Description
Please read Ch. 2 “Elementary Principles of Composition” pp. 26-40 in Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.Preview the document This book has plenty of straightforward advice in it. Most capable writers encounter and read this book at some point during their education. Don’t be frightened by the page count. It is not terribly dense.
Learning Outcomes:
• To consider style during revision.
Instructions:
• First, complete all of the readings and quizzes on the Rhetoric: Style page.
• Create an MLA style document.
• Read the sample text below.
• Revise the paragraph to change the tone from furious to calm and collected.
• Remember: try to keep the content, the what that is said. You’re trying to change how it is said.
• Have some fun with this one!
Sample Text: (Links to an external site.)
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’
Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
Requirements:
• The document must be in MLA style and uploaded as .doc or .docx.
• The minimum word count is 100 words.
• Do not use any outside sources for this assignment. No works cited page required.
Writing Center
• Click here for Online Coaching from the Writing Center. (Links to an external site.)
• Please be aware that it takes up to 72 hours to receive feedback on an essay.
• To use an online writing coach, you will need a file that contains this assignment’s instructions. Here it is:
