Clarity Part 1

In the following blog post I reflect on what I read in Rules for Writers

Screenshot taken by Dylan Cotter 9/19/2015 Keep Calm & follow the rules, Public Domain Usage

1. Emphasize key ideas

According to the book, emphasizing key ideas can be accomplished by putting key ideas in the subject and verb of the words that readers will pay the most attention to. I found that the book gave some useful tools to help coordinate the main idea and continually reinforcing it. I like to combine these with my own use of emotional words to add a 'shock value' to the article.

2. Tighten Wordy sentences and Paragraphs

This is something that I definitely need to work on. I tend to ramble on with complex adjectives and smart sounding words, however these are unneeded. The book points out that getting rid of phrases such as "i think that" or "i believe that" will give your sentences more of a compounded feel and will state them like fact an not an opinion.

3. Using Variety

The book states that most writers use similar sentence openings and similar sentence structures, they get stuck in a loop of sorts. Providing some variety in sentence structure and vernacular used can keep the reader engaged and on their toes. I feel like I do a mostly good job at not getting stuck in a routine, however, I think everyone can benefit from changing up their style every now and again.

4. Choosing appropriate language

This section was the most fun to me because it finally had a little bit of humor in it. The purpose of choosing correct language is to not turn people off your paper and enrage people. The book tries to steer people away from using sexist, racial, offensive language including swearing an slang. Since a QRG is intended to be for all audiences, so you can't limit yourself with bad language. This will be something that I intend to watch, but i laugh because I jus
t imagine someone writing "and so the oscars controversy is of course a f**king race thing you idiot!"


Reflection

I reviewed Morgan and Nick's blog and I found that she wrote about Trigger warnings.

I wrote about variety above and Morgan does a great job with it, she varies her writing style so that it is always engaging. I don't believe she ever uses the same sentence starters twice and switches from informal to formal so that the reader is given the information they desired. Then the informal style satisfies the readers need to hear from others what they are thinking.

Morgan also is a great example of the wordy sentences that I wrote about. "The people who are in favor of trigger warnings are worried about protecting students who may have been victims of abuse from being triggered by any material in their classes." Is an example of a longer sentence in her QRG, however the sentence is packed with information and also needs to be that long. I need to learn how to do this.

Nick's blog is a highly debated topic, one that if you had heard of it you would automatically have an opinion on it. Nick's blog is perfectly suited to have opinion and his own values thrust into it. So his blog is an excellent example of picking appropriate language. "Overall, the debate questions the ethics of these Chinese scientists and their actions to alter the human genome" This is a perfect tap sentence but nick does a good job at removing himself from the trap.