Reading to write and writing to read (RLW Answers)

1. The techniques portrayed in the essay “Reading Like a Writer” differs greatly from the techniques that I use in my own personal readings. Mike Bunn presents the idea that a reader should read with the purpose of figuring out the reasoning behind the author’s writing style and choices. Whereas my personal reading style has always been to figure out the intent behind the reading as quickly and as accurately as possible. My previous class has always stressed the importance of understanding the readings and have either glossed over or ignored entirely the meaning to finding the purpose of the author’s style.

2. One obvious choice that I make in my writing that my readers might identify is word choice. The diction of my work sets the tone of my work and helps me narrow my target audience.

3. The author’s use of informal vs. formal writing is very interesting to me. The author uses a lot of references to his students as a means of connecting with his target audience. This technique seems to be very useful and I plan to use this any time I need to write any persuasive piece of work.

4. Some of the techniques that I use to identify the context of a text before I read is to look at the type of work it is and the type of publication it is on. It will help me identify the author’s target audience as well the style of the work that I will be reading.