In David Rosenwasser’s Writing Analytically, there are many ideas that I have not before considered. First of all, Rosenwasser brings up the idea of “define significant parts and how they’re related”. When I’m writing an essay, my topics are often too vague and not detailed. He argues that writers should pay more attention to details; moreover, it’s a better idea to divide writing elements into more parts, and find the connections among them. By doing so, people can understand the subject easily.
The second idea that I learn from his argument is to “look for anomalies”. As he mentions, people often ignore the information that are opposite to their beliefs. However, these anomalies may lead to a better understanding of the subject or even a better theory. Therefore, it’s essential for writers to look for anomalies.
Last but not least, Rosenwasser also states “[writers should] keep reformulating questions and explanations”. It’s very important to list out questions because they can help writers to analysis subjects more clearly. In addition, he uses the different questions that asked by economic professor and sociology professor toward a same issue as an example to explain that questions may vary with different disciplines. In short, the three ideas that he brings up are very helpful to my writing.
Tingting Chen
Very good take on the information Rosenwasser presented in this chapter of his book. Looking for anomalies is something I too learned from Rosenwasser’s argument and I think that details like anomalies are unique to other details in a writing which is why they deserve a point of emphasis in analysis. Great post.
I like the fact that you brought up how Rosenwasser says to pay attention to detail. You say that you have a problem with being too vague. On the other hand, I feel like I elaborate a little too much at times. I agree with you and Rosenwasser that detail is essential to a persons writing, however, too much detail can sometimes do more harm than good. I also like the fact that you brought up the anomalies because I too feel like these details that don’t help our argument are the ones that we just skip over as writers. However, this just goes to show how we tend to manipulate our arguments instead of letting it flow. In short, I feel like the ideas that you have brought up in your post sets the stage on what I hope we will try to focus on in our writing.
Hi, i agree that attention to details is an essential part of good writing. With clear and concise desciption of details, i believe our writings will become much more lively. However, I think we at times will find that we tend to use too much words to express our thoughts. I think the next level of writing would be using our words sparely.