You can answer this week's post in one of two ways ...
1. Do you notice any patterns to your writer's work this week? Does your writer love a certain sentence pattern or piece of punctuation or phrase?
2. Looking back over the last few weeks, do you notice a pattern to your writer's work. I want you to think structurally not thematically.
Share the pattern and an example with us all.
16 comments:
Articles published by David Brooks, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, between 9/29/15 and 10/6/15
Brooks does not tend to use a specific piece of punctuation or phrase throughout his articles -- instead he usually begins his articles with an attention-grabbing opening sentence or two. While many other writers also use this tactic in their writing, I think that Brooks does a particularly good job with this in the way that he addresses relevant issues (even if some may seem unapproachable or daunting) with interesting and somewhat casual introductions.
Example (from "The Prison Problem"): "Pretty much everybody from Barack Obama to Carly Fiorina seems to agree that far too many Americans are stuck behind bars."
Article: "Stuff Happens to the Environment, Like Climate Change" by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Op-Ed, October 7th 2015.
In this article, I notice that Friedman tends to use lots of looooooong sentences with clauses divided by commas. These sentences are so long that they are often divided into their own paragraphs! Here are a few examples:
"When, at CNN’s G.O.P. presidential debate, the moderator Jake Tapper read statements from Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state George Shultz (who drives an electric car powered by solar panels on his home’s roof) about how Reagan urged industry to proactively address ozone depletion, and why Shultz believes we should be just as proactive today in dealing with climate change, he got the usual know-nothing responses."
"We’re sitting on these planetary boundaries right now, argues Rockstrom, and if these systems flip from one stable state to another — if the Amazon tips into a savannah, if the Arctic loses its ice cover and instead of reflecting the sun’s rays starts absorbing them in water, if the glaciers all melt and cannot feed the rivers — nature will be fine, but we will not be."
"If you have time to read one book on this subject, I highly recommend the new “Big World, Small Planet,” by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center, and Mattias Klum, whose stunning photographs of ecosystem disruptions reinforce the urgency of the moment."
As I've said throughout my blog posts, Friedman has an ability to talk about complex issues while keeping his language light and accessible. These sentences are a perfect example of that. While one usually things of long sentences as more sophisticated, these borderline-gramatically-incorrect sentences that use informal punctuation like dashes come off as more conversational than anything. Friedman is channeling how we actually discuss issues – unless we're reading a memorized speech, we often don't have hard stops between ideas that represent periods. In real life, ideas tend to flow into the next, and Friedman echoes this tendency in his writing patterns.
Article: "The playlist – hip-hop: Rick Ross, Run the Jewels and more" by Lanre Bakare, The Guardian, October 7th 2015.
In this week’s article, Bakare was in love with answering his own question in his writing. This week’s piece was simply a playlist of songs that he enjoys, and yet he was still able to sneak that structure into the piece. When he comments on the simple nature of the Drake’s new single featuring Beyoncé, he writes:” An exercise in hip-hop minimalism? Perhaps.” Later in the article he describes a new trap album by Run the Jewels: “ A cat-themed remix album for the hell of it? Yep.” He likes to pose an interrogative sentence, then answers it with a one word sentence. I think this pattern goes with his sarcastic, and kind of pretentious tone that occurs in a lot of his writing. This sentence structure in also pretty intriguing, it creates a mini point of anticipation for the reader. It also develops a narrative to the piece.
Article: "A look at sports happenings" by Bill Dwyre
Instead of focussing on one current aspect of the sports world now, Dwyre decided to talk about different sports stories in one article. This article consists of many small, 2-3 sentence paragraphs. It is quick to read and a lot of information is gained. In this article Dwyre poses many questions. For example, when talking about ESPN's ranking of NBA players, he closes the paragraph with three questions. "1) Who cares?; 2) Why do we get so caught up in made-up news created by a self indulgent broadcast network virtually for the benefit of its own talk-radio chatter? 3) Is stuff like this the real sign that the apocalypse is upon us?" He does this numerous times throughout the article and not only does he ask these questions but also the tone is which he uses them is very strong and sarcastic. I like how he lists the questions using the numbers because it helps increase the effects of his tone.
Article: Joe Queenan on Maxims and Why They Are Never True, Nov 26th, 2014
I have noticed that Joe quinine has a habit of making bold assertions at the beginning of many of his pieces. He uses this tactic to help his writing become more humorous (by making a drastic claim) and then that claim is the main thread of the rest of his piece. His theses are always solid and clearly on a specific side.
Proof: "When things go badly wrong— Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea, Peyton Manning’s dismal Super Bowl performance—some ding-dong will trot out the bromide, “Oh, well: The best-laid plans of mice and men…” This overused saying—which always appears in truncated form, in the manner of “When in Rome…” and “A bird in the hand”—is stupid."
Joe *Queenan (thanks, computer autocorrect)
Article: A hashtag shouldn't make men fear for their lives. They already have a safe space – most of the world
Author: Suzanne Moore
Suzanne Moore's writing has followed a similar trend over the past few weeks, and her most recent work is no exception. First off, her title remains bold and lengthy, more of a conversational tone than a header. This type of intro leads well into the article and her relaxed tone. In this article specifically, I noticed a large fluctuation in sentence length and punctuation. She would write lengthy analytical sentences that reflected the way a human thinks in a tangential manner full of commas and hyphens, and then she'd quickly shift into a few word sentence as if a conclusive little thought to her thought train. I like this style of writing technically. It has an emotional tone, a more personal touch.
For example: "The war on women that sees two women killed a week is not even news – unless there are some sexy pics and gory details of how some shining girl became another bruised corpse, often at the hands of someone she knew. That’s how many women live."
Article: "The high cost of avoiding war in Syria" by Richard Cohen Oct. 5, 2015
In this article, Cohen starts off each paragraph with a short, simple sentence that usually summarizes his opinion. These sentences can be blunt, catching the reader off guard, yet they are captivating. They each jump to such a lengthy conclusion that urges the reader to continue, simply to know how Cohen reached his opinion. These include, "Obama talks mush," "Syria is a horror, and a complex one at that," and "Yes, the Russians did invade." This not only is a theme in this particular piece, but throughout Cohen's writing. He uses such strategies to be provocative and straightforward. He is straight and to the point, leaving no questions about his stance on an issue.
Article: "Colin Kaepernick: Offensive rhythm is good, but we have to win games"\
The purpose of this article is to highlight the recent improvement of the Forty-Niner's quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Even though San Francisco came up short, Gutierrez finds light in their recent loss. He begins each paragraph with a quote from either a receiver or a coach, that emphasizes Kaepernick's improvement. Gutierrez continues to add more context behind the quote then contributes his own opinion. This article is very structured in this formate, which is uncharacteristic of his writing.
Article: Published by Charles M. Blow, New York Times, between October 5th - October 11th, 2015.
One thing that I have noticed that Charles M. Blow favors is using colons and commas. He does not like to break up the sentences, he has a though and like to see it through its entirety. "On Tuesday, Ben Carson was on “Fox & Friends” and was posed this hypothetical: “If a gunman walks up and puts a gun at you and says what religion are you, that is the ultimate test of your faith,” as the Oregon shooter reportedly did to his victims." The use of colons and commas lets Charles just fluidly convey everything he needs to say within each idea and without having to stop one idea and try to pick up again.
Article: The Speaker, the Pope, and the Exorcism (from Oct 3, again not sure why she did not write this week)
As I wrote about last week, this article was out of the ordinary in that it was a piece of fiction based in reality (it followed a comedic John Boehner as he talked to his then suspected successor, Kevin McCarthy, and considered his last few days in Washington). This article relies heavily on quotations and ridiculous comedic lines. Dowd even starts and ends the article with a "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Zip-A-Dee-A" Disney joke.
While this article was different from Dowd's other articles, one of the patterns that stays is that Dowd likes to start the article in the middle of the action, usually with a slightly humorous hook. In this article she starts with Boehner singing the Disney song, in her last she started by contrasting the Pope's speech cautioning capitalism and the street vendors that were selling Pope buttons and t-shirts, a celebration of capitalism.
Article: "D.C. area forecast: A magnificent, mild Monday, then a cooling trend" by Jason Samenow
Unfortunately, there isn't much of a pattern that I can quite pick up from Samenow, but one erratic pattern that I noticed (at least from just a few of his reports) is that of the ratings.
Here is the beginning of the article.
"TODAY’S DAILY DIGIT
A somewhat subjective rating of the day’s weather, on a scale of 0 to 10.
10/10: Yes!"
Last I recall, he did this a few weeks ago, and I even mentioned it in one of my weekly posts. It seems that he really enjoys doing the rating scale, so why doesn't he do it more often???
Article: "The Republicans Are Now Officially the Party of White Paranoia" (Matt Taibbi)
Taibbi uses sarcasm a lot. Many of his articles, and especially this one, make fun of some group of people. He doesn't often insult the victim straight-out, but he'll make witty jokes, sometimes requiring background knowledge on the political climate, to understand. Taibbi's name-calling usually has to do with a subject's intelligence, and his remarks often point out the ridiculousness he sees in someone's ideas. This article was all about Republican voters and how their priorities are in the wrong places.
Taibbi seems to deliver his insults, or punchlines, after a break in writing. It could be to place emphasis on his witticism. These sentences also act as transitions and topic sentences simultaneously for his following block of text, so the breaks just force the reader to pay attention to the point he's trying to get across in the sentence. One example from this week's article is his sentence, "They get everything from the Republicans because you don't have to make a single concession to a Republican voter." Taibbi is making a point about Republican voters, while making fun of them, while also transitioning to the next thought in his thread of consciousness.
Article: Kitty Genovese’s Brother Reëxamines Her Famous Murder by Richard Brody, The New Yorker 10.6.15
In reading through many of his articles, I've realized that form-wise, the author is rarely redundant at all. He seems to have a firm grasp on the important of having fun with language, and, like the ridiculous amount of movies he sees and reviews per week, follows no one form or another. There was something about the first paragraph or two of this article that caught my attention, though. It kept reappearing and took me very little time to notice it. What Brody does in the beginning of this article is create sentences that start with a sort of "mystery clause" and then a "payoff clause." "It's a familiar genre, the true-crime documentary...[The film] looks at one of the most infamous of all modern crime stories, the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese," etc. etc. etc. What Brody does very effectively in his writing is let his form follow the movie's form in a lot of cases. In this article, he reviews a movie about one of the most interesting New York City stories ever, the story of a woman murdered in her apartment and her neighbors that heard everything but assumed someone else would call the police. It's mysterious, almost like the setup of his first couple of sentences: a sort of question in the beginning, and then an answer.
Writer: James Nolan for Vice UK
Nolan's writing has a few patterns. One of the more noticeable ones is how he asks questions. In his article A Love Letter to Eamon Dunphy, he asks questions such as, "Does he have a UK equivalent?" and "Does he troll people because they deserve to be trolled?" Nolan likes to ask rhetorical questions then later answer them. This sheds light onto the informative style of his writing and how he chooses to share a piece of his life with the reader. By using questions, he opens up his ideas to interpretation and lets the reader create his or her own stipulations before hearing what he has to say. Stylistically, Nolan uses questions to open up his writing and give the reader a place to add his or her own experiences to the reading of his article.
Article: Peace for my Columbian friends (October 6, 2015)
After reading Ramos’s opinion pieces and commentaries for the past six weeks, I have noticed that he tends to be critical in his work. Ramos is a news reporter, so his pieces talk about current events and big stories. In this piece, he talks about the peace deal that is being discussed between President Juan Manuel Santos from Colombia and Rodrigo Lodoño, the leader of FARC. Instead of simply summarizing what is happening, he adds on to the topic by questioning certain things and stating what he believes should be done. This structure allows readers to not only be informed about what is happening, but to also have the ability to formulate their own thoughts and ideas on the issue.
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