Punctuation

 Punctuation has always given me troubles when writing for I haven't known the rules as well as I should. These issues have been a prominent problem in my writing for a long time. This mad the article Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool a very interesting one. The fact that he says that what I used to know as rules or “laws” of punctuation are actually guidelines I was shocked. But it also follows the road that a lot of of articles have been saying in our assigned readings. The way punctuation changes for who you are writing for seems to be important but as you can tell punctuation itself can change its entire meaning such as this picture.

When “good writers” like Orwell write they punctuate for their intended meaning that they have in mind and while put emphasis on the punctuation. For me I have always had a very weak grasp on punctuation and I have felt less confident as a writer in result. When going into a paper I have always given it the impression that I wast trying and that if I was it would be better. This has halted my ability to increase my skill because I was incompetent in certain areas I wouldn't try to advance myself to where I should be.

Side Note: I just read the Cracked article 6Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person in 2014 and I have been able to relate a lot of it to my life and in this case my own writing. Some of the content is NSFW so im just giving you a heads up.

All in all the writing that I have been producing in my life has been something that is riddled with errors and punctuation has been a major flaw that I have been ignoring with pure ignorance and laziness because I know It all wont happen in just a day but I will start working on my punctuation until I have a true understanding of what I am doing. As this is my last thought piece for this blog I would like to give my readers a sign off by thanking all of you who were with me from the beginning and has seen my writing grow with each article read from the book Writing about Writing.

Thank You,

Blake Dufner        

Error

As a reader when I read an article or any sort of finished product, I put higher standards on the writing than I probably should. Like in "The Phenomenology of Error" I am the type of reader that results in getting kind of angers me. This I think is a problem because I as a reader am too harsh on other people's work even though my own work is riddled with errors. The game that he played with me was a game that I lost for I didn't catch the mass amount of errors he was speaking of. This brought up a question of whether I really care about errors or just obvious ones. Like when he spoke of the fat hostess who you make fun of just because they violate your own comfort zone. This is what happens when I read errors, I feel uncomfortable because I wish that it was perfect and the errors alone make me uncomfortable.The game that I unknowingly was playing is now letting me think of how oblivious In not only reading but in my life.

The way Joseph Williams was able to subtly play this game and in the end prove a point was very impressive. I throughout this course have been reminded of my own writing in eye opening ways such as this one. He put so much thought into an article. On the surface the article looks like a well thout out article on errors and you take it at that face value until you read the last paragrraph and realize that there was an underline message the entire time. The amount of time it must of took to purposely place your errors must have been more than most of my school papers have had in the revision state.

This article gave me a different effect on me than it probably should have. Instead of thinking about how errors are everywhere I thought about how much time must have went into planning. It is beyond me how someone could write with that muc planning and thought in every word, sentence, and paragraph.