Using Sources:
Using Sources, by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, brings up the questions of how do you identify useful and credible sources among the millions available to you, and how do you use them well once you’ve found them. The simple answer is practicing “Infotention”. This is basically described as one’s attention skills to sort various information and use critical thinking to find the best most reliable sources. The authors also mention how multitasking doesn’t cut it. Along with this, the authors bring up strategies to achieve this along with the guidelines to paraphrasing, summarizing, and using quotations for sources. The second half of this piece focuses on the technicalities of writing a paper with sources. Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz mention the importance of signal words and signal verbs, highlighting how they can be used to clarify and support an argument if used properly. The biggest take away from this writing for me is the importance of focusing all your attention one source at a time and that multitasking, although it seems efficient, can lead to weaker source development.
Intro to Refining Your Writing Skills:
Before writing any piece one must understand that there are different requirements for different rhetorical situations. Sociologists, biologists, and humanities scholars all have different ways of viewing and perceiving certain information. For instance, the different ways of citing sources like APA and MLA formats. For academic writings, the audience is often more focused and is really more important than a popular writing precisely because of discourse communities. Once you know your audience and the type of style to best inform them with, you now have cultural capital. This is kind of like the gateway to refining your work. In conclusion, the audience is essential to writing an overall better paper as well as finding your own voice that fits with your targeted audience.