Eng 328b

Metaphors

2005-03-08T22:49:00.000-08:00

I preferred the style of Strunk & White over Williams quite a bit. Strunk and White were a lot more concise about things. Williams also seems to be concerned more with philosophy in writing, whereas Strunk and White is much more instructional. All in all, S&W was just more helpful to me and easier to take in.

As for metaphores, I never had any I really subscribed to. I really dispise clechés, but I managed to google two I agreed with.

A writer is like an auto mechanic. He is never quite satisfied that everything is running as smoothly as possible. Making adjustments and listening to the purr of well-tuned words makes the writer a happy man.

Writing is like composing a song. First come up with a few different ideas that have the same feel to them. Then figure out how the parts fit together best and mesh them together so that the piece flows as smooth as possible.

Williams and style.

2005-02-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

It was hard for me to locate a paper of my own to critique because I lost the vast majority of them in a hard drive failure this summer. Curse you, Seagate! Regardless, I have gotten a feel for some of the soft spots in my writing style.

I found one paragraph from a review I did on Eminem's Stan for a music class many years back, and thought that it could use an improved flow.

Originally it read:
Stan is a story about an obsessed fan of Eminem. In the first two versus Stan writes letters to him. In the first, he just sounds like a big fan, but in the second, he shows more of an unhealthy obsession that borders on insanity. In the third verse, he has gone totally mad because Eminem hasn’t replied to him in six months, locked his girlfriend in the trunk of his car, and intends to drive it off a bridge, while leaving a tape to send to Eminem. Finally, the song ends with Eminem receiving his earlier letters long after everything has unfolded, writing him a concerned reply, and finally remembering hearing about Stan on the news.

Revised:
Stan is a story about an obsessed fan of Eminem. In the first two verses Stan writes letters to him. At first he just sounds like a big fan, but in the second he shows more of an unhealthy obsession that borders on insanity. In the third verse, he has gone totally mad because Eminem has not replied to him in six months, locked his girlfriend in the trunk of his car, and intends to drive it off a bridge while leaving an audio tape to send to Eminem. Finally, the song ends with Eminem receiving Stan’s earlier letters long after everything has unfolded, writing him a concerned reply, and finally remembering having heard about Stan on the news.

It appears that even long after I realized it in back in my high school journalism class freshman year of 1996 I still overuse commas. I also have to make an effort to remain clear as to who is doing what, and he careful about how I use words like “His” as they can often be confused for one of two or more people.

Elements of Style

2005-02-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

I read through The Elements of Style, and found it was helpful in clarifying many of the writing rules I already had been trying to abide by. My writing technique has been more picked up on then taught to me, so it was nice to formalize some of what I had already been doing. Further, I will most likely be keeping the book after this class because it should make a nice reference tool for future writing assignments.

Of course, there were a lot of things in there that I already knew for sure. Things I learned in classes like Comp and Journalism. I suppose you have to take the elementarily with the advanced.

Introduction

2005-02-18T10:41:00.000-08:00

So, you want to know about I, Nate York, do you? Well, I don’t
know why you would. I'm not very interesting. I'm a typical nerd,
into video games, electronics, DnD, computers and what not. I'm
studying "Telecom & film" here at EMU. I am ether going to minor in
journalism or writing, I haven’t decided, and Eng 328 works for both,
so that’s why I am in it and why you are reading this now.
I am starting my job as a pharmacy technician at the U of M
medical center. So far it seems like a decent job. Fill out
prescriptions and run them around. Not much too it, good pay and
benefits.
I’ve been in college since fall of 2000. I started at Central Michigan. Biggest mistake of my life. I transferred to Eastern in 2003. All in all, I’ve found things a little better and a lot cheeper here.
I like to build my own computer, with a little help from my
friends. A wise man once said "Pre assembled boxes are an abomination!
They are an affront to all that is l33t!! A box must be hand crafted
to fit the needs of the individual! Parts must be carefully selected,
lovingly assembled, and tuned with the utmost skill! Only then will
your box be a device worthy of being an extension of your physical
self!" It is one of many, many reasons I hate Macs. Perhaps the next
time I have to do an internal link or blog entry, I'll go into more
detail on that.

First post.

2005-02-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Yay, this is my blog. If you are reading this and are not my professor, Im sorry.