What is Style? Part II

This question is no easier to answer than at the beginning of the term.  I remember writing that style is not how something is simply written, but an active voice put to words in writing. I’m re-thinking that answer.  Style can encompass a plethora of things.  Not just applying a “voice” to writing.  But applying techniques, such as the ones found in Williams Style: Toward Clarity and Grace that when applied right, can improve the style and clarity of writing, but when applied wrong, can lead to misunderstandings in written and even oral communication.  The collaborative video that my group, Group 1 in the online portion, shows this so well.  Even a person who is speaking with unclear and undefined language can cause so much miscommunication.

When I think of style now I also think of Ancient Rhetoric in correspondence with the YouTube commercials we had to do.  Through this project I learned that many commercial script writers use the same styles the ancients used such as metaphor, “grand style”, and language that evoked emotion or question.  I had to analyze the Tiger Woods commercial which was a perfect example of this type of Ancient style, being used to persuade an audience to “forgive” Tiger for his affair.  I would think that after this class, style has a less definite meaning.  In other words, I cannot describe it in one sentence as I’ve had in the first blog post.  I can only think of several applications of style that are meant to persuade, clarify, and evoke emotion.

Yes, style can and does determine clarity.   And depending on the writing, it can include a “voice”.  But can also determine whether one laughs, cries, get’s angry, or it can lead to many interpretations of what’s written on paper or recorded in video.

Style encompasses everything.  That’s the only way I can see to put it.

Final Peer Review Recap

This time peer review was about the same as the rest (as always).  I never really notice major differences in the process although we changed it up just a bit towards t end of the semester.

I find peer review useful because you get detailed perspectives from others.  My response is the same from the last time I wrote about peer review but I’ll say it again.  One of the criteria of these essays is to make sure that our essay is accessible, not just to the teacher, but to a wider audience.  Doing peer review in this way definitely helps us to write in a way that may be foreign to us.  Usually when asked to write an essay in a class we are asked to “please the teacher”.  This is a refreshing way of writing and takes a step outside of the norm.

In the beginning, when we first did peer reviews, I thought it was great but also, looking back, I see it was a bit unstable.  I agree with some of my classmates that were concerned that their grade was suffering because the same people would not be reviewing their essay after the first peer review.  That process could definitely lead to inconsistencies in opinion and ruin someone’s grade.  But the method seems to have been perfected, and I’m content with that.

I’ve learned a lot from the way others write.  Sometimes I am tempted to try to make an essay more thoughtful and more complicated than it has to be.  I’ve learned that I don’t really speak as clear as I thought I did, and my writing sometimes comes across strange.  When reading others essays I noticed that they kept their work simple but also thoughtful.