The collaborative, service-learning project in my Electronic Writing and Publishing course required my editorial team to create a website for the US Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association of Georgia. The website  was a collaborative effort to take the content we received form our contact at the association and effectively display it in a manner that made navigation easy and information easy to find. We all contributed equally, and I enjoyed creating something that would be beneficial to the organization in the future.

Click on the screen cap of the main page of the website to view the website itself.

This service project reflection outlined my role in the project and what I learned in completing the project.

Both my Editing and Electronic Writing and Publishing courses included required service-learning projects as a part of its final grade. Dr. Smith-Sitton set up a project with SAMLA where we wrote biographies of the Honorary Members as editorial teams. My job as Layout and Design Editor was to make each biography conform to the style guide, which the class collectively created before we started writing the biographies. Between the four members of the group, we wrote, copy edited, and perfected the biographies before turning them in to Dr. Smith-Sitton for final review.

Francis Fergusson

Original Francis Fergusson Biography, written by a classmate: FrancisFergussonOriginal

First edit, made by me, including a title formatting change: Robert_FergRevised_LauraEdit1

Second edit, made by me, including combining two paragraphs to match with the formatting of the other stories and right aligning the text to match the style guide requirements: Robert_FergRevised_LauraEdit2

Final version, including a few copy edits and revisions: Fergusson_Robert_Final

Katherine Anne Porter

Original Katherine Porter biography, written by me: KatherinePorterOriginal

Edited for layout and design and paragraphs reduced to four: Laura_Porter_LCA2

Final revision, including three paragraphs to match the layout of the other biographies and right alignment to meet the style guide requirements: Porter_Laura_Final

The Persona Analysis called for a short rhetorical analysis of a public figure, identifying the rhetorical tactics used for the figure to fully develop their persona. At the time, I had recently discovered the “Sexy Sax Man,” a saxophone player named Sergio Flores who is famous for wearing a specific costume and playing “Careless Whisper” in public places. I used the rhetorical appeals of both Aristotle and Cicero to break down the actions of Flores.

Laura Apperson
Persona Analysis
April 2, 2012

Sexy Sax Man

 The Sexy Sax Man, Sergio Flores, is a musician who is famous for his “saxograms,” pranks where he plays his saxophone to George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” in malls, stores, colleges, and other locations in California. Typically his pranks result in security directing him out of the location he is playing in. He sports a mullet wig, skinny jeans, sunglasses, suspenders, and no shirt. He has become known for these pranks and his outfit. He has acquired an application for iPhone and the public can pay him to come play “Careless Whisper” in California.

Flores demonstrates Aristotle’s appeals to rhetoric – logos, ethos, and pathos – with his performances. He uses George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” a song that is extremely familiar, to strengthen his logos. If he used a song that was very unknown, people would be less likely to listen to his music and take notice in his performance. He makes the audience laugh by dressing in costume, sporting suspenders and black skinny jeans without a shirt, wearing a black mullet wig, and keeping on a pair of black sunglasses inside. He also makes them laugh by dancing on tables while he plays his saxophone and putting on a hilarious performance. This appeal to emotions strengthens Flores’ pathos. Finally, Flores is very talented at saxophone, which strengthens his credibility, or his ethos. Even if he played “Careless Whisper” and donned a very hilarious costume, without his talent of playing saxophone no one would contact him for a “saxogram.”

Flores’ persona is also shaped by Cicero’s canons of rhetoric – invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory. Flores must invent his act – the song, the costume, and, essentially, his persona. His arrangement of his performance includes preparation for the visit and an intent to improvise when it comes to dancing and entertaining. He does not use words to define his style, but uses appearance and body language to define his style. In his delivery, he uses the element of surprise as his entrance and his dynamic performance defines the way he plays his music and presents his show. He also has “Careless Whisper” memorized.

The Sexy Sax Man’s persona can be analyzed using the ideas of both Cicero and Aristotle. His rhetorical style may be different, but it is definitely effective.

To say my Twentieth-Century Composition Theory and Practice course with Dr. Michael Harker was a joy would be a gross understatement. The course opened my eyes to so many literary theories and ideas about how education—and, more specifically, writing education—could be improved made me more passionate about how writing works in everyday life. The final seminar paper required students to provide a persuasive argument about something relating to literacy and composition theory. I chose to write about home literacy and its necessity for enhancing education at school. This paper not only displays my ability to persuade and effectively use research that supports my argument but also my passion for literacy and its role in society.

Laura Apperson
April 27, 2012
Dr. Harker

Final Seminar Paper

In recent years, the term “literacy” has come to mean something very specific to American culture: learning to read and write. This term and its association with a skills-based conception has propelled literacy campaigns to fight adult illiteracy and literacy myths to define what literacy should mean. However, it seems that the term “literacy” should not restrict itself to one singular definition: people communicate, and learn how to do so, in different ways. For some cultures, being literate in a spoken language is adequate enough to live and work in the community. For others, knowing how to read (and, additionally, at a very high level) is the only way to live and work comfortably in their community. Also, for some, becoming literate in a community does not include going to a formal school and following a certain path. Literacy, David Barton states, “starts from everyday life and from everyday activities which people are involved in” and “includes any activity which involves the written word” (34-35). If these factors differ so much, it seems peculiar that we define literacy based on what an institution defines it as when it does not line up with what literacy means to us in our everyday lives. If literacy is more ecological rather than skills-based and “education has not been used as a starting point” (citation here?) to define literacy, then home literacy plays a huge role in a child’s education — more so than learning in a formal educational setting.

Though English language and literature had a great reputation of scholarship and criticism, it has only been taught for a little over 100 years, and English departments themselves are even younger than that (Parker 3). Harvard did not have an English professor until 1876, over 200 years after the college originally opened (Parker 5). These early teachers of English were also often teachers of speech, since oratory and elocution were a big deal around the time of Patrick Henry in the United States and Edmund Burke in England. Parker notes that “if English has been somewhat late in gaining academic recognition and respectability in the United States,…it would probably never have been so strongly affected by educational events in the 1880’s and 1890’s” (12). During this time, college enrollment doubled, specialization increased, and the concept of a department emerged. Since more students were attending school, some kind of official administration was necessary: in the 1890’s, Harvard created an English department. These departments became “competitive and ambitious” (12), and professors of English wanted to “increase the prestige of their subject” (13) as well as the number of students and course offerings. In 1892, the “Committee of Ten” decided that literature and composition should be a unified class in high schools (14). Following this event, college entrance exams followed suit by linking the two subjects together. Speech, which used to be very important when studying English, became left out.

How does this history of the English department explain how literacy is defined today? English departments are still young, and, as Parker comments, still have much to learn (15). The departments have been founded as a result of social events, such as a rise in college enrollment, and curriculums changed as a result of illiteracy scares, such as Newsweek’s “Why Johnny Can’t Write.” This 1975 cover story included

How can one explain these moments of curriculum change based on the fear of illiteracy? Harvey Graff defines the term “literacy myth” in his essay “The Literacy Myth at Thirty” as “the belief…that the acquisition of literacy is a necessary precursor to and invariably results in economic development, democratic practice, cognitive enhancement, and upward social mobility” (635). The literacy myth can be found not only in an educational setting, but in civic, religious, and other contemporary and historical settings. One of the most groundbreaking and shocking parts of the myth is that the benefits that come with literacy cannot be obtained in other ways, and they cannot be credited to other factors.

Though Graff admits that the literacy myth is grounded in some truth, it has become a cultural ideology and a very powerful, revision-resistant, longstanding staple (638). However, literacy itself is currently viewed as something that is transformative, and, in fact, historically-founded. Its purpose is to organize and offer an explanation for assumptions and theories, while, at the same time, offering an explanation for institutions and how they work. Recalling Parker’s feelings about English departments, Graff comments that something that long maintained the literacy myth were “dreams of mobility — making it America” (644). The literacy myth implies the promise of achievement (Graff 644).

If literacy is transformative, as Graff claims, how can learning at home affect a child’s learning, and, ultimately, help change people’s definition of literacy? Felicity Martini and Monique Sénéchal conducted a study to examine how learning at home affects a child’s early literacy. They begin by discussing the Home Literacy Model, a model that made a clear distinction between informal literacy activities, such as a parent reading a book to a child, and formal literacy activities, such as a parent pointing to the alphabet while reading a book. The model states that while these two are both part of a child’s early development, informal literacy does not relate to early literacy, and formal literacy does (1). The researchers decided to conduct a study in order to expand understanding of this model, focusing mainly on the relation of child interest, parent expectation for the child, and a young child’s literacy acquisition (2).

Both parents and children were examined; parents were given a questionnaire that required them to discuss formal literacy teaching activities (such as teaching letter sounds, names, and printing words), the expectation they had for their children’s literacy acquisition, and the amount of time they had to spend on teaching their children (3-4). The children were tested on their language acquisition and reading ability, then tested with pictures to see how interested in the formal literacy activities they were (4).

The researchers found that the most common material parents used were storybooks, but parents who spent time teaching their child used many different materials and also incorporated their teaching in their children’s everyday lives (5-6). The researchers also found that parents typically had very high expectations for their child’s literacy skills, with nearly half of the parents admitting that they wanted their children to know how to print and read words before Grade 1 (6). Curiously, parent reports of teaching how to read was the only parent measure that was associated with child interest in literacy (6).

The researchers concluded that parent expectations and child interest accounted for differences in a child’s early literacy, and, therefore, broadened the Home Literacy Model. Barton supports this discovery, mentioning a study by Margaret Clark in 1976. Clark found that the one thing that 32 children entering school had in common was that their parents had a strong oral involvement at home; they were keen readers and participated in many literacy practices that the children were a part of (183).

So, how does parent teaching at home differ from teaching in a more educational setting?Barton notes that the home is an extremely important literacy domain because it is a place in which a wide range of activities occur that can strengthen a child’s early literacy (150). Martini and Sénéchal both note that parents who report that they are teaching have children who are more interested in literacy and the parents themselves have high expectations for their children (9). Though Martini and Sénéchal’s study does not factor informal literacy activities into the picture and uses the Home Literacy Model as a foundation for their study, the fact that parent teaching in the home has a clear affect on a child’s emergent reading and alphabet knowledge makes it peculiar that schools have not taken this into consideration. The researchers wonder the same thing, stating that “in time, the cumulative knowledge gained from research on the home literacy environment could facilitate the development of partnerships between home and school; partnerships that share the common goal of optimizing children’s literacy acquisition” (9). If children have a foundation of home literacy before they go to college, how does this affect how they learn in college, especially with parent expectation being a large factor in strengthening the Home Literacy Model, according to Martini and Sénéchal?

If partnerships can occur between home and school, and the literacy myth should be somewhat maintained, as Graff suggested, how could parents help teach something like David Bartholomae’s discussion in “Inventing the University: When You Have No Idea What You’re Doing?” Bartholomae argues in this essay that students in college must “invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language while finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline, on the other” (606). Colleges expect students to understand this type of writing seemingly without any preparation or expectation of having to write in this specific discourse that the university deems acceptable. Learning becomes more of about imitation than invention (Bartholomae 612). It is artificial, and, while Bartholomae holds that a good writer does need to consider the audience and the type of writing that the audience prefers, the way a student learns how to write this discourse seems unfair. Where are students expected to start, then?

With the awareness of the literacy myth and the knowledge that schools and universities require a particular discourse, it is possible that home literacy could prepare students for this kind of writing. Barton says that in the home, “one can look in more detail and examine the wide range of activities involving different literacies” (39). If this is true, then parents can spend more time with children as they learn how to read and write and as they grow in writing to adapt to this type of discourse. “What is of interest to schools,” Barton claims, “should be what children know about literacy” (182). Schools also seem to ignore home practices, which not only creates a huge wall between school and home practices, but makes it difficult for the student to resolve the two practices. Students have to identify with either one or the other (Barton 182).

How should the home and school begin to create a partnership? In Rona Flippo’s essay “Transcending the Divide: Where College and Secondary Research Coincide,” Flippo suggests that teachers should draw on out-of-school experiences, such as home practices, and personal knowledge to form links to new concepts and to apply new knowledge to problems and situations that the students care about (400). Since child interest is so important in home practices (Martini 6), shouldn’t it be just as important in school? Additionally, Barton stresses how important oral literacy is as a child in home practices (Barton 182) and Parker wonders why English completely abandoned training in speech and oral composition (Parker 15). Maybe schools should refocus on speech and oral literacy — it seems to be a key factor in children’s literacy, and, as Parker remarks, schools should be teaching speech skills to English students, especially those who want to become teachers (Parker 15).

Barton, Bartholomae, Parker, Graff, and Flippo have all taught something that needs to be addressed: the way people view literacy today. Home practices matter more than people realize. It is the oral literacy that makes the difference in children’s literacy, and, in turn, in a college student’s literacy. If home and school find a way to partner up with the desire to improve literacy, then the literacy myth can be transformed, and, eventually, considered more legitimate. As Graff said, “our task is not to disprove or ‘explode’ the literacy myth, but to understand it, and reinterpret it to serve more equitable, progressive humane goals” (652).

Works Cited

Barton, David. Literacy. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Print.

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University: When You Have No Idea What You’re Doing.”

Flippo, Rona F. “Transcending The Divide: Where College And Secondary Reading And Study Research Coincide.” Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 54.6 (2011): 396-401. Literary Reference Center. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Graff, Harvey J. “The Literacy Myth at Thirty.” Journal of Social History 43.3 (2010): 635-661.

Martini, Felicity, and Monique Sénéchal. “Learning Literacy Skills At Home: Parent Teaching, Expectations, And Child Interest.”Canadian Journal Of Behavioural Science/Revue Canadienne Des Sciences Du Comportement (2012): PsycARTICLES. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Parker, William Riley. “Where Do English Departments Come From?” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Marilyn Moller. London: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 2009. 3-16. Print.

The text below comes from my Senior Seminar with Dr. Elizabeth Burmester. The assignment called for a stylistic analysis of a professional text, and we were allowed to choose any text we wished. I chose a memoir from The Paris Review, The Tender Night by Paula Fox, since I read the publication often and was struck by that particular piece. The assignment required a lot of time analyzing the author’s stylistic habits, choices, and tendencies. I spent many hours breaking up sentences, identifying parts of speech, and looking for patterns. Through this analysis, I discovered many ways to personally improve my style in the ways I saw Ms. Fox’s style working.

Stylistic Analysis of a Professional Text: The Tender Night, Paula Fox

A stylistic analysis of a text opens the reader’s eyes to both effective and ineffective methods in which a writer communicates to an audience. These factors include sentence variety and structure, use of transition words, point of view, and punctuation. While analyzing Paula Fox’s The Tender a Night, a memoir written for The Paris Review, I spent time examining the elements of her text listed above in hopes to improve my writing and examine a professional piece for writing quality.

My sample, which did not include the entire piece, was a total of 1,405 words and contained 75 sentences and 22 paragraphs. The first thing I noticed about Ms. Fox’s work was that the length of her sentences varied widely throughout the piece: the longest sentence was 65 words (“Years earlier, I had overheard my mother speak scornfully about opera to one of my uncles—‘all those fat people standing around bellowing at each other,’ she had said, and although I never consciously paid any attention to my mother’s aesthetic opinions—they couldn’t penetrate the obscuring darkness between us—somehow her words had been able to leave a stain for me in operatic music.”), and the shortest was only 3 (“She laughed outright”). Despite this stark difference, the average sentence length was 18.7 words, and about half were over the average length (34) while only slightly more were under the average length (41). I noticed while reading the memoir that Ms. Fox tended to use shorter sentences when attempting to emphasize an event occurring between characters or to move along the scene at a quicker pace. I found Ms. Fox’s use of many different sentence lengths an effective way to keep the reader engaged in the story and to provide variety within the paragraphs.

She also has a wide variety of sentence types, but she uses mostly simple sentences adorned with descriptions and additions that make the sentence more full, such as prepositional phrases or the use of “and” to add information (“I shook it, aware of its warmth and firmness” and “Now he was trying the tenants on my floor”).

Her sentence contain elements of parallelism, and typically is broken into three different parts, especially when she is listing something. One example of this is when she describes the main character’s roommate, Dwayne: “Dwayne would often return home to 6E from rehearsals, smoke a little marijuana, and lie down on the living-room floor to sleep for an hour or two.” Dwayne’s routine when he came home from work is described as a triad of activities. Another instance of this is when the narrator is speaking to the main character’s mother: “I spoke of the pleasures of the park on the other side of the broad avenue, asked her pointless questions about the town she came from, and mentioned neighborhood crime, attributing it to poverty and hopelessness.” The narrator asks these questions in a set of three.

Ms. Fox uses transition words sparingly, and tends to use mostly time-related words to identify when conversations and events occur within her memoir, such as “now,” “once,” “when,” and “while.” In my sample, each of these words is used only once, except for “when,” which is used twice. Ms. Fox’s most common transition word is “although,” which is often used to provide contrast and to show the personality of a character in greater detail. A sentence in the third paragraph describing the main character of the memoir illustrates this (“He loved the title, Tender is the Night, although he had never heard of the writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald”).

Since The Tender Night is a memoir, it is written entirely in first person except for when a character speaks to the narrator using “you.” In this sample, 47 sentences use the first-person point of view. the word “I” is used 50 times, while “we” or “our” is used nine times. Out of the 75 total sentences, only 33 do not contain the words “I” or “you.” I found this technique to draw the reader into the story in a way that greatly sympathizes with the narrator. When Ms. Fox uses dialogue that contains the word “you,” I felt like the character was speaking directly to me rather than the narrator. Though the story is told in first person, the narrator often uses pronouns such as “she” and “he” to describe the people with whom she interacts.

I found that Ms. Fox introduces sentences most often with one of these first-, second-, or third-person pronouns—“I,” “he,” our,” “we,” and “she”—moving the story and transitioning with the action of the characters in her story. When she wants to move on from a scene and transition into another, she often uses a simple transition word or phrase like “later,” “years earlier,” or “one late afternoon” to clearly mark the ending of the previous scene and the beginning of a new one.

Another way Ms. Fox moves the story forward is through the use of punctuation. She uses commas quite often—especially when describing a character or when painting a picture for the reader. For example, when describing the narrator’s children’s bedroom, she uses a sentence filled with extra clauses and descriptors that contains four commas: “Except the boys’ bedroom, full of books and games, their discarded clothes all over the floor, the rest of the my rooms looked bare, even meager.”

She never uses exclamation points or question marks, even in her dialogue. Instead of expressing excitement or interrogation through punctuation, Ms. Fox describes the feelings and reactions of the characters through her narrator. The last sentence in the sample displays this well, as Ms. Fox could have added an exclamation to the sentence to reinforce the emotion of the speaker: “She laughed outright. ‘You see, they agree with me,’ she said.” Instead of adding an exclamation to the speaker’s statement, Ms. Fox described the feeling in the speaker’s actions: “She laughed outright.”

I would describe Ms. Fox’s style as tough, plain, and middle styles. Since she is often brief in her descriptions and does not use passive voice, her writing is tough. Since her language is colloquial and lacks ornateness, it is of the middle style. I would also describe her style as plain, since her language is current and familiar and she does not use words that are difficult to understand. The sample contains none of Longinus’ writing flaws; her language is consistent throughout the sample and contains no trace of hollowness, immaturity, excessiveness, or over-sentimentality. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level for this text is 7.8, which reinforces the claim that her writing is easy to read and uses colloquial, familiar language. The following sentence is a good example of Ms. Fox’s colloquial yet well constructed language:

“Years earlier I had overheard my mother speak scornfully about opera to one of my uncles—‘all those fat people standing around bellowing at each other,’ she had said, and although I never consciously paid any attention to my mother’s aesthetic opinions—they couldn’t penetrate the obscuring darkness between us—somehow her words had been able to leave a stain for me on operatic music.”

Ms. Fox’s language is void of lofty or overly sophisticated words is her, yet does not contain immature language or demean the audience by using lower language. Her descriptions are full and effective without being over the top.

What I drew most from Ms. Fox’s writing style is her keen ability to describe people and occurrences using a variety of sentences—changing both in length and type. She almost never uses the same sentence structure twice, but maintains a parallelism that is essential to keeping structure within a sentence.

When describing a scene, she chooses words that are essential and never uses too many words. As a rhetoric student, professors often tell me to choose the right word rather than use too many words and clutter the sentence. Ms. Fox demonstrates this well.

I greatly admire Ms. Fox’s ability to use commas in a manner that moves the piece forward but avoids overusing them. She uses punctuation to effectively place descriptions and additions in a sentence as well as construct sentences well.

Examining The Tender Night for style helped me more effectively identify how the elements of writing work together to create a piece that effectively communicates to the reader. With a firm knowledge of the needs of the targeted audience and a language that reflects that need, a writer can incorporate his/her personal style to create an effective piece of writing.

Reflection

When analyzing The Tender Night, I learned a lot about the structure of a work as a whole and how many elements of writing work together to create a well written and effective piece of writing. Even the littlest element, such as use of punctuation, affects the text’s meaning and flow.

I think I learned the most from examining the writing patterns in the text’s writing, such as the consistent parallelism in Ms. Fox’s writing. This examination caused me to consider the patterns in my own writing within my sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes these patterns are good foundations to a style, while it sometimes needs to be broken up to give variety to a text rather than a pattern that turns into a formula. This also applies to sentence length; I found Ms. Fox’s use of different sentence lengths to move her piece along. I aspire to create variety in my own writing in a way that Ms. Fox does in The Tender Night.

Though writers have an established style they call their own, it changes based upon audience and should always be examined to determine whether an element should be added or taken away. Writers should be aware of their writing habits and be willing to explore new ways to add variety and flavor to their style.

Through this analysis, I have found myself to greatly value solid sentence structure and patterns while still creating variety within the style with punctuation and sentence length. I hope to replicate this concept in my own writing by striving for more punctuation variety and daring to divert from my normal structure in order to add something new to my style.

The research paper included below was an Honors paper in my Practical Grammar course that required an exploration of grammar in an author or a piece of writing. During the same semester, I was taking a Single Author course on Jane Austen, which inspired me to explore Austen’s purposeful use of poor grammar to demonstrate social class and education level in Sense and Sensibility. This topic was discussed in class, and I was eager to dive deeper into the subject. I learned not only about grammar do’s and don’ts while writing this essay but also the rhetorical ability Austen possessed in using grammar to better describe her characters.

Laura Apperson
November 27, 2012
Practical Grammar
Dr. Melinda Snow

Honors Research Paper: Poor Grammar in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility

For Jane Austen, social status was essential in determining marriage, wealth, and education. In her six novels, Austen defines the social class of her characters through their personal wealth (and how they became wealthy), their level of education, and the quality of their connections. One of the most effective ways Austen allows the reader to discover these factors is in the way a character speaks. In Sense and Sensibility, Austen demonstrates this in two different characters—a servant, Thomas; and a character of higher social class, Lucy Steele. Throughout the text, Austen uses these characters’ grammatical constructions to effectively illustrate both their social class and level of education to the reader.

K.C. Phillipps’ claims in his book Jane Austen’s English that Austen often deliberately breaks grammar rules, which is “generally intended to reflect want of education in the speaker or letter-writer guilty of such usage” (158). Austen’s prose also contains minor unintentional grammar errors which readers can identify in her narrative text. She intentionally uses bad grammar in the conversations and dialogues of both Thomas, the Dashwood family’s servant, and Lucy Steele, a cousin of Lady Middleton, and contrasts these vulgar uses of language with the refined language of other characters. However, Austen uses this bad grammar to demonstrate two entirely different things in these characters: social class in Thomas and education in Lucy. Austen establishes Thomas as a servant of the Dashwood household in Chapter 5 (though his name is not established until Chapter 47), while Lucy enters the story as a well-bred woman of a higher social class than Marianne and Elinor Dashwood. The apparent difference in speech between the Lucy and Thomas thus serves to reinforce their differing in social class. Lucy makes mistakes less often than Thomas since she lives and speaks with people of a higher class and education. Austen makes the distinction that Lucy is less educated than Elinor and Marianne because she does make grammar mistakes, while Elinor and Marianne do so very rarely. Whereas Lucy often combines words into an ungrammatical contraction, loose uses of participles, and mistakes adjectives for adverbs, Thomas speaks in run-on sentences, adds letters to words, and uses incorrect prepositions. Both characters sometimes speak with poor subject-verb agreement and use verb tense incorrectly.

In conversation, Lucy says that “it was there our acquaintance began, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle…” (Austen 120). Since “my sister and me” is a compound structure, it requires a plural verb (Vitto 180). Lucy incorrectly uses the verb “was” when she needed to use “were.” In a similar case, Thomas gives a report: “They was stopping in a chaise at the door of the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the Park to her brother, who is one of the postboys” (Austen 294). Just like Lucy, Thomas incorrectly uses “was” instead of “were.”

Another common error Lucy and Thomas make is the incorrect use of verb tense. Lucy says, “I…have been quarreling with myself ever since for having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs” (Austen 131). Though “took” is the correct conjugation of the verb in the present tense for the implied subject “I,” here Lucy references a previous conversation she had with Elinor. This conversation happened only once in the past, so the verb needs to communicate that. Here, the verb “took” should be changed to “taken.” This is correct because “taken” is a past participle—a word created from a form of a verb that refers back to a noun or pronoun (in this case, the implied subject “I”), and can appear in the present or the past form (Vitto 238). “Having” functions as a helping verb in this sentence. “Took” is only a present conjugation of the verb that cannot function as a modifier. Thomas very often utilizes the present tense when he needs to use past tense: “. . . I just see him leaning back in it” (Austen 294). Here, the appropriate verb would be “saw,” the past tense, instead of “see,” the present tense, since Thomas refers to an event that happened one time in the past. These similarities indicate that both characters possess less education than the other characters. However, Lucy’s status as a friend of the Dashwoods’ and a cousin of Lady Middleton indicates that she, though uneducated, possesses a higher social rank than Thomas.

Because of this distinction in social class, we do see several differences between the poor grammar of Lucy and Thomas. A common mistake is a poor combination and contraction of words, such as “t’other” for “the other” and “an’t” for an abbreviated version of “are not.” Lucy says that “. . . I am sure I was in the greatest fright t’other day when Edward’s name was mentioned by Sir John,” (Austen 122). This contrasts with Marianne’s statement that “to me it would seem only a commercial exchange in which each wished to be benefited at the expense of the other” (Austen 49). Lucy uses this contraction several more times throughout the novel. This contraction is ungrammatical in terms of the Standard English of the time. Though it may be (or have been) appropriate in certain discourse communities, Austen demonstrates that it shows a lack of intelligence in the community Lucy lives.

Lucy also has trouble using adjectives in place of adverbs. For example, Lucy says that “I shall have no fortune, and I fancy she is an exceeding proud woman” (Austen 121). The term “exceeding” is modifying “proud,” which is an adjective describing “woman,” a noun. However, “exceeding” is the adjective form of the word, and, since an adjective can only describe a noun and “exceeding” is describing “proud,” the term is incorrect. The correct term would be “exceedingly.” Lucy also uses participles loosely, writing in a letter that “my paper reminds me to conclude, and begging to be most gratefully and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John” (Austen 234). Here, Lucy tries to write that she is “begging to be most gratefully and respectfully remembered,” but the placement of the participle “begging” implies that the paper is begging.

In her writing, Austen clearly demonstrates that Lucy is not as educated as the rest of the women in her social class because of her poor grammatical choices. However, her mistakes are not as frequent as Thomas’. Thomas has several cases of incorrect subject-verb agreement, two cases of incorrect verb tense, an incorrect preposition, and a very long run-on sentence in the following passage. He also uses the apparently more colloquial term “howsever” instead of “however” (Austen 294).

“I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma’am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady too, Miss Steele as was. They was stopping in a chaise at the door of the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the Park to her brother, who is one of the postboys. I happened to look up as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and inquired after you, ma’am, and the young ladies, especially Miss Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars’s, their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not time to come on and see you — but they was in a great hurry to go forwards, for they was going further down for a little while — but howsever, when they come back, they’d make sure to come and see you.” (Austen 294).

Overall, Thomas’ speech is not as formal as Lucy’s, reinforcing the already previously stated fact that Thomas is of a much lower class than Lucy. The last sentence contains two separate sentences, as indicated by the semicolon, which functions as a period and avoids a run-on or comma splice error (Vitto 167). Austen punctuates Thomas’ sentence very well, adding commas mostly where they are appropriate. They are used incorrectly, however, for the phrase “their best compliments and service.” Instead of commas, an em dash would be more appropriate, since it is an interruption of thought (Vitto 291). Overall, Thomas loses the reader with his almost constant flow of thoughts without any pause at all. Except for the semi-colon at the beginning, Thomas does not stop to separate the actions to whom he refers.

Though Austen defines the education and social class of her characters in several different ways, she skillfully shows her readers that “more often . . . it is with loose syntax and vulgar turns of phrase that less admirable characters reveal themselves in speech” (Phillipps 20). In Sense and Sensibility, the characters of Thomas and Lucy Steele serve as excellent examples of the ways in which Austen uses grammatical choices to bring additional depth and insight to a character and their surroundings. Their grammar exposes their differences in both social class and education when compared to that of the more refined characters in the novel.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. New York: The Penguin Group, 1995. Print.

Phillipps, K.C. Jane Austen’s English. London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1970. Print.

Vitto, Cindy L. Grammar by Diagram. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006. Print.

I was born on July 30, 1992, in Selmer, TN. I was raised, from age six, in Atlanta, Ga., where I spent free time reading, playing soccer, playing her flute, and spending time with friends and family. From elementary school, I devoured novels every chance she had, and in high school I joined the newspaper and took upper-level English classes. When peer-editing exercises revealed a love for editing and revising, I discovered that writing was something I was not only good at but also deeply loved.

At university, I chose an English major with a concentration in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric. I started working for Georgia State’s independent newspaper, The Signal, my first semester at university, and moved from staff writer to copy editor to senior editor in my four years at the organization. I continued playing her flute by joining the University Wind Orchestra, and eventually played for many semesters in the top music ensemble at Georgia State, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble. My love for language extends to more than just English, and I spent a semester abroad in Paris, France in a mission to obtain fluency in French and to travel Europe (and I succeeded!). In my free time, I love watching old French movies, spending time with my dog, and reading young adult novels.

My Senior Portfolio includes six works from each course I took in my Advanced Rhetoric and Composition degree: Introduction to Advanced Composition and Rhetoric (ENGL 3050), Twentieth-Century Composition Theory and Practice (ENGL 3100), Practical Grammar (ENGL 3105), Senior Seminar (ENGL 4320), Editing (ENGL 3140), and Electronic Writing and Publishing (3120). Below is my Critical Reflective Essay, which introduces my purpose for including the texts and projects found in the following posts and outlines my journey as a writer during my time at Georgia State.

Critical Reflective Essay

I arrived at Georgia State directly after completing high school in the suburbs of Atlanta with the knowledge that I wanted to write. Since elementary school, I have been an avid reader, devouring novel after novel. I began writing short stories on my own, aspiring to be the next Jane Austen or Ernest Hemingway, and worked for the school newspaper my senior year of high school. Since I had already begun dappling in different kinds of writing, my future career was unknown to me as I dove into an English major with a concentration in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric. I chose the concentration because I wanted to focus on the science of writing: style, rhetoric, analysis, grammar, and editing. My first semester in the major—the spring semester of my sophomore year—introduced me to rhetorical and literacy theories such as Aristotle’s concepts of ethos, logos, and pathos; and Newsweek’s Why Johnny Can’t Write, a 1975 article that presented a literacy crisis and produced many literary theories as a response. These theories opened my eyes to a whole new way of discussing writing: writing defined as a way of effectively communicating to an audience that changes often.

The pieces listed below are some of my favorite projects that I have completed in my time at Georgia State. All of them have contributed to my definition of rhetoric, style, and good writing skills. To me, good writing means using language that is familiar to the intended audience, that communicates clearly and effectively, and avoids unneeded words and blown up language. Editing includes more than fixing grammatical errors; it means revisiting a piece to strengthen its effectiveness, omitting passages that lose its meaning, and adding passages that enhance the argument and strengthen the piece as a whole. These definitions of writing will propel my writing and editing to new heights as I launch myself into a writing career in journalism, publishing, or freelance post-graduation.

As I reflect back on my undergraduate career at Georgia State and how my definition of writing has changed because of my courses and experiences, I have presented my portfolio items in three different sections: language, rhetoric and composition theory, and collaborative projects. The “language” pieces display my ability to analyze writing in its most basic form. The “rhetoric and composition theory” works show my ability for research and application of rhetorical and composition theories. The collaborative projects show my ability to work with a group, imitating the process of working with an editorial team, as well as display my skills in editing and electronic publishing.

Language

I chose to take an Honors section of English 3105 (Practical Grammar), which required me to complete a research paper at the end of the course in order to receive Honors credit. The assignment was left wide open to subject, but required us to make a grammatical analysis of an author (or our own paper). Since I love Jane Austen and was taking a Single Author course and reading her work the same semester I took Practical Grammar, I decided to conduct both a rhetorical and grammatical analysis, focusing on the ways Austen used grammar to show social class and education in two different characters. My process included using an outside source, Jane Austen’s English; my Practical Grammar textbook, Grammar By Design; and the novel itself. I pulled passages when both characters were speaking to find evidence of their use of poor grammar, and I supported my argument by placing those characters’ language next to characters who were more educated and of higher social class. I also used claims in Jane Austen’s English to support my theory that Austen deliberately uses poor grammar in characters’ dialogue to demonstrate social class and education differences.

The stylistic analysis in English 4320 (Senior Seminar) required me to examine a piece of writing more closely than I had ever done before. This assignment called for an in-depth analysis of style, which included conducting a Flesch-Kinkaid reading level test on the text, examining sentence types and length, and breaking down sentences to find patterns and levels of style. My analysis of a memoir from The Paris Review included an examination of transition words, punctuation, sentence type and length, and point of view. To conduct a thorough analysis, it was necessary for me to gather enough data to make stylistic conclusions about the entire writing sample. For me, this included creating a color-coded sheet of paper identifying parts of speech, transition words, and word count for each sentence. This in-depth stylistic analysis taught me how to identify patterns and themes in style, reflect on how the author’s style differs from my own, and discover what elements of style make a piece effective. From this analysis, I learned how to examine my own writing for style characteristics that both enhance and weaken my writing. I also learned the power of sentence variety and the importance of choosing vocabulary that fits the desired meaning perfectly. This analysis was similar to the analysis of Sense and Sensibility because it focused solely on the effectiveness of the author’s style in terms of her sentence variety, use of punctuation, and choice of adjectives; whereas in the analysis of Sense and Sensibility, I focused on one aspect of Austen’s style, grammar, and how it communicated something very specific about her characters.

Rhetoric and Composition Theory

In my final seminar paper for English 3100 (Twentieth-Century Composition Theory and Practice), I was required to write a 5-7 page persuasive research paper on an aspect of literacy. I argued for the importance of home literacy over a formal education of literacy, since, to me, literacy is ecological rather than skills-based. I concluded that home literacy was important based on the research of Felicity Martini and Monique Sénéchal, who asserted that “parent expectations and child interest accounted for differences in a child’s early literacy, and, therefore, broadened the Home Literacy Model.” The assignment allowed me to examine a child’s stages of writing and reading and explore how learning at home is crucial to developing writing skills in the beginning. This final research paper required me to examine many theories about literacy and English education as well as conduct extensive research. I found my sources using the GSU Library, both online and on-campus, as well as drawing from the essays from class and from my textbook. Most of these sources support my argument, but others display the opposite. I formed many research questions on which to base my studies and created an outline on which to base my argument. This paper developed my understanding of literacy studies and the writing process, as well as personally improving my ability to draw from sources to develop and clearly communicate.

The Persona Analysis in my English 3050 (Introduction to Rhetoric and Advanced Composition) course called for a rhetorical analysis of a public figure, asking the following questions: What kind of rhetorical tactics does this person use to form their public persona? How do these elements work to establish that persona? Which rhetorician can these elements be dedicated to? I chose the “Sexy Sax Man,” a musician who is known for dressing in suspenders, black skinny pants, a mullet wig and sunglasses and playing the song “Careless Whisper” as a prank in malls, stores, and other locations. The “Sexy Sax Man” has hit millions of views on YouTube and has become quite known for his pranks across the country. I chose two classical rhetoricians whose ideas about rhetoric fit the Sexy Sax Man’s persona: Aristotle and Cicero. To come to that conclusion, I compared the rhetorical theories and ideas from many different rhetoricians to the actions and ultimate rhetorical intentions of the Sexy Sax Man, including the canons of rhetoric (invention, style, arrangement, memory, and delivery). After making these comparisons, I conducted the rhetorical analysis of the Sexy Sax Man.

Collaborative Projects

The collaborative service-learning project in my English 3140 course (Editing) was a group project designed to teach us about editorial teams and producing a perfect product.  Our job was to write a biography for each SAMLA Honorary Member, and to work as a team to edit the product. In my group of four, each member was assigned an editorial role; I was the layout editor. Though my responsibility was to make the layout of each biography consistent and appealing, we all learned from each other as we edited, drawing from the copy editing lessons in class to copy edit each biography as perfectly as possible. Our tools included a style guide, created and agreed upon by the members of the class; a guide for what content needed to be included within the biography; and our copy editing book, which gave us guidelines for how to edit the product. While writing the biography, I also gathered information and conducted research about Katherine Porter, my assigned honorary member, using resources like interviews from The Paris Review and features in magazines found through JSTOR. This project, which extended over a couple months, taught me how to write in a house style, considering the audience for whom these biographies were being written. It also improved my editing skills as I examined biographies for grammar, style, and layout mistakes. It required me to follow style guidelines, work with a group of people, and write for a very specific audience.

My service-learning project in English 3120 (Electronic Writing and Publishing) focused on website creation. Electronic Writing and Publishing’s purpose for its students was to introduce new ways to communicate effectively and display content on the Internet. This project required my group members and I to collect all we had learned—writing effectively for online, the difference between text in print and online, and how to use WordPress—in this project for the United States Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association of Georgia. The organization did not already have a website, and we took content provided by our contact at the organization and made it into a fully functional website, including a calendar for events and a contact page. Though there were elements that we did not know how to complete (registration), we were proud of the product we were able to produce for the organization. As a journalist and a writer, I will definitely be using the ability to make a dynamic and visually appealing website with quality content for the rest of my life. I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned to my personal blog as well as any website I may create or help create in the future. I’ve learned through this project how to take content required by an organization and make it interesting and well presented, while communicating with the contact to make sure everything is presented in the desired format. I very much learned how to visually create something for an audience.

In my time at Georgia State in the English department, I have discovered my love for writing, for the intricacies of language, and for making words come alive in many different fields of writing. I have grown to feel comfortable writing in the field of journalism, working as a writer, copy editor, and senior editor at Georgia State’s The Signal. My rhetorical and editorial training has aided my abilities to confidently write and edit in all the positions I have held at The Signal. I have grown as an editor after courses in grammar and editing, feeling comfortable navigating a document or an article and editing it for both grammatical and content errors. I am writer who has become comfortable as more than an English major completing a major research paper; I can write for any genre or publication due to the skills I have learned at Georgia State.

As an aspiring book publisher, my training in editing and effective communication will prepare me for a career in book manuscript editing. My ability to conduct extensive research will prepare me for fact-checking. My skills in writing for audience will help me edit writers’ content to fit intended audience. I hope to use these skills in a potential writing or publishing career, and will be applying to editorial positions at publishing houses as well as writing jobs at newspapers, magazines, and literary publications.

“[Style is] a series of both conscious and unconscious choices that writers make about everything from the words we use (diction) and their arrangement in sentences (syntax) to the tone with which we express our point of view (e.g. ironic, formal, or colloquial) and the way we achieve emphasis in a sentence (e.g., by placing the most important information at the end). …Style is connected to a writer’s purpose, subject matter, audience, and context.” –Richard Butler, rhetorician and composition theorist

Richard Butler defines style in a clear way that accurately includes all the elements of rhetoric—syntax, expression, and tone. He includes how our personal style is affected, which is the purpose of the piece, the subject matter, the audience, and the context of the piece. Every writer considers these factors and takes time into developing the tone, expression, and syntax based on these five factors. Butler intended to define style in a way that considered both the personal style of the writer and the outside influences, and, through this definition, hoped that writers could better develop their style as they considered each element of writing itself and the factors that affect it.

In my personal writing experience, I sometimes forget to look at the big picture and how my writing fits into it. I liked this quotation so much because it does an excellent job summarizing what my job is as a writer—to communicate clearly and effectively to my audience. And, like Butler said, that includes considering why I am writing the piece in the first place, how I arrange my words to communicate that purpose, and the audience of my work. Each time I pick up my pen to write, I should be considering all these things as I arrange my words and develop my argument or story. Sometimes writers consider style as a singularly personal trait of the writing experience, and while the end result is a writer’s personal writing style, the development of a writing style for a specific piece is not only affected by what a writer prefers. On the contrary, it is developed based on who will read the piece, what kind of writing it is (prose, poetry, newspaper article, academic essay), and its purpose in relation to what else is going on.

This quote will help me remember to consider more than just how I like words to be arranged on a page. While writing is a personal experience, my intended audience deserves to be considered from the first step of the process to the last. My work will only be successful if someone other than myself likes it. My work need to be relevant, clear, and composed in a manner that considers more than my personal thoughts and ideas.

This quote inspires me to create a list of questions to which I can constantly refer as I write:

Why am I writing this?
Who am I writing this for?
What is the message I want to convey?
How can I write this so that my audience can understand and respond?
How can I develop my argument and ideas to communicate as effectively as possible?
How can I put this in context?
What is my tone (and why is it that tone)?

“People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.” –Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley’s iconic blusey country voice is still famous today, years after he came on the music scene in Memphis, TN. This quote articulates simply what personal style should be—personal and original. Though Elvis Presley has major influences and music icons such as the gospel group The Statesmen Quartet, his personal singing style is what set him apart and made him a legend.

I strongly believe that writing style in a creative setting is shaped by personal experiences, literature the author has read in the past, what the author has read in the past, and what the author has been taught is good style. But all these experiences are the author’s own, and it creates a style of writing that is personal to that author. A writer may draw inspiration from other writers and styles, but like Presley says about his singing style—a writer doesn’t copy his/her style from anybody.

This quote reminds me to embrace my own style—and, for this semester, inspires me to develop my own style while striving for the best communication possible. The Elements of Style add to Elvis’ comment when they say to “study the masters of literature” after learning the rules of rhetoric. The rules of rhetoric are extremely important, and play a major role in how successful a writer is at communicating with his/her audience. But Elvis’ philosophy is to make sure your style is set apart—even if it is influenced by other styles.

I think this thought could inspire writers to focus too much on making their work original and ignore the rules of writing in their belief that their own style is a natural gift. What is the best practice in developing a personal style? After spending time learning the rules of effective writing and studying the literary greats to find the author that possesses a style from whom the author would like to draw inspiration, what is the next step? Practice, would be my assumption, and a real effort to develop your writing by spending time every day doing it. And once that style is finally starting take place and set itself apart, you can revel in the victory that you didn’t copy your style from anybody because you worked to make it your own.