Analysis Of Thomas Cooley's The Norton Sampler: Short Review

The fundamental elements of the information shared in the Unit 1 reading assignment is a very sound advisement for academic or professional writing under any circumstance that an individual may encounter. Utilizing Microsoft Word or a similar application, avoiding slang and similar abbreviating techniques and not supporting your opinions with a reputable source document can cause problems at multiple levels in academic or professional writing (Bethel University, ND). It is my opinion that the tips provided in the Unit 1 Read section of this course demonstrate a very common sense approach to mentoring new students and writers concerning common oversights. Attention to detail and conformance to establish methods are always important while composing

Despite there being a distinct theme in all three of the articles, each one provides a similar message. I think the purpose of each article was to help the audience improve their reading and writing skills by a great deal. In the article “How to Read Like a Writer,” by Mike Bunn, the author focuses on helping the reader sharpen their reading skills and gives insight on what he thinks a good reader is like. He explains to his audience that readers need to focus more on what type of material they are reading in order to understand the work. Bunn is correct in making this point, and I feel as though I read material thoroughly in order to have a sense of comprehension or what the author is talking about.

Summary: Bunn’s article informs us and shows us how to read, think, and analyze like a reader when reading. Reading like a writer helps us to think critically. The type of writing Bunn is using in his article is expository writing. The intended audience(s) in this article is college students.

Writers use strategies in personal essays to make a connection to readers. Even though readers aren’t necessarily right next to the writer, writers write their personal essays as if the reader were there. They are able to reveal their deepest thoughts within their writing, as readers can relate to it. Phillip Lopate states the importance of strategies in his anthology, “The Art of the Personal Essay.” In his anthology, Lopate mentions that the use of strategies used in personal essays are similar; however, those strategies can portray different themes that the author doesn’t state.

As I was reading Melissa Duffy’s “Inspiration, and Craig Vetter’s “Bonehead Writing,” I found myself connecting with Vetter’s paper more than Duffy’s. I found that the presentation in “Bonehead Writing” to capture my attention, and that Vetter’s feelings about writing was similar to my opinion on writing. Through his wording and humor, I think Craig Vetter wrote the best essay. I find that the wording and presentation of an article or essay influences my opinion of the writer, and it affects how I receive the idea they are trying to present to me. Craig Vetter uses a blunt approach to convey his idea that writing is nearly impossible to teach, and describes writing as “A blood sport, a walk in the garden of agony every time out.”

Mooney uses a persuasive writing technique in this essay, to convince the reader of her point of view. Throughout the essay Mooney compares the speed of speaking and letter emphasis to prove her point. She also states that

In this short passage by William Zinsser, Zinsser used compare and contrast to inform the readers about his personal opinions of being a writer. Due to different understandings and opinions on how to be a good writer, Zinsser decided to use compare and contrast in order to present a clean and detailed differences to the reader about how different people’s writing style can vary. By doing this, it would be extremely helpful for the readers to distinguish the differences of each writing style, see the benefits and disadvantages, and ultimately gather enough information to decide which style fits them the best. At the panel with Dr. Brock, Zinsser gave the audience a broader view of different writing styles and how they contribute differently.

The use of these tactics allow for the the author to convey his purpose and message in such a way that it is not immediately rejected and the thought remains a possibility to be thought

This grants more creative freedom for the writer, while also instilling the different template methods through practice. In spite of the logical advantages that the templates give the writer, some people are still skeptical of this type of method. Many believe that these templates are a juvenile form that inhabits creativity. One student even proclaims, “I’m in college now, this is third-grade-level stuff.” (10) Regardless of these students claims that templates are too simplistic and less imaginative, Graff and Birkensteins’ idea that one must learn through template forms in order to enhance their skills in the future should be endorsed.

This chapter can help young writers in English class with their papers in many different ways. For instance, Trimble gives examples on what a veteran writer does in order to make their writing interesting. He also gives out techniques on how you can get a reader’s attention or how you can fix your writing to make it readable instead of having nonsense. What makes this difficult for me as a writer is that I write what ever comes to my mind and it will not make sense. Another thing that makes it difficult for me as a writer is that I am not good at getting the readers attention and having him hooked on to my work.

All of which helped tremendously with becoming a more precise writer and developing my identity as a writer. In the beginning of this course we worked with different readings that were intended to challenge us intellectully. Readings such as “To see your story clearly, start by pulling the wool over your own eyes” which is found the New York Times and “All Writing is Autobiography” by Donald M. Murray where readings that were meant to be challenging yet unfamiliar to us as well. This concept helped me greatly because it proved that I can be a flexible reader.

How does a third person omniscient narrator affect a story? The Lovely Bones, a novel by Alice Sebold, is about a girl named Susie who is raped and killed. After being killed, Susie goes off to Heaven and we are shown how she adapts to living in heaven. We see her killer continue to live among her family and friends, and we see her family fall apart. Susie knows what everyone does and thinks, and she shares this with the reader.

Hemingway’s symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants Ernest Hemingway among the best of authors of his time, uses a quite different approach to his writings. His style to of writing is often vague and unclear. Hemmingway only gives a bit of content about the story, and the rest is hidden or missing entirely. The audiences are therefore forced to read more carefully and piece together the story. The style of writing he uses is known as the iceberg theory.

Each essay I wrote took me several time to write, several drafts which show that I have improve every time I do the drafts to write a perfect masterpiece. I learned a lot of skills and techniques this quarter, which has helped me to improve and progress my writing skills for the future. I will remember the skills, techniques, and tips that professor gave us in this English class for my higher education. For example, all the time that I went to visit professor Sapozhnikov office hours to receive help on my out-of -class essays has helped me to improve, grow, and progress in my writing skills as a writer. Some of the significant changes I have made as I was progressing and growing were to develop a strong thesis to help support my claims as I write my essays, such as facts, observations, illustration, and examples.

As a College freshman in his second semester, I have learned to deal with the challenges that I have to deal with peaceful, yet exhilarating moment when my mind engages with an author’s thoughts on a page. As John Dewey states “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” What Dewey insists is from my early days in high school to my first year in college as a freshman, I wanted to know the full concept of English; however, I have now realized this subject would fill in my void of English with noteworthy complexities. This was not the case for most of my second semester in Montgomery College; I always had trouble in various parts of the subject, such as development in thesis statement, sentence writing and reflecting on previous essays. Writing a thesis statement had been one of my down falls in English.