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.

McCloud Part II

I looked at Katie Y's blog, who surprisingly also discussed my blog. Katie and I have similar readings of the texts and both discussed how comics convey space and time in our first McCloud blog. Katie however refreshed the idea for me and because of that I feel a need to elaborate on my previous discussion.

Katie states that,

""Each successive frame of a movie is projected on exactly the same spaces--the screen--while each frame of comics must occupy a different space. Space does for comics what time does for film" (7). I enjoyed reading the comic on the computer because it flowed more like a movie even though "the gutter" (66) still existed between frames. I was very interested in this section of the text because it fascinating how the reader can make instantanious assumptions about what happens between frames, almost to the point where they don't notice the gutter even exists."

I had compared comics to animation but never to traditional film or text alone. The point Katie makes here is the expert use of gutters and how it engages a reader. In film, there is little room for interpretation. Each moment is captured on film with nothing left for the viewer to imagine. In contrast, books or words alone give infinite freedom to a reader because they can imagine and visualize whatever they want. Readers are given freedom of interpretation. Comics, however, find their place somewhere in the middle. Comics offer a balance between absolute freedom and visual restriction. When we read, we visualize in our minds. Comics do much of the visualization for us, but allow us to play out particular moments (those trapped within the gutters) ourselves. What's great about this also is the freedom of assumption, as Katie discusses. The comic leaves out particular moments where we are left to fill it in ourselves. However, the comics are made in such a way that all readers assume to same thing to happen. Comics offer freedom in that way but are also genius in that they're set up so readers have a universal understanding of what happens in the gutter. Books often leave too much to the imagination and movies too little. I like the balance of the in-between that comics offer. I never appreciated them before but this mere characteristic alone (that of gutters and the freedom of assumption they offer) helps me to better understand and appreciate them.

In relation to this, McCloud discusses the individuality of comics on page 151 where he states that, "as long as we view comics as a genre of writing or a style of graphic art this attitude may never disappear." (McCloud 151) This "attitude" he refers to is the inferior attitude people have towards comics. This "attitude" also refers to the attitude comic artists have towards comics in general and their constant attempts to achieve higher artistic status. By considering comics as inferior in the first place, and by those who create them no less, sustains inferior attitudes towards comics. Accepting that comics are their own art form, not some sub-species of a better form, is key in allowing comic art to grow and become better appreciated.

The combination of words and pictures make comics unique, but there is more to the art than just these words and pictures, as McCloud discusses throughout his entire book. Simplicity, detail, space, time, gutter freedom, reader-to-character relation, representation, and numerous other characteristics make comics "comics." Before reading McCloud's defense of comic art, I admit that I had little to no appreciation of comics. They were crude drawings, basic, lacking in meaning. But now I understand that the "crudeness" is intentional simplicity, meant to help reader's relate to characters. Each artistic factor is intentional: the size of the frame, how characters are drawn, the language, and even the gutter space. Similarly to film where lighting, make-up, music, and setting set the tone and together create some form of meaning, so do the many factors of comics make it a meaningful art form.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 1

After looking through several of the comics, I chose "I am the Most Beautiful Dog in the World." This comic supports many of the points Scott McCloud makes in his book Understanding Comics.

LINK TO COMIC: http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-04/mi-04.html

My first point that the comic illustrates, and which McCloud also discusses, is the difference between comics and animation. McCloud compares the two modes, with animation being streaming images and comics more juxtaposed, one image after another creating a whole. The major difference here is that animation contains images in constant motion. There are no breaks. Each movement, expression, moment, is determined by the artist.

With comics, however, there are the spaces in between the pictures called "gutters." It is in these gutters that a comic artist allows the reader to be creative, to fill in the blanks, and initiate the next action. This also allows the reader to be a more active participant than with animation. McCloud uses this "gutter" approach in his comic, "I am the Most Beautiful Dog in the World." He defines this idea as being a sort of "limbo", a place where "human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea." (McCloud 66) In "I am the Most Beautiful Dog in the World," image after image the dog remains nonplussed, refusing to fetch the toy. The gutter space between these images has the reader imagining the boy's increasing irritation and impatience along with the dog's stubbornness and pleasure at being uncooperative. The comic doesn't say this directly. Instead, the gutters convey this sense of time exhausting itself as the same image repeats itself. The gutters and repeated images allow the reader to interpret the comic without the artist telling the reader what to think or feel. It brings a reality to comics, as well as humor in this case, that the reader can interpret for themselves.

Another thing McCloud discusses in his book is simplicity and its potential to engage the reader. He states that, "When we abstract an image through cartooning, we're not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning," an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't." (McCloud 30) "I am the Most Beautiful Dog in the World" is composed of very simple drawings. It is not the quality of the art that makes the comic good or bad, successful or not, but rather the entire package.

The simplicity of this comic is beneficial in this case (and in many cases) because there is nothing to distract the reader. The reader is not consumed by the boy's appearance, nor is the dog extraordinarily beautiful. Instead, the combination of dialogue, gutter space, repeated images, and obvious facial expressions make the comic understandable, comical, and effective. Something as simple as the three beads of sweat on the boy's face show his exhausted, impatience, and irritation with his dog. In addition, because he is so simply drawn, the reader relates to him, which McCloud states is a major plus of simply drawn characters. Otherwise, the reader would be "too aware of the messenger to fully receive the message." (McCloud 37) When the messenger (the boy in "I am the Most Beautiful Dog in the World, in this case), is simple, a universal face, undetailed, it is easy for the reader to relate to them and share their experiences. Because of this lack of focus on the messenger, the reader can focus on the message. The dog is not the most beautiful dog in the world, else it would be elaborately drawn. Instead, the comic expresses the dog's arrogance and stubbornness, suggesting the dog itself merely thinks it is the most beautiful dog in the world.

These concepts of simplicity, repetition, and gutters are something I had never considered nor appreciated about comics. Now however, I understand that these factors are intentional tools used to convey a message, or tools that allow a reader to extract a message from a comic.

What Do Others Think?

Ashley S.

http://asako12.blogspot.com/

“In comparison with the last book, I find Williams to be very helpful. He approaches the topic of writing with the assumption that we have some knowledge of what we're doing. Reading Strunk and White was like reading Writing For Dummies. I also liked that Williams started off broadly in his approach, describing bad writing, why we do it, and then progressed slowly so you could almost envision yourself setting the book down and writing something marvelous. It made me realize how many stupid things I've done writing papers, tap-dancing around, rather than getting to a clear point (or POINT haha) and effectively validating that point. Even as I'm writing this blog, I keep correcting myself as I notice little things I do which he has pointed out as bad writing.

I didn't find Strunk and White very effective. Most of the rules they explained were common sense to me. There were a few things I hadn't known before, but for the most part I found the whole thing boring. As was mentioned in the group discussion, a lot of the rules were very nit-picky (sp?), meaning they weren't always applicable or were outdated, and were most likely put in the book because of the author’s personal preferences. If I were a college English Prof. I would most definitely recommend Williams' book to every writer. I think there is a lot to be gained from reading it, as well as using it for a reference in the future.”

I like Ashley S.’ discussion comparing being told what to do versus being offered suggestions, examples, and explanations for improvement. Since Strunk and White did write a more “Writing For Dummies” command manual than an actual guide, their book made me standoffish. Readers don’t like to be insulted and told what to do without justification.

I agree that Williams was a fresh change right off the bat because “he approaches the topic of writing with the assumption that we have some knowledge of what we’re doing.” Immediately, that makes a reader feel welcome and comfortable with the author. Williams also did not insult the reader or bad writing, but explained that it’s a common occurrence, provided reasons why we do it, and then reasons for becoming better writers and how.

The book’s progression was slow and while it was a longer and more difficult read than Strunk and White, I was able to follow Williams and see how each chapter built off of the previous and how the progression moved towards better writing. I did feel after reading it that I could be a better writer because I was given concrete examples and explanations and how-to guides. Best of all, being given so much practice with style exercises I think back on previous writing and all of the simple and not-so-simple mistakes I made, allowing me to be more aware of my current and future writing.

Jason C.

http://jcanfield-jcanfield.blogspot.com/

“…in Strunk and White, the rules were just given to the reader which I took as a "take it or leave it" type of approach. Strunk and White present a black and white approach to style and good writing, Williams on the other hand leaves us with more gray areas, making us think a little harder. For instance, toward the end of Williams' book Chapter 10 when he talks about Precision he states "Wherever you take your stand" (197). This leads me to believe here that this is one of those gray areas, basically, he is saying okay, here are a bunch of different rules and approaches I presented you with, now you decide what you will take and use in your writing. Strunk and White did not do this at all…However, I did find that Strunk and White was a easier and more straightforward read.”

I liked Jason C’s discussion here comparing Strunk and White with Williams. I have posted previously that Strunk and White’s novel made me feel both insulted – since some of the rules were elementary – and defensive, since they attacked many things I do in my writing without explaining why they are wrong or how to fix them. I think this is what Jason is talking about in describing Strunk and White’s book as having a “take it or leave it” approach. When I think about it, the authors were saying ‘this is what good writing is: do it and you’re a good writer, don’t are you’re not.” They offered little middle ground or room for the individual to put their own unique style into their writing. Instead of offering “gray” suggestions that would allow a writer to follow the rules but also bend them for the sake of personal style, Strunk and White only offered the good versus the bad.

Jason states that Williams offers us a different approach and provides more general statements and advice, but unlike Strunk and White, backs them up and gives examples and exercises. Williams also offers his advice without commanding. He leaves room for exceptions and personal style as long as writers master the basics and are in control of their writing. Like Jason said, this may be preferable to Strunk and White’s “take it or leave it approach” but it isn’t necessarily any easier. Williams encourages writers to take responsibility for their own writing rather than simply instruct them to follow his rules, no questions asked. He allows writers a freedom and a variety of choices, which Strunk and White do not.

Comparing Strunk & White with Williams

I preferred Williams’ Style Toward Clarity and Grace because unlike Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, Williams actually gives tips on how to improve your writing. Elements of Style was a good reference tool because it listed commonly misused words and phrases as well as basic grammatical rules. However, further into the book, Strunk and White tell the reader what not to do (i.e. writing in the passive voice, being too wordy, empty phrases) without directly telling the reader how to fix the problems. Also, in reading Elements of Style I felt like my own personal writing style was being attacked while “standard”, clear and concise writing was preferred. While I felt attacked and defensive, I didn’t understand why my writing style was considered so inferior. I think that individual writing style distinguishes one reader from the next and I didn’t like being told to follow the standard. Doing so seemed to mean ignoring my own style of writing and replacing it with what someone else preferred. Since I felt so defensive, it was difficult to take anything away from reading Elements of Style other than basic reminders of grammatical rules and criticisms of how I write but with no help in improving it.

Thankfully, Williams’ Style Toward Clarity and Grace was a great improvement from Elements of Style. Williams explained the benefits of clear and concise writing as well as how to do it. There are many examples in the book that show an “incorrect” passage, describe what’s wrong with it, and then alter it to make it better. Reading over the many examples and justifications for revision taught me a lot more than simply being told I was wrong and needed to stop.

In Chapter 6, I really liked the discussion of the “POINT.” We have done the same exercises in several of my literature classes to find a thesis or the best sum-it-all-up sentence in a paragraph. The exercises in the book also helped me too see how without a strong “POINT” sentence, a paragraph seems week and unfocused. When I revise my Writing Technology paper, I’ll definitely go through to find a “POINT” in each paragraph.

Another section of Style Towards Clarity and Grace that I found helpful was in Chapter 7 when Williams discusses redundant pairs and modifiers, meaningless modifiers and pompous diction. He describes how they are empty tools used as fillers and then broke down each category to show how the phrases could be said more simply, often in one word. I had always thought it was best to avoid using “because” and “since” and “and” repeatedly, but I can see how using longer phrases adds unnecessary length to a sentence, can break up the rhythmic flow, and even confuse the reader.

What I liked best about Williams’ book, however, was the final chapter on elegance. Something I had feared in reading Strunk and White’s and then Williams’ books was that the authors were telling me not write like them. I like wordy prose but I understand now that there is a place for that type of writing (which is not in concise, persuasive writing) but also that there is a method to “elegant” writing. Elegant writing doesn’t mean using the fillers and prose carelessly, but mastering clarity and conciseness first and then bringing personal style and elegance to a piece of writing.