Using Sources
Summary
The information a writer has gathered is meant to supplement their writing. It has to be persuasive for the intended audience. Rheingold has coined the term “infotention” to describe what deserves attention and what doesn’t. Practicing Infotention asks the writer to be cautious of the information available to us on the internet. As a writer, you’re going to need as much evidence to support your claim and understand it as best as you can. After finding your sources you have to synthesize them, and figure out how the sources relate to each other, or not, and help support your claim. The intended audience has not read your sources, most likely, so to bring them up to speed you can paraphrase, where you put an author’s ideas into your own words. You usually paraphrase sources that you expect to use frequently. You could summarize, where you capture the gist of the source by including the key ideas that are emphasized in the source. It is usually shorter than a paraphrase. Quotes are used to show that the writer has referred to experts in their writing. They can either support your claim or present counter-arguments. However, before introducing a quote, give context and signal words. An academic writer who has gone through the trouble of finding and properly using the information will gain more credibility from their audience. The resulting paper will demonstrate the writer’s knowledge on the subject.
Response
From this reading, I have learned that there is a lot of planning involved in academic writing, at least, in well-written ones. As a writer, you are in a position of power/ influence where you will be informing a particular audience about a particular topic. The writer has to be aware of how they use their power, it is their responsibility to do the research and present the information properly.
Introduction to Refining Your Writing Style
Summary
Different rhetorical situations call for different requirements for your writing. Various discourse communities in terms of professions/fields of work use different styles of writing. In order for your writing to carry some credibility in a particular field, you have to appropriate it to fit into the writing conventions used by that field. When writing you want to always keep your audience as well as have your purpose in mind. This will affect what you write and how you write it. As the writer, the audience will look to you for information so write like you know what you’re talking about.
Response
This is another one of those readings from the book that would’ve been useful at the beginning of the semester. The reading uses language that is inviting because it repeats the notion that there is a lot to learn when writing at the college level. Although I can see its relevance to our current project.