Style, a definition:
Using certain kinds of sentences and words that serve the your and your audience’s values, expectations, and goals.
Style can be thought of how you manage patterns, repetition, and disruptions of those patterns and repetitions. Deciding on those patterns, repetitions, and disruptions matters when you consider your audience.
In the Blankenship reading, the consideration of audience is what that audience might expect from you and what your audience’s values and expectations are:
- what sorts of words are they used to hearing? (e.g., technical vocabulary, colloquial language) What do they value? (e.g., investors respond well to language that centers a return on investment)
- what kinds of sentences would your audience expect and value? (e.g., long ones, complex ones, simple ones)
- what kinds of organization or paragraphing? (e.g., long paragraphs, short ones)
Here is what we will focus on this semester, more specifically, in regard to style:
- Voice and Audience
- Word origins and tone
- Words and register
- Sentences: Phrases and Clauses
- Sentences: Active and passive voice
- Sentences: Cohesion
- Sentences: Types
- Sentences: Length
- Sentences: Punctuation
- Sentences: Tropes and Figures
- …possibly more, we shall see…
Task
When you think about style, what comes to mind OTHER than writing and speaking? Comment below in response to this question by naming 1-2 things in the comments section below and how style in that domain is similar and/or different from how style is used in terms of writing and speaking.
After commenting below, click on the button below to continue:
When I think of style I think of a person who has their own unique way on how they dress. This is similar to style in writing because a writing style is your own type of way of writing and expressing your story.
When I think about style, I think about how a person goes about their day. How they dress, how they spend their money, and how they live. Someone can have a frugal lifestyle or spend a large amount of money for no real reason. A person’s lifestyle can also relate to and be similar to how they approach their writing and speaking.
Aside from writing and speaking, style can also represent how someone presents themselves by how they groom, dress, and body language. The style of presentation can relate to the style of speaking and writing because in a stereotypical and assumptive world, one can presume someone well-groomed and presentable, and dressed eloquently with designer clothing and jewelry, with proper posture in the way they sit or walk equates to upper-class, well-educated, and well-mannered people. Similarly, one can deduct a lot about a writer or a speaker, like how someone can presume based on appearances, by the style in which they write or speak through the various diction and rhetoric used.
When I think about style, I think about how a person act. They may act normally with their friends but act differently when they are with their family or in a work environment. The vibe they give off might be different depending on different time, place, and occasion. That is similar to writing differently depending on who your audience is and the type of essay.
When I think of style I think of how a person acts and dresses.
When I think of style I think of how a person acts and dresses. This is similar to writing because people can use a certain style or have their own style of writing.
When I think of style, I usually relate that to how the other person is presenting themselves. This can be how they walk, their gestures, there appearance, it all matters. You can judge a person’s character by taking a quick glance at them. This is similar in writing and speaking, you’ll notice a writer’s or speaker’s patterns after interacting with them for a while. You get to know what they excel at and what they are weak at.
When I think of style, the first thing that comes to mind is a person’s appearance and how they present themselves. This is usually shown through clothing and how they act/speak. A person’s style adds to their individualism and this relates to one’s unique way of writing.
When I think of the word “style,” the first thing that comes to mind is how a person dresses and presents himself. In reality, style is a lot more than that. Style ranges from how a person dresses and presents themself, all the way to who he associates with. Ultimately I think that these things often go hand in hand and that one’s style can be a window to their personality.
The first thing that comes to mind when someone says style is someones fashion and how they put together clothes. The second thing would be someones style in skating, how they perform tricks. Both are like style in writing since they are unique to a person, and if one’s imitating a popular style it’s immediately noticeable as the originator’s. Usually someone will be called out as an imitator and unoriginal as well in writing, fashion, and skating if they are caught copying someones style.
What comes to mind first when I hear the word “style” is someone’s appearance and the way that they dress, the way they interact with others. Basically how the other person shows themselves to surrounding people. Someone’s “style” is their own characteristics and no one can change that about them. If you think about it every human being has their own style. No matter how it is portrayed, through how someone speaks and how someone dresses, we are all unique in our own ways. So this is what comes to me when I hear the word “style” outside of reading and writing.
Music style comes to mind when I think of “style”. When a person sings, it varies from other individuals. Each has its it own twist that makes their music stand out since their music represents who they are and how they portray to the world.
Aside from writing and speaking, the word “style” refers to someone’s personality/aura or as an action. In Jamaica we use style as a way of describing someone. For instance, “She’s full of style”, it’s like saying “that girl is dope” or “she has good vibes”. In that sense “style” isn’t negative, it’s positive. A compliment.
When I think of style other than writing I think about a person’s style of clothing or how they dress or act etc. This I relatable to writing because you can also dress your writing, you can dress in a very casual way or in a fancy way, however, you decide.
When i think of style other than writing, i think of how someone represents themselves, so i guess you could say fashion.
When I think of style I immediately think of how someone may dress, the particular fashions they choose to wear, how they style their hair or makeup etc. I think gesticulation, or lack there of, can add a lot to a persons style or voice.
When I think about style I think about how a person expresses themselves. I think about how comfortable the person is.
When I think of the word “style”, the first thing that comes to my mind is how people dress. The way they dress often expresses a feature of one of their passions in some way. The colors in which they dress often portray an aspect of their personality as well.
From Sofy: I see style as personality. So when I think of style, I think of what I believe in, what I fight for as a person, my protests, my arguments. I think of what I like to do and why, and how that relates to my upbringing and life. I can see that in my writing because some way or another, in nearly every essay I write, I manage to bring in politics ( something I am passionate about), or essence of human life ( philosophy, which is also something I am passionate about). I like to reread my writing and see if I see my father in it ( he is a journalist, so I grew up having writing competitions and reading a whole lot with him).
When I think of style I think of fashion and how differences in the way someone dresses creates different styles. Similar to literary style, the fashion industry is very familiar with breaking patterns, especially contemporary fashion which contains very unique patterns. I also think of tastes and preferences when I think of style and similarly, style in the context of writing might be preferred depending on who is perceiving the style.