Writing Style-Sterling Paulson

Writing style definitely varies from person to person, but I feel like aspects of our writing style can be described using universal terms. My own writing style seems to be fairly logical.  I think a lot of this stems from my writing process. I begin by making an outline and listing my main ideas on it. I then use these main ideas to build paragraphs by adding supporting information. Due to this, my writing is very straight forward and tends to be very organized. I find this to be useful because it helps me make sure I am tying everything back into my thesis and staying on topic. This means that my writing style is easy to follow for the reader, but it tends to lack in emotional appeal. Something that this Op Ed assignment has helped me to realize is that I can improve my writing style by directly addressing my audience, as well as by sharing personal experiences with them. This seems to help people relate to me and my viewpoint, which is helpful when you are trying to convince them. As far as sentence length and syntax goes, I tend to use medium-length sentences, oftentimes with ideas, introductory phrases or commentary on subjects tied together through commas. The only issue that I have with this is that I sometimes feel like my sentences get too wordy or do not have enough variation in length. As a whole I feel like my writing style is logical and organized when writing on a topic, but I also feel like there is plenty of room for improvement.