Finding the informal in formality

Good writing is hard work

Although I was able to experiment with different styles of writing through this blog, I think in my posts there is still a distinction between when I write on more of an academic topic and I write on more of a ‘free’, personal topic; I have yet to merge the ideas within my more structured, academic style posts with the less structured formats of my ‘free’ posts.

As I wrote the two formal papers, they were, obviously, more formal. I knew that a well-written paper included an organization and structure of thoughts that helped the reader understand the argument, a variety of sentence structure, and clear, simple language. I knew what constituted a formal paper, and I stuck to those guidelines. Yet, while I do have a voice when writing these essays, it is a more rigid, more academic one. This same structured, formal voice and style of writing also applies to the more prescribed blog posts that were more academically focused, like in my post ‘For Orwell, Swan, and Gopen, less is more’.

But when I wrote on more open, ‘free’ topics, the posts tended to vary quite a bit in structure and I experimented more with the way I organized my thoughts. In posts like, ‘A Eulogy,’ the way each idea had a separate sentence, and some were grouped like stanzas gave the post a more poetic tone. And In my post ‘Quite possibly the best cup of coffee’, I decided to structure my thoughts more linearly and progressively, so that the post was more of a narrative.

Here's a pic I snapped of me writing my blog posts 

This blog introduced also me to writing about more ‘academic’ topics, but in a less serious way. While I am still beginning to lessen the distinction between my writing about more formal topics and more personal topics, I was able to at least start to establish my voice, one that communicates to a community of people, not just a professor. Through this blog I realized that there are topics that you would write about in a formal paper that you can write in a blog post, topics that are perhaps made more interesting through humor, opinion, sarcasm, and relating it to current events in the world and your own life.

However, that’s not to say I think we should disregard the formal paper. I don’t agree with the professor discussed in the article who wants to abandon the essay altogether. The formal paper is important because it teaches us how to communicate, to get an idea across by clearly establishing an argument, the structure of the essay, and the evidence. All of this is necessary to then move on to the less formal structure of a blog.

It’s sort of like back in ninth grade when we learned how to write a five-paragraph essay: the link, the lead, the thesis, the three main ideas, the quote integration, and the conclusion that restates the thesis. Thinking back to it, all of this structure seems a bit repressive. Why would they even teach us to write with such a lack of creativity? 

Oh, the five paragraph essay

However, this initial structure was necessary so that when we began developing our own theses and paragraph structures in eleventh and twelfth grade, we would have a strong foundation to base it on.  Essentially, in order to break the rules, we need to know them first. The same thing is happening here with formal writing and the blog post. The organizational and expressive skills we learn though the formal paper give us the skills necessary to then take those same ideas and write them with more personal voice and opinion within the blog.

This is what our writing would look like without the structure we learned early on

Both the academic paper and blog are valuable. However, sometimes the informality of the blog can cause us to diminish the value of what we write; because there is no formality is there, we might think less of it, and therefore not execute the best work or take the subject as seriously. Appreciating formality is a form of respect, in a way, and should not be completely disregarded. And, while I’m still trying to find this balance within my own writing, merging the formal with the personal into a blog, this project has made me realize this balance, and the importance of both formal and less formal ways of writing.

Aretha Franklin appreciating the formality of the essay:

How do you like it?

I get to go home for Thanksgiving, which means food and sleep and…brothers.

I have four of them, and whenever I tell people this, the first question they ask is

How do you like it?

I guess it’s pretty alright.

Actually, it’s a really hard question to answer because it’s all I’ve ever known. But, even though I did cry when my youngest brother was born (9 year old Alex convinced herself she would finally get a sister), it’s the greatest.

I mean, there’s always pee on the toilet seat. Always.

And dirty socks and boxers are now just a natural part of the home’s décor.

But I think none of that really matters when you get postcards in the mail like this one:

Aw man!

 Or get to take road trips like this:

Or get to eat deep fried candy bars at the State Fair like this:

Or get to have Halloweens like this:

Or get to read books like this:

A good blog is (not so) hard to find

I think the best posts from the class were ones that included interesting, personal opinions about a topic as well as specific details from the writer’s life.  The reason we read blogs is to try and learn something about each other and what we are writing about—generalizations aren’t exactly the best vehicle for exposing ourselves to new ideas and opinions.  This concept of generalizing also applies to the photos we choose to post—there’s nothing more depressing than a post full of iStock photos found on Google that vaguely resemble something you mentioned in a post. Matt’s blog was one of the blogs that included a lot of interesting images that, though weren’t taken by him, are sort of weird and funny, like in his Wife on a Lease post and his “Free” Blog Post.

Photos like this...

Or this

Honesty and opinion are also some of the main components of the well-written blogs, which help combat this habit of generalization. I remember Cellik’s first open post, and the way he was so honest about what was going on in his life. He talked about how he didn’t feel like the University of Michigan was where he was meant to be, and it was refreshing to begin to get to know him and what he was going through in this post. This honesty continued throughout his blog, too, and we were able to see his thoughts and feelings towards the university of Michigan evolve: in his post about growth, he expanded on his first post and shared more about how he was exploring his options outside of U of M, and then in his 18^th post about how he was seriously considering moving to Texas next year.

Interesting posts also were written with a specific voice that really allowed us to hear the writer’s thoughts as we read. It’s often easier to write with this voice in the open posts, yet more difficult to express this same opinion and use of language when the topic seems more academic. However, the posts that managed show this same degree of opinion and style of writing in the more outlined topics were some of the most interesting. Lita’s writing does this especially well, particularly through her literary blog review where she really adds her own opinion about blogging, and not just if she thought a blog was good or bad.

A woman I saw on the street

You could still tell her frame was small, even though she wore a long, heavy woolen coat. She was about five feet and five inches, and had short, white, hair that looked like the cotton you pull from the head of a q-tip. Upon that hair was a knitted hat, probably acrylic wool. It was a reddish-orange color and was knitted with the moss stitch, so that little baubles of yarn covered the entire surface. And, there was a scarf made from matching yarn tied around her neck so that it hung down the front of her chest. Both were slightly pilled, well worn. Her coat was heavy, and fell at the middle of her skinny calves. She had varicose veins that crawled up her legs and that were buried beneath her white socks that only rose past her ankles, so that a slice of her papery skin was exposed to the cold air. On her feet were white, New Balance tennis shoes that were fairly clean, and looked slightly out of place next to her long black coat. The woman walked with haste uphill, shoulders broad, head bowed, eyes pinched, against the wind. In her right arm swung a new, brown leather briefcase.

She loved the cold.

The First eighteen years of her life were spent in hot, stuffy rooms, where she was ignored by her parents.

It wasn’t her sister’s fault, though. She couldn’t help the seizures, the muscle tightness, the drooling.

But her parents’ obliviousness to their youngest daughter was as suffocating as the 78 degrees and the humming of the humidifiers that was necessary to keep her sister alive.

She died, anyway.

But that was 44 years ago. Since then, she has yearned for the cold. 42 years ago, in a big city in northern Canada where the temperatures never rose above 54 degrees, she found a job as a receptionist in a family planning facility. In that same town she met her husband, and they were married the following January. Then in March, 41 years ago, as they drove through Bismarck, North, Dakota, their identical twins were conceived in their car with the broken heater, the leather seats cracked from the cold, windows coated with frost. The following December in Wisconsin brought ice, snow, and two sons.

While she still was warm to her sons, her husband, the women she met at her the family planning clinic she supervised, her two poodles and calico cat, her relationship with her parents held a thick, solid sheet of ice. The last time she visited them in Texas was 24 years ago, when her dad had his hip replaced. The last time they visited was at her sons’ high school graduation 23 years ago.  

A Eulogy

As I write, there is waxy propolis coating my back molars that my spit can’t penetrate. Perhaps, it will stay there forever.

From the time they arrived in April, I knew those 700 workers and drones (and a queen!) would do great things. They were champs, nursing the hive until it grew to 40,000, pollinating our hydrangeas and basswood trees. No varroa mite or Monsanto monster could stop them.

They were the best hive a naïve little beekeeper could ask for.  

They spoke with each other and they listened, they were protective (William and I have sting marks to prove), and they were good teachers, and good friends.

Through their propolis, their honey, their wax, their pollen, they formed a seal between my brother and me.

They made my neighbor’s crabapple tree blossom.

Their July honey was near white and tasted like lemons. September’s was amber and grassy, earthy.

And even though I gagged at the white pulpy larvae when we cleaned the trays, deep down I loved those baby bees.

Perhaps we took too much.

Perhaps we smoked too much.

Perhaps we touched, removed, examined, hive-tooled, tray-checked, honey-harvested too much.

Perhaps they were destined to collapse, from the time the bee farmer up in Hackensack, Minnesota fertilized their mother.

Seven months is not so long, but it was long enough for awareness, relationships, understanding to form,

for late summer afternoons sweating beneath white cotton armor, for touching tacky wood and tiny furry thoraxes, for forever smelling like smoke and unsticking hair full of honey, for comb caught between teeth, for forging friendships with hive tools and wax.

My 40,000 friends, you cultivated so much more than the environment.