Jodie Bolinger
ENG 328
S. Krause
13 Feb. 2009
Style Rules Essay
With all the different writing styles and rules incorporated in writing, it’s hard to know what is correct. Sometimes a rule will be correct in one style insert comma here? and maybe you can replace "and" with "but" in another, omit comma here? it’s completely wrong. For this reason, my style rule is to replace parentheses with the em dash.
An em dash is similar to a dash, and it’s generally used to set off a parenthetical phrase. Since the em dash is used similar(similarly or in a similar way - kinnell) to parentheses in this manner, I feel that the em dash would look much better. For some reason, the sentence “I walked down the street —a street I’d visited many times, by the way” looks better and more professional than “I walked down the street (a street I’d visited many times, by the way.”
Parentheses always seemed to look very immature, (explain? in what way-kinnell) and they never seem to fit into professional writing. It looks like someone kept having extraneous thoughts, and the actual brackets break up the sentence and the flow. I feel that the style of the em dash allows for the sentence to flow smoother, and may also force to -the writer to clearly express their parenthetical phrase rather than simply throwing it in parentheses and being done with it.
When it comes to parentheses in Strunk and White’s words, they feel that parenthetical expressions should be enclosed with two commas. In fast (fact?) be by? creating my own style rule without disagreeing with some previous rules for usage, so this is where I would have to say I disagree. I feel that commas aren’t really enough to show the phrase is parenthetical. Since commas are so widely used —and overused at that— I would have to say it’s safer to use another symbol to separate them.
William’s never specifically mentions the usage of the parenthetical and the em dash, but he uses the em dash in place of the comma or parentheses on page 18, when he states, “sentence (2) makes us work too hard because we have to sort out and mentally re-assemble several actions expressed mostly as abstract nouns —decisions, administration, medication, inability, consent—actions that are also arranged in a way that both distorts their underlying sequence and obscures who performs them” (Williams). Just the fact that Williams chose to express his parenthetical thought with the em dash rather than another form shows that it is well-respected and used in writing. (hm. never would have thought of looking at it that way. greatly put.)
Granted, the overuse of the em dash could eventually be seen as obnoxious, in fact, just from the usage in this essay, it could be seen as a problem. But just the un-professional unprofessional? appearance of parentheses is enough to make this style rule make sense. Many times writers will just put whatever they want into parentheses without a second thought. (I think you need to justify the idea that parentheses look un-professional - explain this further)
Also, parentheses are frowned upon in many of the different writing styles, which brought me to the decision of my style rule.
In coming up with my ideal style rule, I took into account many things. My first consideration was all the different amounts of style rules that exist in today’s writing. There’s MLA, APA, AP, New York, Chicago Style —which always just sounds like a pizza and makes me a bit hungry (ha!) (me too)— and each and every one has something different to bring to the table. Granted they all have their place, but with all the different rules each one entails, it’s hard to keep them all straight. My original style rule dealt with the differences between all the different style rules, ultimately leading to “there should only be one.” But which style rule was the right one? That was where the problem lay.
Every different style has a reason and who was I to say which one was write -right and which was wrong. I decided to move on to the actual technical aspects of the writing. Where -Were there things that bugged me when I read? What were those things and what would I do to change them if I could? That was when the other pet peeve of mine came to mind, the use of the extraneous “s” at the end of an already pluralized word.
If someone’s name is Wes or Chris or something of the sort, it doesn’t necessarily need to have an extra “s” on the end. Granted they’re sure to own something at some point in their life, but Wes’ toothbrush will suffice. Wes’s toothbrush just seems like overkill.
But none of these style rules seemed to fit what I was trying to convey. My first rule covered too much ground, and my second rule just seemed to be fixing something that bugged me whenever I read. I was looking for a style rule that actually had to do with making a paper or book read with more flow that before. That is where my personal hatred for parentheses came into play.
My style rule may never catch on, and while I rarely use parentheses in my writing, my overuse of the em dash may lead to some comments by professors who are unaware of the reason. But still,
Works Cited
Strunk and White,. The Elements of Style. 4th Edition. Needham Heights, MA., Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

Williams, Joseph M. Style: Toward Clarity and Grace. Chicago and London. The University of Chicago Press. 1990.


(My page is a little short since it's still the rough draft, but perhaps I can use William's rule of conciseness to excuse the length.)