Ten Ways To Think About Writing

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The article “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musing for College Writing Student” by E. Shelley Reid discuss the various ways in which students make common mistakes in their writing. In my opinion English professors and high school English teachers portray writing as being easy. I was perceived myself as being the only student having difficulties writing. With this being said I am very glad to realize thanks to Reid’s article that I am not the only college student struggling in the same areas as I am.
One way I was able to relate to Reid’s article was the first metaphor “A THOUSAND RULES AND THREE PRINCIPLES”. This metaphor explains how students are told to writing using rules which cause students to have writers block or not writing their personal views but to keep a structure they are told to keep. It also mentions three important principles which are: 1. Write about what sparks your attention or can find to be interested in, 2. Be descriptive, 3. Adjust your writing to your audience. As a student I constantly found it difficult to follow certain rules such as not being able to use “I” or “I before E”. Now the only rules I am going to follow are the three main principles mentioned in the first metaphor hoping to improve my writing.
“SHOW & TELEPATHS” the second metaphor is another great example of a mistake I commonly make in my writing. This metaphor tells how it is easy to loos a reader when your not being precise enough developing an idea. I have noticed in the past that I don’t finish my thought in other words I write as if my reader knows what I am thinking of.
I have also made the mistake of not knowing how to be specific which Reid goes more in depth in her third metaphor “THE LITTLE GREEN BALL AND SOME PEOPLE:DOING DETAILS RIGHT”. I tend to write an idea without using enough facts, statistics and examples. Reid gives the example of a writer speaking about a green ball but the green ball the writer is talking about can be very distinct from the one the reader is imagining. Therefore it is very important to use descriptive language no matter how long a paragraph ends to be.
After reading the fourth metaphor I realized how I could relate to it. In the example “LOST MONEY AND THANK-YOU NOTES: WHAT’S IN AN AUDIENCE?” uses the thought of having to borrow money from different people to explain how a writer has to adapt their writing according to their audience. For example the diction and explanation of why you need money would be different from the reason you give a friend for them to lend you money. Having this example in mind will hopefully aid me to write according to my audience.
It is hard enough for me to write the most important paragraph of an essay to grab a readers attention, but keeping the readers attention is even harder and important. The example “PINK HOUSES & CHORUSES KEEPING READER WITH YOU” makes it easier to understand how we must keep brining up the topic we are writing about but not too much where it gets repetitive. I also agree with Reid when she mentions how teachers amplify the use of a thesis statement and topic sentence but then other teachers say it is not required? This has always confused me but it is clear now to me that we have to warn our reader what we are writing about in one way or another. It is something that has to be done although it does not have to be extremely structured.

Work Cited
Reid, E. Shelley. “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students.” Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 2. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2011. 3-23. Writing Spaces. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Blog Entry #4 Eng 107

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After reading Shelly Reid’s “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Students”, I have chosen five of the metaphors in Reid’s essay that resonated with myself.

The first metaphor I chose was called A Thousand Rules And Three Principles. This metaphor explains that when writing an essay or a research paper as a college student, writing is made harder than it has when trying to follow too many rules for writing. Grammar, thesis’s, persuasiveness, and incorporating sources are all categories in which many rules apply when writing. I can relate because writing has always been my least favorite thing to do coming into college and it seems like a chore instead of a living process that connects people and moves the world forward. “1. Write about what you know about, are curious about, are passionate about (or what you can find a way to be curious about or interested in). 2. Show, don’t just tell. 3. Adapt to the audience and purpose you’re writing for.” (Reid 4). These three principles let us, as college students, write rhetorically and pay attention to the needs of the author and the needs of the reader, rather than the needs of the professor.

 

The second metaphor I chose was called The Little Green Ball And Some People: Doing Details Right. This metaphor explains that not every reader reads like you do. And what I mean by this is that when writing a paper, a person knows exactly what they are writing about no matter how vague it can be. Now when a reader reads your paper, some questions they ask themselves sometimes is “Huhh?” or “Wha-a-a?”. This means that you as a writer needs to explain things in such detail that the reader does not have to ask themselves questions about the text. I can relate because in class when we peer review essays in groups, sometimes the person who is reading my essay asks about what this sentence means or what this paragraph infers. This is a sign that I need to incorporate more facts, statistics, comparisons, sensory description examples, expert testimony, and personal experience into my essays and research papers I write. What I took from this article is that a reader can not read the writers mind because it is simply impossible, so a writer should consider being specific in the details that are shared.

The third metaphor I chose was called Lost Money And Thank You Notes: What’s In An Audience. This metaphor explains that as a writer, you have to consider who your audience is. And what I mean by this is as writer has different writing styles depending on who the audience is. The metaphor also explains that you have to identify your primary audience and your secondary audience.  Primary audiences are those who receive the communication directly and are also known as the target audience and secondary audiences include anyone who may indirectly receive a copy of the communication. These include anyone who will receive a copy, need to approve, will hear about, or be affected by your message. A secondary audience is something that I have learned and should take into consideration. When I get a writing assignment from a professor, in my mind I think that my professor is the only person that I am writing to and I feel that I should think about other audiences when I write.

The fourth metaphor I chose was called Pink Houses & Choruses: Keeping The Reader With You. This metaphor explains that when writing, you need to ensure your target audience and put down all the detail you can think of to help show your ideas to those readers, needing to focus not on losing them. And what I mean by this is when writing, we need to use the same key words as an anchor for all the complex ideas and examples we connect and needing the audience to recognize the main idea. I can relate because when I write an essay or a research paper, sometimes I do not mention those key words or main ideas here and there because I feel it is being repeated one too many times. As a writer, I have to consider the readers perspective and understand that they do not see my main ideas and key words repeated, they see them as being re-ensured because they are key words and main ideas.

The fifth and final metaphor I chose is called Wash-And-Wear Paragraphs. This metaphor explains the purpose in writing short and lengthy paragraphs. And what I mean by this is a writer should want to write paragraphs that your target audience can handle without overwhelming them. “Writers need to remember that paragraphs help readers focus and manage their analytical energies. It’s good to have some variance in size and shape but not to overtax your readers with too much variation; it’s useful to write each paragraph with a clear beginning and ending to direct readers’ attention; and it’s helpful if paragraphs come with a blend of information and analysis to help readers “see what you mean” about your subpoints and see how they relate to the overall point of your essay” (Reid 15).

Works Cited

Reid, E. Shelley. “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students.” Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 2. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2011. 3-23. Writing Spaces. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

 

 

Blog #3 Eng 107

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After reading the “Navigating Articles” by Kerry Dirk, I have learned that genre is important when writing certain papers, articles, or letters. Genre incorporates mood and subject to a text and that what is most important for readers to comprehend. “To consider as potential genres such homely discourse as the letter of recommendation, the user manual, the progress report, the ransom note, the lecture, and the white paper, as well as the eulogy, the apologia, the inaugural, the public proceeding, and the sermon, is not to trivialize the study of genres; it is to take seriously the rhetoric in which we are immersed and the situations in which we find ourselves. (155)” (Dirk 254).

Genre Letter

Throughout my four years attending as an undergraduate, I have loved the experience Channel Islands had to offer. I feel like this campus is my home and will be in my heart for the rest of my life. This opportunity to attend Graduate school can lead to many other opportunities into the workforce. I have showed that I have met and have over exceeded the requirements to graduate getting my Bachelor’s Degree with a GPA that clearly speaks for itself. I have also been involved within Student Leadership and Student Life implying that I see myself as a leader and express strong leadership skills. I would also like to thank this reader for the time and effort to read this letter.

Sincerely,

Andrew Hauffen

  So this letter was a letter that I have wrote to show the genre I used. I did determine what action I was trying to accomplish which was a letter toward someone to enroll into Graduate School or a Graduate Program. I felt that the purpose of this letter was to put myself out there and to show that I am capable of doing the tasks that I get assigned as a Graduate student. The audience is the person who is in charge of enrolling students into Graduate School. Wting this letter I felt I did have a lot of freedom because I can come from all sorts of angles to introduce myself and selling myself as this student who is capable. The location affects the genre by reassuring that I am writing to a person who had specific qualities to qualify for this position, reading letters for students that attempt to enter Graduate School and this genre I feel needs to be professional, understandable, and powerful. These genre’s, in my opinion, are used in so many ways.

Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 249-262. Writing Spaces. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

Reading Like a Writer Should Be

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Reading like a Writer Should Be

Reading like a writer can sometimes not be the easiest thing to do but if you take the time to read through it thoroughly you will be able to understand why the writer uses that way of thinking. Most of the time you read in order to learn how to write or how the author writes. For instance, they say “you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text” ( Bunn 72). For me there was always one book in particular that I was able to grasp was “Blood on the River” by Elisa Carbone. I had read this book over and over again and was able to understand the author’s writing style. For a bit of background to understand it’s about a boy named Samuel Collier an orphan on the streets of London picked up by Captain John Smith on the Mayflower expedition to the New World. Mainly it’s centered on Virginia mostly as is gathered from a collection of records, letters, reports and all sorts of other information from those times. Mainly the author was trying to convey the story from the perspective of one of the colonialists and try to tell the story to as much detail as she could. Trying to give the reader the best told story even if some of it were not from the people themselves. This form is one of two ways we can read like a writer. Though another way we can interpret it is to read at the book as a whole from concrete details in the writing to get an overall view of what the author is trying to convey to the reader. Also since there was not too many people at the time that this book was published that did do in depth research on the colonists themselves rather where the sites they lived on. Elisa Carbone was trying to convey to the reader’s what the colonists life was like during those tough and tumbling days during the early colonization of Europeans in the region. You learn to read like a writer by attempting to understand the ideas and the concepts they when writing these stories to the best of your ability. For instance, “We see the choices the writer has made, and we see how the writer has coped with the consequences of those choices” (Bunn 75). This quote means the way the writer writes it based on his choices can also affect the way we read the story and can change drastically based on the author’s choice. Reading like a writer can sometimes be difficult to interpret but we eventually understand them over time and develop our own sense of understanding as we continue to both read and write on our own.

 

 

Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 71-86. Writing Spaces. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.