Wednesday, September 15, 2010

My Thoughts on William Strunk Jr.'s Elements of Style.

Strunk's rules seem much like the ones I have been told to use since I first began writing. Many of his suggestions are obvious and very familiar to me. For the most part, I agree with and do try to follow most of these rules when writing. They simply make sense for basic, concise and especially academic writing. Having this list handy for every school essay probably would not hurt.

On the other hand, I can't help but to forget these rules, at times on purpose. When writing outside of school I like to think I can neglect the standard and do as I please. There are moments when I feel that worrying about rules results in a loss of creativity in writing for me. Therefore, when it's personal I prefer to have no restrictions.

I won't deny that these rules can be very helpful, but it matters on what you're applying them to. In my opinion, if everyone always wrote while following these guidelines they would become bored in no time, but we also wouldn't have any trouble reading it. In the end, it all depends.

1 comment:

  1. The rules involved in writing can be overwhelming and it will be interesting to see how these rules will change with our reliance on texting.

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