Style

Tonight’s reading was Chapter 12- Style and Arguments. I found this chapter very interesting. I had never really thought about writing having a style like clothing and architecture does. I had always hear about the author’s “voice” but never specifically about a style. After reading this chapter though, I now understand how many different elements can go into creating a style for your writing.
The first section on word choice talked about how we speak or write differently for our different audiences. Clearly I am going to write differently in these blogs than in a paper or a text to a friend. And of course there will be different jargon used with different groups. The section about punctuation kind of confused me though. I thought that it was more about simply varying sentence length than adjusting punctuation. I would never use an exclamation point in a formal essay. I feel that it would be informal and unprofessional to use it in this context.
I would also avoid using metaphors and similies in formal papers. I have always been taught, in high school, that figurative language such as this should be taken out of research papers and formal essays. The textbook made it seem okay to add these in though. They spoke of how they could actually enhance your argument instead of weaken it. I found this very interesting, but I also feel that they must be used carefully. I feel that flowery language can turn a paper from a strong argument to a piece of prose fiction. In this section there were also tropes that I never thought were actually things. I never realized antonomasia and irony were parts of style.
There were many things in this chapter that I feel will help me with my own writing style. I will now be conscious of it and work at it.