Westin Underberger In Class 1

RLW Discussion Questions

1. “Reading like a writer is completely different from the conventional way of reading books and articles for other classes. Reading like a writer analyzes every single piece of writing, including specific word choice, and how that influences the overall tone of the paper. The structure makes one critically analyze what the writer is saying, the questions he or she is asking, and why he or she may be provoking that. For other classes, most reading is done to get the overall information, not to focus on specific portions and what the underlying tone is.

2. As a writer, one of the most prominent features of your work that readers can identify with is your tone of voice. This combined with the specific audience that the paper is featured for all connects the readers back to the writers work, emotions, and tones featured in the paper.

3. I enjoyed the styling of the writer and how he prompted the reader to question each and every one of his words, only to prove his point time after time again. He provoked deeper thinking with each and every paragraph, and his tone of voice made it sound as if he was speaking directly to you as a person, and not a general audience. I believe this was a result of his word choice, sentence structure, and formatting, as it flowed as if he were just speaking casually. I plan to try and use a similar strategy whenever I need to write a persuasive paper again.

4. A few ways you can learn about the context of the book before reading it is by browsing the back cover. The basic storyline is usually printed on the back, and gives the reader an outlook as to what the story is about. Other things you can do is to view the authors biography, and if it is a well known author for writing specific types of books, then it could be correlated with their previous work. Depending on whether it is an article in a magazine, or a full book, the location of where you find it (specifically what magazine) will have some relation to the story. Lastly, the intended audience will determine a large portion of the authors writing style and context.