Eng 328
All jobs are defined by certain rules. The architect complies with his or her
blueprints. A pilot obeys a flight
plan. A seamstress follows his or her
pattern. And a writer, believe it or
not, must abide by certain rules of style.
Some
people think of writing as a free-form activity with no boundaries or
laws. While this may be true in rare,
complex, art-based writing, it is not in the widespread majority of texts and
manuscripts that fill libraries, schools, offices and the Internet. Such writing needs to be constructed while
observing principles that promise to give the piece meaning so it completes a
task, whether that means communicating, educating or entertaining. Without a structured set of guidelines, composition
is just a heap of words and symbols minus meaning and coherence.
Fortunately,
someone somewhere along the line recognized this and developed things like
grammar and punctuation to ensure attempts at written communication would be
received and understood. This knowledge
has been passed down through history.
It can be found today in books like The Elements of Style by
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White and E-Writing: 21st Century
Tools for Effective Communication by Dianna Booher.
Cornell
University English professor, William Strunk, Jr., initially wrote The Elements
of Style in the second decade of the 20th century. It was known as “the little book” and was
required for all of his composition classes.
Strunk once wrote, “It is an old observation that the best writers
sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric.
When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence
some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he
will probably do best to follow the rules” (Strunk & White
xvii-xviii).
In 1957 E.B. White, a former student
of Strunk’s who had become a celebrated and respected writer, was asked by
publishers to revise the handbook.
Strunk died shortly before White accepted this task. White says he took the assignment because,
in his opinion, the book “contain[ed] rich deposits of gold” and it was an
“attempt to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down to size and write its
rules and principles on the head of a pin…for cleanliness, accuracy and brevity
in the use of English” (Strunk & White xiii).
Both Strunk and White write with a
slight air of arrogance and supremacy.
The men from Cornell state their advice is not concrete law and aspiring
writers don’t have to listen.
However, Strunk and White’s style and tone say they think the writers should
pay attention. Note how Strunk
speaks using metaphors in this section to better connect with his intended
audience of amateur creative writers:
Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster
than
the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning
to
make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought
as it
flashes by. A writer is a gunner,
sometimes waiting in the
blind
for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside
hoping
to scare something up. Like other
gunners, the writer must
cultivate
patience, working many covers to bring down the partridge. (69)
E-Writing: 21st Century
Tools for Effective Communication was written at the dawn of the 21st century, as
its title alludes, by self-proclaimed communications expert and certified
speaking professional, Dianna Booher.
Her focus is helping businessmen and businesswomen to communicate
effectively via e-mail. She says: “Not
only must your writing be clear, correct, complete and concise, but it also has
to connect” (7). Booher also claims
that anyone who embraces her e-mail protocol and productivity tips will gain
stronger relationships and improved credibility (7).
She offers five simple steps to go
by in order to achieve these goals.
First, one must figure out who his or her audience is. Secondly, the writer needs to presuppose
what the reader’s possible reactions may be.
Thirdly, the writer should organize his or her e-mail in Booher’s “MADE
format,” which consists of formulating a summary of the message,
suggesting what action either the writer will take or the reader should
take, filling in the details of the situation at hand, and providing evidence
to support his or her statements (67-68).
Next, the writer should compose their message and do so quickly. Finally, he or she should go back and edit
what was written for content, grammar and clarity (9).
Booher tends to invent clever catch
phrases for worn-out concepts and then present them as her own. She does a good job in presenting the
material so that it appears important and insightful to the reader when, in
reality, all she has done is re-packaged knowledge from the past. For example, any journalism student quickly
realizes that her “MADE format” is a copy of the inverted pyramid. Or take, for instance, “The Idea Wheel,”
which any middle school kid will say they used while brainstorming in sixth
grade English, is passed on as if Booher and her associates created it. The language she uses to introduce “The Idea
Wheel” shows an attempted sense of ownership: “We recommend the third outlining
method, what we call the idea wheel, for speed and efficiency” (115).
Strunk & White and Booher are not all bad. They do occasionally propose original and practical
information. One of these is use of
qualifiers, words or phrases that either soften or intensify speech. Some examples of qualifiers are very,
pretty, words that end in –ly,
and phrases like to some extent and more or less.
William Strunk, Jr. expresses
fervent contempt for this facet of language.
He calls them “leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood
out of words” (73). Strunk conveys
specific personal disdain for the overuse of the adjective little. He goes on to demonstrate his pessimistic
outlook by utilizing sarcasm. His
closing statement is packed with qualifiers in order to illustrate the way they
litter composition. It reads: “…we
should all try to do a little better, we should all be very
watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty
sure to violate it now and then” (73).
Booher agrees with Strunk’s
comments, but her explanations are not as colorful or passionate as his,
probably because of the contrast in their audiences. As always, Booher is eager to coin a new catch phrase for an old
idea. She labels the use of qualifiers,
intensifiers, and vague abstractions as “hedging” (249). Booher encourages electronic writers to “be
straightforward and confident” and refrain from using hedgers and vague
qualifiers because they “overshadow key ideas” (250).
Later in her book, she claims writers use qualifiers because they are scared their readers will take their message out of context. Booher concedes that qualifiers are not altogether avoidable. When they become overused, writing loses its crispness and clarity. Booher says unnecessary qualifiers are “weasel words” that have a “wishy-washy effect” which dilutes writing (350-351).
Even though their purposes, intended audiences and means of communication are completely different, Strunk & White and Booher manage to give tips on some of the same issues. Sometimes their guidance is helpful and similarities between their constructive instructions serve as proof that many of the same rules of style apply across genres of writing.
References
Booher, Dianna. E-Writing: 21st Century Tools for Writing Effective
Communication. New York: Pocket Books, 2001.
Strunk, Jr., William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. Needham
Heights: Allyn & Bacon, 1979.