However, having immediately read the Times before writing this blog post, I suspect that the short-paragraph format of that newspaper may have influenced the frequent paragraph breaks in this post, thereby influencing my writing habits on some small level, even if only temporarily.
I could certainly expand upon this point, given my experiences of the past few weeks. Although I initially made a correct statement in my hypothesis that reading the Times is affecting my writing style, I most likely understated its effects. Moreover, as an analysis of how taking English 105, as a whole, is affecting my writing style, there is more to be said yet about how my style is changing, and it isn't all because of the Times.
In addition to the new phenomenon of frequent paragraph breaks occurring throughout my most recent writing assignments and blog posts, I feel that I may go into greater detail with my texts than I have in the past, a feature of both the style of the Times as well as that of Harris, whose book we are working our way through as a class.
For instance, I feel as though I tend to follow a pattern of first making a general statement and then following it with a specific example. As I wrote on October 27:
Though I have no trouble seeing where he is coming from in his will to explicate the changing relationship between the press and the individual, I feel he oversimplifies to an embarrassing extent.
That is my generalization, followed by specifics:
The press has never been the only filter for news. There have always been observers—if not publically commenting on blog pages, perhaps just injecting their own feelings into a word-of-mouth news account. There has always been a separation between the press and the government whereby the two can be considered distinct entities.
I don’t believe it’s possible to adequately represent every change in my technique since the beginning of the semester, as some are more subtle than others, but my newfound consciousness of this generalization-to-specific format has made me more aware of when this tendency surfaces.
You seemed to have found a way to combine forwarding and countering in the same post (and a way to cleanly format your block quotes). Well done.
ReplyDeleteI hope the short paragraph breaks don't get you into trouble in other courses. I know short breaks can be fun and habit-forming, but they don't always lead to academic success. Supporting generalizations with evidence, however, is an excellent habit.