Kennie Rose

English 101

Spring 2010

Essay #3: Style Guide Analysis

ASSIGNMENT

To complete this assignment, you need to accomplish two tasks:

I. On Blackboard, I have uploaded three pieces that argue for different positions on style: Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, Donna Gorrell's Style and Difference, and Richard Ohmann's “Use Definite, Specific, Concrete Language.” In this essay, I want you to join the conversation started by these authors. Your primary task is to articulate a position on what you consider “good” style. To help you think through this issue, you might want to take into consideration some of the following questions:

  1. Learning to Write – How do people learn how to write effective sentences? What role do you think abstract rules (such as the one articulated by Strunk and White) play in the learning process?
  1. Error – What are “errors,” and why do they provoke such revulsion from a large number of people? Who gets to decide what is “appropriate language” and what is an “error”? How do you distinguish between “errors” and the conscious stylistic decisions made by many published authors?
  1. Genre – How would you describe the stylistic conventions of different genres, such as lab reports, newspaper articles, thesis-driven essays, movie reviews, magazine articles, poems, and novels? 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?
  1. Ideology – What are some ideological reasons that writers might have adopted certain stylistic conventions? What might be some benefits and drawbacks from resisting these “grammar rules”?
  1. Creativity – What does it mean to be “creative”? What relationship exists between abstract rules (such as the ones articulated by Strunk and White) and the creative process of the typical writer?

II. You should formulate your argument by placing your ideas into conversation with the three course readings. Of course, this will require you to use your forwarding skills, but you will also need to counter certain sections of the texts. Over the next couple weeks, we will discuss the different strategies you can use to challenge the ideas of other writers. Academics often use the following three techniques:

1.Arguing the Other Side – Demonstrating the usefulness of an idea criticized by a writer or noting problems with one of his/her positions.

2. Uncovering Values – Surfacing a concept for analysis that a text has left unexamined.

3. Dissenting – Identifying a shared line of thought on an issue in order to note its limits.

SCHEDULE

Proposals: 3/23, 3/25

Rough draft: 3/30

Final draft: 4/6

GRADE

This assignment is 25% of your final grade.

LENGTH

2100-2800 words (about 3-4 typed, single-spaced pages)