So Says The Others

After reading through the many other responses of some of my fellow classmates, I found that there seemed to be one theme brought up by many. This deals with the excessive use of “wordiness”. While many of us understand that we don’t need redundant phrases and there are many words that could easily be eliminated from out writing, we still tend to use them. I am definitely guilty of using much more than I need to in order to convey my point. I do understand why Strunk and White and Williams all agree about using good details and omitting the excess words. One example that Renee uses in her blog is about redundant modifiers. It makes complete sense after reading Williams explanation on this subject. In all my years in school I have never been taught that by any teacher that I’ve ever had. This I find frustrating, because either these rules should have been covered at some point in our education, or else they really aren’t as important as they are made out to be.

Another point that was made by Siobhan that caught my eye was in her blog on Strunk and White vs. Williams. She talks about the fact that Williams was helpful in laying out to the reader that not all rules and regulations are going to be correct one hundred percent of the time. We need to know the basic rules for writing in English, however it is equally important to understand that there are always exceptions to the rules. I felt that Strunk and White is extremely helpful as more of a reference guide, but lacks the explanation that Williams provides. Instead of just saying “here are the rules, you must follow them”, he does a great job of giving examples of ways that the general rule doesn’t apply. This allows us as the reader to gain a better understanding of how to bend the rules but still be correct and write efficiently.