What is style?

Looking back at my previous post defining style, I can't say that my opinion has changed too much. I still believe that style is our own way of expressing ourselves, through clothing, music, art, writing, etc... However, my knowledge of writing style has grown, and I now know what's "good" style and what isn't. Also, I understand that good writing style isn't just good grammar, writing in the active voice, and being clear and concise. It's striking a balance between what message you need to get across and doing so in your own unique, but effective way. I do think that my writing style has improved throughout the semester, mostly because I didn't know what I was doing wrong and therefore could not correct it. Having reviewed style guides and discussing the topics in class, I now know where I was making mistakes and where I could make improvements. I think I write more actively now, and I do try to maximize clarity and concision. The web site was a great activity in clarity and concision for me because I kept going back to cut out more and more useless information. Now I think my website says what it needs to in the fewest words possible, which maximizes clarity and concision and allows viewers to get straight-to-the-point. Overall, my definition of style hasn't changed, but my knowledge of what makes writing good or bad has.

In addition to learning about writing style and how to maximize clarity and concision, this course has also taught me to recognize writing as a constantly evolving technology. I've definitely gained a greater appreciation for the writing technologies I have today. Also, when I first picked up Scott McCloud's "comic book" at the school bookstore, I dreaded having to read it. But having read it, I understand how it fit into the class as a whole. Comics are a unique, independent art form that combines words and pictures to create an engaging reading experience for the viewer. Comics include many of the elements of good writing style too: they are typically short and to-the-point, actively engage the reader, and attempt to get a message across quickly and easily without being wordy. I've learned to appreciate comics as more than a sub-style of film or literature and accept it as its own art form.

Overall, I'd have to say I learned much more from this class than I thought I would. Each assignment was a struggle because I had to learn to think differently. I had to acknowledge writing as a technology before I could create one and then reflect on it. I had to be open to learning about comics before I could write an essay about their stylistic effectiveness. I had to come to terms with my own writing flaws before I could attempt to perfect them. And while I certainly haven't perfected my writing or understanding of these topics, I have broadened my understanding and come to appreciate them more.

From reading the two web style guides, it became clear to me that several of their tips centered around a single general idea of simplicity. If a web site is too cluttered with information and graphics, it can become distracting for the viewer and they may get frustrated at not being able to find their desired information quickly enough. Simplicity makes websites efficient, easy to navigate, clear, and concise.

Too much information can be overwhelming, especially for viewers who know exactly what they're looking for and want to get straight to the point without having to read through irrelevant information just to find what they want. This is why many short pages with information divided between them works better than a few web pages packed with information. Web surfers use the internet because it is quick: they have information immediately at their fingertips. Cluttered websites interrupt the information flow.

By keeping information as concise as possible, with minimal discussion, being to-the-point, viewers will be able to find what they're looking for quickly and easily. In my opinion, this is why people like and consistently use the Internet, and therefore makes minimal simplicity the best web style rule.

Web Style & Paper Style

I found a lot of similarities between web style and paper style, the most obvious being clarity and concision. These are two elements that we have discussed extensively throughout the semester and they are again reiterated in the web style guides. I would say the clarity and concision may almost be more important with web style, since web surfers expect to obtain information quickly and easily. Flowery language would disrupt this and slow the entire internet experience. When reading papers or books you become absorbed in what you're reading. When visiting web sites, you are more interested in the overall experience. Web surfing is a much more multi-tasking experience than reading a text. If you get bored when you're web surfing, you can instantly visit thousands of new pages, ones where your information can be more easily obtained.

I also noticed that unity is important with both web and paper style. With papers, we call this a thesis. With the internet, it's a topic of site theme. In papers, it's important to restate your thesis throughout your paper (in different words of course, to minimize redundancy). Similarly with web sites, it's important to have a common topic string to bring unity through your site. Use headers and a table to contents to remind viewers what they're learning and to keep them on task. This works for single-topic web sites, but these days, web sites contain multiple pieces of information. If your web site contains a multitude of topics, there are also other ways of unifying the information. While papers are limited to words alone to maximize unity, the many pages of a single web site should share a unified look. This way, viewers are reminded that they haven't strayed.


The biggest difference between web and paper style, in my opinion, is how papers are considered a unified whole, while web sites are taken in bits and pieces. When reading a paper, we must read through the entire thing, start to finish, in order to take away meaning. That is simply the way that papers are organized. Web sites, however, are broken into many pieces where people can select what's relevant to them to research. This saves time, simplifies and works well for web sites where the goal is usually to obtain some fact or piece of information. People don't have to sift through other sentences like when reading a paper when they're only looking for one specific topic. It makes things easier and in a world where we expect information instantly at our fingertips, web sites are the way to go. With web sites information is still organized but typically just not as thorough.

Either way, both means of writing have their benefits. Papers convey points, they're persuasive, they're informative. Web sites provide facts quickly and efficiently. Both work well and both follow many of the same style rules, where clarity and concision rule.