When we think of “moves” many of
us are thinking about a way certain wrestler executes his opponent’s, or how a
superhero fights against a villain. What we don’t think about are the moves
used by authors in their writings as well. If we were took look at a famous
author like Stephen King, we would see all kinds of different ways that he
writes in his books, the specific tone he uses, how descriptive he is, and even
the language used. We are going to look at the similarities and contrasts of
two different authors, and all the “moves” that they use in order to make their
writings unique.
In
the Essay, Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing by Peter
Elbow. The author speaks about the differences between first order thinking,
which is “free thinking” and second order, or thinking “critically. First off
this author could have gone a totally different route in writing then the way
he did. He could have chosen to write a very descriptive, monotone piece about
writing in these ways but instead he chose to add his own “flavor” to it. As
soon as you begin reading he starts the essay by setting it up for the reader
so that he will know what he is talking about, but he does this by adding an
example about the holidays and how it relates to the topic that is going to be
covered. Throughout the reading you get the sense of the writer’s tone of
voice, which leads you through what he is speaking about. He uses a lot of personal quotes to give an
idea or thought on the topic that he is currently speaking about in the
paragraph. The author also uses italicized words and dashes to get a certain
point across.
Now
moving into the other reading called Annoying ways people use sources, By
Kyle D. Stedman. We begin to see a vast range of moves as opposed to Elbows piece.
His essay is about how people seem to ruin their papers by not looking
carefully on how they cite things, using quotes, or miss placing information in
their essay. As the author states, this leads to a sloppy written piece that gathers
criticism by most readers of the piece. Now in this essay, similar to the
previous one; this author could have also taken a different route on how to write
about this topic. The author could chose to go a generic, textbook route in
disseminating his ideas to his audience.
Stedman starts
out his paper with a personal story comparing driving to messy writing by people
who are unaware about the conventions of driving on the second lane. This is an
instant hook for the people that are reading his paper due to the fact that it
is conversational and informal unlike the beginning piece of an informative
essay that would have had you feeling dull as you start reading the essay. What I liked about this authors way of writing
in this essay is that he totally went with his own form of conveying his idea
to the audience. It was very unique in the sense that he did not follow the
standard conventions seen in regular writings. Throughout his essay he had
numbered reasons separating each paragraph explaining what the topic meant. I
thought this to be very unique to his writing and considered a move because it
added his tone of voice to the piece as I read along. He also had a personal
quote, “What…? But, hey…oh come on!”
which he used often as a sign of his thoughts on the idea that he had just gone
over. This move was interesting because it also showed his way of thinking and
personality that you would not find in a textbook essay. His essay was neatly
organized by separating the paragraphs by s certain topic in bold letters, like
“The annoyances” and then he goes on
to talk about it, gives and informal example—one that he made up but fits
perfectly to the argument. He then follows this up with a paragraph starting
with “The Fix” in which he gives a
brief but effective example on how to overcome a certain writer’s obstacle.
Although Elbow writes to his
readers in this manner, he did not have as many moves Stedman had nor did it strengthen
his paper as he had done with his “moves” Instead he decided to go with his very
own personal style and moves which actually worked far better in his piece as
opposed in Elbows. Both writings had great essays and were very good at obtaining
my attention on their certain topic that they went over. It is only that Stedman’s ways with his “moves” made his essay
stronger and more successful in portraying his ideas.
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