Learn More: Some Timeless Advice on Good Writing
Most literary scholars say the best primer on English composition ever written was
William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style. This masterful little book was originally published in 1918. More than eighty years later, after revision by E. B. White, it is still essential reading for college students. (The current 105-page paperback version is William Strunk Jr., E. B. White and Roger Angell, The Elements of Style, 4th ed. (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999.)
The original version is available free online. Go to www.bartleby.com, then enter "Strunk" as a search term. Go to Strunk's Elements of Style, and browse through the topics in Part III, Elementary Principles of Composition, with the objective of answering the following questions.
- Is this eighty-five-year-old book instructive for e-mail users? How?
- According to Strunk's standards, which principles of composition are your strengths? What elements of composition do you need to improve?
- How important are writing skills in the Internet age? Explain.
Check It Out
For a light-hearted, yet meaningful, take on the ways in which advances in electronic communication have both helped and hindered communication today, visit the Web site titled "
The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation." This site answers the hypothetical question, "What if President Lincoln had used Microsoft PowerPoint automation tools to help him write and present his Gettysburg's Address?" View the presentation, then be sure to read the information about the "making of" this site, found at the bottom of the index page
(The joke here is that Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War, is widely considered to be among the most eloquent speeches ever delivered. His emotional tone, his profound sentiments, and his skillful orator's blend of acknowledgement of the past and hope for the future are incomparable. If you don't know the text of the speech itself, click here for the Library of Congress' version.)
- After viewing the site and reading Peter Norvig's comments, can you generalize from this one example to state some principles for the effective use of presentation software and automation tools?
