Picturing Texts on the Web

I chose the website www.marines.com, because it was created by the government, which means that they had some very good people designing the site, plus a couple of other different reasons. In terms of balance, I do believe that this website has it. It has a great balance of color for one, with all the colors integrating and creating a nice pattern while doing it. It does offer comparisons on the website also, while they aren't directly wrote. The headings on some of the images, as well as the opening video, give the note that joining the Marines will make you a better person overall, like the 2nd to last picture that has a title "A Better Life." It also has great classification with it too. All of the topics on the website have sub-topics that relate to it, and each one can be explained by clicking on it. It also has great picture descriptions on the site as well. The pictures allow for a lot of things to be said in such a small space, and it also can leave them open ended so that you can get any answer or depiction out of them that you were looking for. There is also great emphasis on the middle text in the page, "Explore the Marine Corps Story," which means that they obviously want you to click on it and explore the story. I also believe that all of the pictures on the website represent a metaphor of some kind. Especially the fourth picture on the bottom, which is of a Hum-V driving fast with the description, "Essential to our Freedom." The act of the Marines in the picture is the metaphor that what they are doing is essential to our freedom. Overall it was a pretty well designed website that hit all of the topics in the Picturing Texts article, and could appeal to all different sorts of people, with all different sorts of answers to their questions.

Post Time

Did you know the post times for this blog are wrong?

Peer Review Recap, Part 2

The things that worked well with the website for me, was that it was easy to navigate the site, in terms of getting from one paper to the next or putting my own paper on there. It was a pretty nice site, put together well. The only thing that really sucked about the site was the editing tools. It wasn't as useful as the google doc's site that we used the first time. It was just a little harder to edit because of the lack of tools. I wish I would have just received more advice in general, I did get good adivce from David and Mattie, but the other person that edited from your other class just wasted my time. It became 10 seconds of my life that I will never get back. I don't know what other advice I could have given to people, most of the papers I read were actually pretty good, there wasn't much I could do for them.
This peer review is the same as the last one pretty much, besides that it was between two classes. I only got three people to edit my paper and two of them were from the class that I was in, so not much of a difference. People should have been required to write what class they were in and each person should have only been allows 4 edits, so if there was four edits already done, you couldn't edit that paper further. Hopefully, that would even out the people that get edits and people would be more satisfied with their edits.

In reading my classmates blogs about Strunk and White, and William's book, I found that a lot of the people had the same feelings and thoughts as I did. I even found it interesting that Rebecca had almost the same idea of the Strunk and white book. In her blog she posted, "this book is very helpful as a reference tool for writers," (http://rcreteau.blogspot.com/). When I was thinking of my comparisons of the books, I too, came across the same idea. That the S&W book would be a good book to keep on hand for quick judgement calls if you get stuck on what to use in a certain situation. Rebecca and Alena also agreed on another comparison that I agreed with, in saying that the S&W book is mostly for strict grammar rules, and doesn't allow for any room in style, it must be kept short, tight, and neat, which was put in form must better by Alena, "I realized that this book contained a lot of answers that I had questions to as a writer. I feel that this book is focused towards the technical part of writing, rather then the quality or eloquence of it.," (http://nenarad07.blogspot.com/). Rebecca touched more on my opinion of my feelings towards the book that changed over time when she posted, "It blatantly answered some of the questions I have always had about specific grammar rules. However, as I read the book more carefully and thoroughly, my opinion of the book changed. Interlaced through the strict style rules..." (Becca). I whole heartily agree with this change in opinion. At the beginning of reading the book I thought it was a great book for writers that want to improve their writing, but then realized it's not really for improving your writing, just improving the structure of how it looks on paper. It was too strict and didn't give enough information or suggestions on style for improving writing, it didn't open the mind up to a new style or better style you could say. Both of them also agreed that William's information was much more complex, which I also agree with. You really have to pay attention to the reading and try to understand all of his suggestions in order to comprehend what is being suggested to improve your writing. Reading their blogs revealed to me that many of the other students feel the same way that I do about the books, which was kind of a relief in a small way (it let me know I was on the same page as them). :)

From what I recall in the reading, William's didn't hit the rules I discussed in my Strunk and White blog very much, mostly because it's a different type of book. Strunk and White'sbook was more of a straight to the point, no "why" about it. While Williams' book was not just giving certain rules for writing but why they were that way and even good examples of how to use them. I think Strunk and White's book was a lot farther in depth when it came to the grammar rules like commas, colons, etc. It gave a good basic layout for each type of punctuation in writing and a small example of each. William's did this in part, but not in depth and not on as many things as Stunk and White. Williams' book was a lot easier to understand and follow though, especially when he was explaining the sentence structures and different ways to make them flow, along with paragraphs and topics. He actually explains things in his book which was very helpful, because I personally am a person that doesn't like knowing or doing something without the "why" of it. I think it makes it easier to write "correctly" when you know why you are supposed to write this way, or why you should or shouldn't use this word or punctuation at this part of your writing. Overall I think the information Williams' gave on all of his chapters, but especially on the chapter Coherence, because it was a new way of thinking about your writing and it explains it very well. Which I think will allow me and many other people that read this book, the ability to write better for our careers. I think Stunk and White's book was only more effective in actually stating and reinforcing the basic rules of writing, it would be a good book for reference while writing if you were unsure of what word or punctuation to use at a certain point.

Revising with Williams

Original sentence:

A credit adjustment of 100 percent of tuition and fees for the fall and winter semesters, less the $40 nonrefundable registration fee, will be made to those students who cancel their registration or withdraw from the University through the eighth class day. For the spring and summer sessions, a 100 percent credit adjustment, less the $40 nonrefundable registration fee, will be made during the first four days of classes. Actual dates are printed in the class schedule book for each semester and session or on the Web.

Revised sentence:

For a credit adjustment with less than a $40 nonrefundable registration fee, in the fall or winter, 100 percent of the tuition and fee's will be returned to the student if they withdraw or cancel their registration by the eighth day of class. The same applies for summer and spring semesters, as long as the student withdraws within the first four days of class. Exact dates are printed in the class schedule book for each semester or on the web.

I chose to re-write this particular paragraph because when I first read it I didn't really understand what it was even talking about. I had to read it a second time, slower, so that I could understand what it was actually about. The original paragraph makes the writing impersonal. I wanted it to appeal more to the person reading it and to appeal to anyone reading it. Most of the sentences and some of the words in it were too broad and didn't make it sound like they were directly writing to a student, or even a new student, more to a person that has already had to deal with that situation or that works in the University. The way the sentence was arranged was also what made it hard to read, so I rearranged it to satisfy the flow of the reading as Williams suggests. There were also different ways that I arranged the sentences that got rid of useless words that just cluttered the sentences, making them even harder to understand. Overall with the advice and reading of Williams I think that I made this sentence easier to read and understand, increase the flow and make the writing a little more personal so someone can relate to it.