In the reading, “Using Sources”, Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz points out the sources that we find are of no use unless ‘infotention’, a word they used to describe “a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills and computer-powered information filters” allows us to pay attention and focus our attention to it. When using sources, we have to look for information that would support our argument and define concepts of our claim. It is possible for us to base an argument from a source and working around from that or to write our point and support it with the takeaways we gain from reading the source. Some methods that this writing suggests is paraphrasing, summarizing, or quoting a source. The writing says that we should use paraphrasing when we understand and respect the meaning of the source. Paraphrasing helps us to be able to get the main points in our own words without changing the author’s viewpoint towards the topic. It is common to use paraphrasing when the source is heavily used in the writing. Summarizing a source helps the reader get the gist of the source and helps identify key points without the reader having to read the entire point that the source is trying to bring across. It is helpful to summarize our sources when it is used to signify importance in our argument or when the key points could be condensed into a few sentences. We can use quotations when the main point or key points of the source can be expressed one just one sentence and most of its conditions is to use the phrase of the author word for word because the phrase didn’t come from our own ideas. The point is, how we use our sources in our essay has a big impact on its meaning and structure of the paper.
In the reading, “Refining Your Writing: Style, Voice, Editing, and Grammar”, the author encourages us to develop our own style of writing. Everyone has a unique voice and for each person, we use another voice to communicate depending on the discourse communities we are in. Academic writings limit our capability to explore new ways to express our ideas as our grades are reflected on how we present it and the professor may not enjoy us using humor to convey an idea. Also, we should have a defined audience when we write a paper because it allows our writing conventions to vary and help us make a successful argument due to the style we are opened to which can be referred to cultural capital from Pierre Bourdieu. Using our stereotypical standards of academic writing can be repetitive and boring, so the author encourages us to try different styles to convey an idea that we can be comfortable with.