What do others think?

After reviewing different blogs, I noticed Michal's comments on Williams and Strunk and White. Michal writes, "About design, Strunk and White emphasize virtually every type of writing must adhere to a shape and that shape must be designed and then followed. What Strunk and White call design, Williams calls coherence. Coherence is distributing topics in a paragraph or longer writing in a way that makes sense to the reader. Williams says “we always have to choose our topics, to design topic strings that focus the reader’s attention on a particular point of view” (82)." I feel this is an excellent summary of coherence. Michal simplified the text on coherence in both books into a neat package. Reading the entry changed my perspective and clarified some lingering doubts about the books. I feel that I misinterpreted sections of the books.

Michal also writes, "One of the more readable chapters in Strunk and White about style and the difficulty of developing style since it is not something that can be explicitly taught." I agree that style is learned through practice and observance. It is not a series of steps, which I iterated in my previous blog entry.

I focused on "good" English elements found in chapter ten of the Williams book. Michal refers to it as well. "He acknowledges that “good” English is often arbitrary and explains how it came to be that way. He does outline the grammar rules that must not be broken in writing, but writes about words only that can easily be misused, not about words that personally irritate him." This is the most useful portion of the Williams book. Analyzing the source of rules given to us through our academic career gives us a better perspective on our writing and what sources to trust.