This writing project has two different but closely related parts: the first asks you to actually “use” these style guides for their intended purpose of revising and improving your writing, while the second asks you to “re-use” (remake, redesign, remix, etc.) these books to create a “new style manual” of sorts targeted toward a specific audience and purpose.
Part 1: Revising with Strunk and White, and Williams (50 points)
Based on your reading and our discussions of The Elements of Style and Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, revise either your first essay project, the Invent Your Own Writing Technology, or the second project, Ancient Style and YouTube Commercials. Along with your actual revision (see below), you will write a 750-1000 word essay where you explain what changes you made to your essay based on our reading and discussion about the style manuals.
Here are a few more details:
- As a result of this assignment, the original grade on your first or second project will improve because of the revision you will make. How much it improves depends on the extent to which you applied the advice of Strunk and White and Williams to your revision. Also remember you will have yet another opportunity to revise your first essay for the end of the term if you are still not satisfied with your grade on that project.
- There will be no peer review for this part of the assignment, though you are of course welcome to work with other students in the class or others whose opinions and judgments about writing you trust, and I am also happy to meet with you individually to discuss your draft.
- The revisions you make to either of your first two projects will be applied to that project. In other words, if you earned 115 points (a mid-C) originally on the Ancient Style and YouTube Commercials project and it seems to me that your revisions as a result of applying the guidance of Strunk and White, and Williams seems significant, then I will adjust your grade, potentially all the way to an A.
- While the essay explaining your changes only has to be a few pages long, it should be as detailed as possible. Don’t write vague things like “Strunk and White helped me a lot” or “Joseph Williams had some good ideas.” Rather, cite specific examples of advice and passages from the books that really did impact the way you changed your first essay. The more detail on this, the better.
- Finally, the short essay portion of this assignment is worth 50 points.
Part 2: Remaking/Redesigning/Remixing Style (100 points)
Using the rules and writings from Strunk and White and Williams, write your own remake/remix/redesign/parody of a style guide which focuses on a specific cultural reference. Your project will be the “Style of X” (see some examples below), where you will use some of the style rules from these books and examples from your cultural reference to both explain the stylistic conventions and the cultural reference itself.
Here are a few more details:
- I think this is a better assignment to explain via examples and you’ll get the idea from some of our readings, too.Without being too specific, here are some ideas that I’ve seen in the recent past that I thought were very successful:
- “The style of a favorite TV show or movie,” which focuses on the stylistic approaches of particular characters and in particular movies– cult movies work fairly well for this.
- “The style of famous fictional/historic/mythical figures.” Kind of similar to the style of a favorite TV show or movie, but perhaps extending to famous folks from books or the past.
- “The style of a particular kind of job,” particularly ones where we don’t necessarily think of them in “stylistic” terms. For example, “The Writing Style of Journalists” wouldn’t be a very good idea for this, but I did see a very successful project that was about “The Style of Landscape Workers.”
- “The style of a particular kind of game.” I am thinking here of games like “World of Warcraft” (I read a great essay about this a couple of years ago), but I can imagine others, too.
- “The style of some sort of special occasion.” For example, I had a student a few years ago write a very effective essay on the style of being a bridesmaid.
- Before we get to the peer review process on this project (some time in March), I will ask each of you to let me know what your style guide is going to be about, and if you have questions before then, just ask.
- Your style manual has to have the following elements (no pun intended):
- Some introduction that contextualizes the manual. Both Strunk and White and Williams include introductions that explain their goals and purposes, as does the less earnest Elements by the Marquis de Sade. Your manual should also include such an introduction.
- At least five “rules” and rules of some variety. In other words, don’t stick with just rules that look like Strunk and White’s section on “Elementary Rules of Usage” or that look just like Williams’ chapter on “Length.”
- You need to have written examples of the rules. Rules in and of themselves are not enough. Be warned! Writing good examples is harder than you might think.
- At least 100o words of content. This includes the introduction, the rules themselves, examples, and any other supporting documents.
- Some “non-text” elements. This could include images, simple graphics, audio– really, almost anything that is beyond words, that fits in with your goals and purposes, and is something you can easily do. Whatever it is you decide to do, you must use elements that you have either created yourself or you know is legal to use. Frankly, it’s probably easier (and more fun!) to create the non-text elements yourself, but if you want to borrow, check out Creative Commons as a way to get started on doing that right.
- You will need to present your style guide as a Google doc– and it’s pretty easy to add images to Google docs, so that’s something we can talk more about.
- Obviously, this assignment lends itself to the humorous and even somewhat absurd. However, you can’t make up “bad rules:” that is, a rule like CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING would be bad indeed.
- As for the peer review process: that remains “TBA” for this assignment, and largely based on how the peer assessment goes on the first two assignments. Stay tuned!
The first part of this assignment looks like the type of assignment that could be quite useful, but I know already I will dislike the process. The second half of this project, although more detailed and engaged, seems like a hell-of-a-lotta fun. Parodies and the like are quite dear to my heart
I am not so sure on the first part what if you do all this work to change the grade and the grade remains the same hmmmm!
The second part of this project is my cup of tea! Boy do I have a few rules that I would love to write about!
I’m not so sure about the first half, revising projects I don’t truly love or understand isn’t the best. The second half I believe I’ll have a better time with.
I think the first half will be fine, obviously if a person puts in a lot of effort and the effort is illustrated your previous grade will not be the exact same as the new one-that wouldn’t make sense. I agree with everyone else that the second part sounds entertaining.
I think the first part can go one of two way, smoothly or hectic, but the second part seem to be okay to actually do.
I’m looking forward to this assignment for two reasons. The first is that I will get to re-submit a paper for an improved grade. The second is that it corresponds with what i’m learning about in another class of mine. we are speaking about keeping a writing profile so to speak. this profile contains a single work from start to finish after grading, and revisions, with a hard copy of the paper at each stage.
I am a believer in writing is never complete, even after all of the revisions, even a published work, so I agree with you Tony, I like the fact we can resubmit a paper for a better grade. If a work was finished after revision, why would new editions of books and textbook and websites keep being released and updated?
I could see myself either blowing the second part of the water, or not having any idea what to do or how to do it. We shall see…
second part of the water? Not sure why I typed that haha. second part of the PROJECT.
I like the idea of the first part of getting to improve the grade on one of our first two papers. I like what was said in the forward of the Strunk and White book, “Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time.” No matter how many times something is revised it seems to always be a work in progress, for me anyways. So I like having the option to revise. As for the second part of this I think it sounds interesting, now the hard part of trying to figure out what to choose to do my particular style on.
Well, my thinking about the first part of this assignment is it seems to me that at least one of the purposes of these style books is to follow their advice to make your writing better. But the thing that is also important to keep in mind with this assignment is you will want to make changes actually based on the style guides and you’ll want to be sure to talk about that in your short write up about this assignment.
Will we be going through each rule and applying it to our writing? Is that what you mean by applying it?
Are we suppose to place our revised papers in the same document with the reasons why we made our corrections.
I am glad we get to improve on one of our writing projects. I agree with what Megan said about writing projects…they are never fully complete. There always seems to be room for improvement and adjustment.
Hah, I like these ideas. I feel like there’s a little less pressure when the writing is about something less serious. I like the idea of revisions too, though I hope I can see my grade on the second essay before I do it.
This is a good exercise in revisions. It isn’t very often you get to take a bit of reading and directly apply it to your work. I am not the biggest fan of revisions, simply because I have a hard time stepping away from work. I always know what I meant to say, even if if doesn’t come across correctly.
The ,ore I think I about this project the harder I find it. A few ideas come to mind can I make rules out of them. Example: I love too cook “rules of the kitchen”. Rules on planting flowers. Just thinking about my hobbies!
I think that the first part should be rather simple seeing how we should have already considered some things that we could have done differently to get a better grade. The second part seems like it will be more challenging though. I’m not too sure how I should go about doing this and that worries me a little.
Well, I wouldn’t overlook the complexity of the revision process. If you only make a few changes that are largely cosmetic to your original draft– that is, if you fail “re-see” how you put your essay together– you won’t get much value out of revising.
Are we to be completely changing our thesis, or just attempting to see our thesis from a new way?
It depends a lot on what you mean by “thesis,” of course. But I think that both Strunk and White and Williams are talking less about the issue of your “point” or your “argument” and more about how it is put together. S&W have a lot of very grammar-oriented advice, but they also have a lot of advice on sentences, paragraphs, and the like, and the last section on “an approach to style” offers a lot of advice. The Williams book, as we’ll see next week, is quite a bit more specific in some of its advice regarding sentences, paragraphs, and the like.
Similar question: I am in the process of making major changes with the comments you made along with the S & W in mind. I used a lot of Williams suggestions also. Its like Im presenting a whole new paper. Is that what you are looking for or do we make changes as a side bar.
I understand revising my work, but it’s not my favorite activity. Of course, I recognize that no piece of writing is ever truly finished, but I feel like a piece of writing represents where I was at a particular place in time. Revising it feels like I’m falsifying the past, in a way. But, maybe that’s just me. :/
As for the second part, I have no idea where to even begin. Sometimes, I love thinking outside of the box and flexing my creativity muscles. Other times, however, I feel like assignments like this are too open-ended and I can’t find a direction. But, I’ve also been having a medical issue this week and I am just not in a very good mood. I’ve been in a lot of pain and it is definitely affecting my views right now. Hopefully, when I’m feeling better, I’ll be able to figure out how to approach this assignment.
I have to say I don’t get that falsifying of the past part of things, Leeann– or maybe what I want to say is I want to encourage you to try to think differently about it. In my experience as a writer, revision is the absolute critical stage to learning how to write well, and while it is very true that there are plenty of different kinds of writing we might not want to revise or that are not worth revising, it’s essential if you want to be a writer. In fact, it’s probably a lot more important than coming up with an idea in the first place in my view.
I do think at least one or two rounds of revision are necessary for pretty much any work and again, I recognize no piece of writing is ever really “finished”. But, most of what I write are essays for class and there comes a point where revision no longer feels authentic. When I turn in a paper for class, it represents how I understood the assignment and completed it at that point in time. The essays I write aren’t typically fictional in nature, either. When I have written poetry or fiction, I see a greater need for revision. Perhaps this is why I am looking at it from a more negative stance? I am looking at writing as term papers or critical essays more than fiction or poetry. (When you boil it down, that is the type of writer I am at this point in time). Essays need revision, but often not in the same way as poetry or fiction to me.
Well, there’s the famous line about this (I think from Joseph Conrad), “No piece of writing is ever finished– it’s merely abandoned.” I think what ends up happening for most school writing is we abandon it more quickly.
In any event, keep in mind that with these revisions, I am hoping you make changes based on the style guides. So in that sense, the goal is not to just “make it better;” it’s to apply what we’re reading and discussing.
Right. I can definitely appreciate (and possibly even enjoy!) a goal driven revision like this one more than many typical revision assignments.
I understand how you feel about revising papers for class. When you aren’t entirely interested in your work, coming back to it is not fun. I prefer to abandon the writings that I have done that I didn’t like instead of fixing them.
But, learning to fix papers/things that I do not care for, should make me a stronger writer.
it’s going to be really beneficial to pick apart my writing in the way that the three kings of style (S, W & W) would do it. I’ll probably hate every second of it but I have no doubt that the end result will be more polished and a stronger paper. writing my own style guide is exactly the kind of project I’ve been looking forward to. although I’ve really enjoyed both the previous projects so far, this one seems like it has the most room to really put your own creative spin on things and find a way to communicate your understanding at the same time. gotta put that brainstorming hat back on though, and come up with something even better than glowsticks!
Now that we have been reading Williams, I am much more willing to take on part 1 of this project. I dreaded the first part of this project in relation only to S & W, but now that I have read Williams, I see all of these elements and rules of style coming together. It feels as though these elements and rules will make a great paper.
I agree that this first part will be a bit easier now having read through Strunk and White and Williams. I’m not the best at revising my work that is why I take what my peers have offered as suggestions and the two books will help now to improve this editing process.
The williams reading is much more difficult to actually sit through. With that being said, I feel it has a lot more to offer in terms of stylization and I especially liked the unit on cohesion. That is something that I will use for sure when revising my paper.
I completely missed this discussion. Sigh. Anyway, I think that the second half of the project sounds interesting. I’m going to take a lot at the Marquis’s guide, because I’ve read a synopsis of his writings and it was horrifying, 120 Days, I believe. As for the first half, I’m wondering if we’ll get our grades for the second project before we get to revise.
Well, as you’ll see when we get there, this is not actually Sade– just a parody. And we’ll be reading some other parodies too that I think are pretty good from past students.
I think doing the part one of this assignment will go smoothly now having read through the Strunk and White, and Williams. I think I am planning on revising my first paper on inventing our own writing technology just because I tried to keep in mind some of the aspects I read from both books as I was revising my second paper. But I think that will all depend on how I do on the second paper. So I will make my decision on which paper to revise once I get my grade back on the second one.
I agree with you on this. The first part of the project seems much less ominous than before reading the texts, and I also revised my second paper keeping both texts (especially Williams’) right at my side.
I agree with Lisa. I tried to use some of what we had read when revising the second paper, so I’m more likely to redo the first one. However, like Lisa, it depends more heavily on the grade on my second paper. I admit I spent more time and effort revising my second paper in general, so I hope it results in a higher grade than my first paper.
I guess we’ll see, eh?
I think revising the first paper would be my choice. After all, we didn’t really know what to expect. Now that we already know, I can write a better paper.
I’m also waiting to see the grade on the second paper before I decide which one to work with for this project. I want to make sure I do the one that could benefit the most from more informed revision.
I agree I’d like to know both grades before I decide so I can make a plan for it.
My hope/goal/dream (!) is to have the ancient style projects commented on by the end of the day Friday, which ought to give folks time to weigh their choices. Two important things to remember about these projects though: first, the revision that you make as part of the “style part 1″ project has to make connections to the readings from Strunk and White and Williams. In other words, you need to do more than just “make it better” based on my comments and your re-reading of it.
Second, you can always revise the essay you decide not to revise at the end of the term, if that’s your choice. So if you decide to revise the first essay based on style part 1, you can still come back to the ancient style project if you think that’s necessary.
I like the way this is going. This process has already taught me a lot, and I hope that with each revision I keep getting better. In my earlier comments I talked about not looking forward to the first part of this project, but it seems great to me now.
If we revise our essays and manage to do worse, would that affect the grade we already have for the essay? Like I have a B for the first essay and I want revision to hopefully get an A, instead I bomb it and get an F. Does that change my B?
I was just wondering. Since you can bring your grade up with this. Thanks!!
In my opinion, I don’t think that it is about getting “better.” I think the purpose is to see what can be done through revision, how to change our own thoughts, and find out what works and what doesn’t.
On another track, I think that I am going to do something like “A Guide to the Style of Punk Rock Lyrics: Oi, oi, oi” for the second part of this project.
Sorry I didn’t answer this before, Megan. But the answer is no, you can’t get a grade worse than what you originally earned– only better!
I feel like I had a much better handle on my second paper than the first. Luckily, I already know which I’d like to do for this project. I also got much better feedback from my peer reviewers on the second, which will make this one easier.
And I have an idea for the “remixing” the style — The Big Lebowsky Style guide… for those of you that have seen it, it’s full of different lingo that could use its own style. Thoughts?
This assignments seems like its going to be a hassle. If I go about it with a certain attitude it could possibly be fun but it just seems like there’s sooo much that goes into this. I have to find some sort of excitement in this somewhere or I’ll hate it. The revising of one of the assignments and then writing a paper on that seems like it could be something simple but the manual part is what seems like it will be rather difficult.
I think I’m pretty much set on the revising the first paper. I will see what my grade is on the second paper first before I make my final decision. As far as the manual I have way to many ideas swimming in my head. I did not think it would be this hard to come up with a subject / topic. But as Williams stated, “you can talk more about a subject you know more about or learn new information on”, hmm.
When I continue to think about this assignment I believe it can be what we make it. Part 1 should be okay using the advice from Strunk & White & Williams to revise our previous papers. I am somewhat worried about Part 2 and if what I’m thinking is the correct way to do this portion of the assignment but I am looking for the reading to give me a better understanding.
I am also kinda concerned about the second part. I’m not too sure on what I’m going to do it on, or how well I will do it? When I think of parody, I think of funny- which isn’t exactly my strongest point?
I’m much more concerned about the second part at this point, too. Open ended assignments like this can be very difficult for me. Once I figure out a direction, I’m ready for it. But deciding on a direction? Not an easy task!
Having looked at the second one again, I do see how difficult it could possibly be. There are a lot of criteria to meet and I just hope I can find a way to integrate it all.
I think as long as we choose a fun subject – one we are interested in – then part 2 of the assignment could be extremely fun. I am going to do a style guide to punk rock lyrics, and I am choosing this because I played in a punk band for a long time, and I love punk rock music. So I guess the trick to part 2 is to choose something we love and just have a blast. I don’t think that it needs to be “serious” or anything, as long as the rules we make are complete.
Megan that sounds fun. You are wright if we choose something we like then it will be a blast. It doesnt have to be serious based on the examples he gave us.
What are you thinking of doing for yours? I am so excited about part 2 of this project, and I can’t wait to read others’ style guides.
Im thinking about writing “A Guide to Being a Mom”. I know it sounds weird but people keep saying I wish this baby, teen, kid came with a manual! Havent narrowed it down but I think thats where I am heading. What do you think?
What might be really funny would be to do a style guide about “Baby talk.”
I too am much more concerned with doing part two of this assignment. I know I will have trouble trying to find a style to write about
I don’t think that I’m understanding correctly, are we trying to parody an already existing style? Or are we free to make our own style from our imagination?
You’re making a parody of some sort, Nicholas. I think the best ones of these really riff off of the rules from Strunk and White.
I’m trying to decide on how to approach part 2. I’m thinking about using a specific band or artist as a frame of reference, but I’m not sure how to make it work yet. I was thinking about favorite movies and the like too, but it didn’t really pan out. I hate that I can’t seem to find the direction I want to take still. :/
I tink either of these ideas will work out, Leeann. And one thing folks can do is start taking a look at some of the examples from past courses that are in EM Journal. We’ll start talking about them on Wednesday, but here’s a link to that work:
http://em-journal.com/
I just read through The Elements of Oatmeal, and I think I’m headed in the right direction with my project. I have started thinking about my project quite a bit, and most of my rules will be parodies of S & W’s rules and maybe even Williams’ rules.
That web link helped to guide me to what you are looking for as well. Now I just have to narrow down my topic.
After taking a look at the examples it has become much clearer to me what is expected in this next project. Now to find a subject to correlate with the Strunk and White book. A favorite movie would be a good one I think. Or maybe a Dr, Seuss book that I used to read.
Dr. Seuss would be really fun. The first one that popped into my head was “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.”
I’m thinking for part 2 I might go with the style of a video game as well, or perhaps a specific fictional setting from a book series I’ve read. There are just so many things that I could try for this!
What video game or book are you thinking of doing?
Thats a cool idea. Never thought about a video game. I had a thought what about ” A gudide to watching Scary movies” since its halloween weekend. There is going to be scary movies on all weekend so I can sit, take notes, and apply them!
Ha! That would be fun/funny to do! It’s not often you get to watch a bunch of scary movies for “research” purposes!
It would be fun to do the Scream movies. I think that doing the style to any kind of movie, music, video game, ect. would be fun. I even considered a style guide about Twitter before my final decision.
I do agree that part 2 now looks harder then I thought. I guess if I write down ideas and or outlines for where I want my manual to go (point wise) I should be okay.
The EM journal really helped me figure out what I need to do in order to make the second part of this project good. Since they are pretty much direct examples, they’re really an excellent resource, as a template.
I sent an email about this, but how are we supposed to submit part one of the Using Style Guides assignment? (I didn’t see an option for it on ecompanion). I’ve looked in a few places on the blog, but I didn’t see any information about how to submit it. Did I miss it?
I posted that same question when you find out can you let us all know please. Is this all one document or revised in one document and the response in another document.
I just emailed everyone about this, but in answer to your specific question: You will make the changes in your original Google doc (whichever of the first two projects you decided to revise), and then you will post that link to the dropbox on emuonline. You will also include a separate essay that explains the changes you made based on the style guides.
I’ve been feeling inspired by some rather original music videos I found on youtube for this project. I’m thinking about taking 2 of my favorite video makers and having them “meet” and write a style guide for others to follow. I think it might work out well for the assignment and keep me interested in it.
So I’ve been out scaring high school students who came by my place trick-or-treating.
I have also finished quite a bit of my part 2 assignment. I think that my rules are pretty clever. I’m excited to read others’ style parodies.
I am struggling with one part though, and that is deciding how to do my chapters. How are others doing thiers?
I know I have it all written out trying to figure out how to organize it. The research part was fun. Watching movies for an assignment. Took notes from my point of view and others. My daughter says ” what class is this that you can watch tv for homework?” I explained the assignment she loved it and offered her advice since she is the unoffical “queen” of scary movies!
I’m thinking about using and changing chapter titles from S & W, but I only have one or two rules for each, and I don’t know if that is okay. I also don’t use rules from all the chapters. Idk what to do for that part. Hopefully peer review will help.
I don’t think I’m going to have chapters necessarily, just headings. I think the most effective way was the one that the oatmeal did, where it just stated a rule and then explained and it gave examples. since we only have to have about 5 rules, it’s probably easier to just have the rules laid out without chapters
I used headings and tweeked the wording a bit. You can understand what Im talking about; hopefully. This was a project that took way too much time. Why are the simple projects the hardest to do? Looking forward topeer review on this one.
I had a lot of fun with this project. I think that the trick is to pick a subject that you really like for the “Style of” portion.