analyze these texts and offer your own position on the nature of style. You must formulate your argument by placing your ideas into conversation with the three course readings.

SCHEDULE Rough draft 1 (upload to Blackboard) – 10/7 Rough draft 2 (Conferences) – 10/19 Final draft - 10/26

GRADE This assignment is 25% of your final grade.

LENGTH 1500-3000 words (about 2-4 typed, single-spaced pages) Kennie Rose English 101 Fall 2010 Essay #4: Questions

ASSIGNMENT To help you think about these issues, you might want to take into consideration some of the following questions:

1. Code Words – What are some key terms that appear in these texts? How do the different style guides define these concepts? What underlying philosophy of writing seems to be indicated by these words?

2. Genre – How would you describe the stylistic conventions of different genres, such as lab reports, newspaper articles, thesis-driven essays, and novelss? What do you think are the reasons for the differences between these genres? What are some possible benefits or drawbacks of deviating from these conventions when writing in these genres? How do the authors address these issues?

3. Contradiction – Are there any places where an individual text seems to be contradictory? What tensions does this highlight in the writer's philosophy? What do you make of the conflicts between the style guides? Are their ideas incompatible, or is there some way to resolve these contradictions?

4. Philosophy – What are some of the underlying reasons the authors advocate certain stylistic conventions? What philosophy of writing is indicated by their recommendations? What might be some benefits and drawbacks of rejecting and/or accepting the advice made by each of the authors?

5. Creativity – How do each of the authors define “creativity”? What relationship exists between abstract rules (such as the ones articulated by Strunk and White) and the creative process of the typical writer?

6. Error – How do each of the authors define “errors”? Why do they provoke such revulsion from people? Who gets to decide what is “appropriate” and what is an “error”? How do you distinguish between “errors” and the conscious stylistic decisions made by many published writers?