What are other people thinking?

After reading through other students’ blogs I noticed that my opinions about Strunk and White versus Williams agreed with many other opinions in the class. I read through Nena’s entry and found several things that I agreed with. For one, she wrote that Strunk and White don’t go into as much detail as Williams, and that the details and explanation in Williams are what makes it a more useful reference. I also agree that Strunk and White is directed at a less advanced audience. Nena also pointed out that Strunk and White starts with the basics, which I agree with, although I think that Williams has a much more effective beginning because he doesn’t just give punctuation and grammar rules, but he begins with the basics of proper composition of a sentence. Strunk and White begin with punctuation and grammar rules that seem to be annoying to them, but they don’t provide any relevance to the reader. I agree with Nena that Strunk and White seemed much more opinionated and that they were more interested in making students avoid those things that annoyed them, but didn’t provide the reader with any motivation to want to follow the rules. One thing I disagreed with Nena about is that I don’t think the two books begin with the same information, or in the same format as Strunk and White. I think this is one of the major differences between the texts. However, I do agree with the fact that they both begin with fundamentals of writing. Williams is different because he builds on his beginning and has a better organization to the ideas he’s trying to convey. Each chapter builds on information acquired from the previous.

I also looked at Becca’s blog. I agree with her that Strunk and White is useful, for referencing specific grammar rules, and I also agree that after discussing in class and reading Williams, I changed my opinion about Strunk and White. I also have a better sense of the arrogance that is evident in Strunk and White. I can see more clearly how dated Strunk and White is, but I think it is still an important book, and it would have been much more helpful back at the time it was written. I think we have to consider that Strunk and White are both products of their time, and that some of that arrogance is to be expected because of the nature of writing. I also agreed with Becca that Williams uses better examples, and that he helps the reader learn how to make judgment calls about applying certain guidelines. Overall, there wasn’t very much that I disagreed with, and most people agree with me that Williams was overall a much more useful text than Strunk and White.