PB2B

When examining writings from authors of a certain genre, there is sometime an overlap in their use of conventions, and as a result, many of the articles come off as being somewhat similar. Each writer has a certain set of moves that differentiates their writings from someone else’s. These moves can be seen by looking at a text more in depth and by understanding the moves of an author it helps the reader to better understand what they are reading. While writer’s moves can help set them apart from other writers, the moves of authors help to link articles together. Karen Rosenberg’s Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources and Mike Bunn’s How to Read Like a Writer are very similar in many facets. While there is much in common between these two articles, the moves of the authors in their writing’s set the two articles apart.

Each essays opens up with a personal flashback of their college days. Both of these flashbacks help the reader to get familiar with the writer. By using a personal story at the beginning of the article, Rosenberg and Bunn help to establish a relationship with the reader and help any student relate to the struggles that they faced. These introductions help to hook the reader’s attention. Without them, the articles would be very bland and boring. Both articles set the scene of where they were and this helps the reader to really envision and feel like they are there with the writer. The use of “I” in each article makes it very personal. These articles were made very interesting because as a student you can directly sympathize with what both of the authors went through. The author’s moves in the two articles help to make the articles more interesting and easier to read.

In Rosenberg’s Reading Games she uses bold headings in order to break up the text. I think that this is useful because it helps to provide an overview of what the author intends to talk about in that certain section. I like this move by the author and it really helps me to understand what I am reading better. Later in the writings, the author just bolds words that she thinks are important. I don’t totally agree with this move because it seems somewhat randomized and there is not really any parallelism to it. Rosenberg keeps the whole article very personalized which makes the reader feel comfortable reading and also makes them want to keep reading. The article as a whole really dissects the daunting task of reading a scholarly article and puts it into a different light that makes the reader say, “hey this is not so bad after all!” Overall Rosenberg’s moves are very helpful in the sense that it helps to make the reading easier and more enjoyable.

In Bunn’s How to Read like a Writer, one of the moves that he uses it to begin every section with a question. Like Rosenberg, this is a successful move because it helps to break up the lengthy article, that with out these section breaks, could be very long and dry. Besides the large section breaks, Bunn uses bullet points in order to have the reader take a minute to stop and think about what they just read. These bullet points, unlike the bolded text in the previous article, these bullet points are very helpful in making the reading more enjoyable. The article as a whole is very helpful and provides many good tips and tricks on how to “read like a writer”.

Articles that are part of the same genre, tend to somewhat get muddled together and seem to sometimes repeat information. A writer’s moves help to put their “stamp” on their writings and make it different from the rest. By examining an article more in depth, a writer’s moves come out and by finding these moves; readers can use these points to make the readings easier to understand. Other writers use other authors’ moves and take them as examples and use these to improve their own writings. In both Rosenberg’s and Bunn’s articles, their moves help to make their articles more interesting and enjoyable to read. By making the beginning of their papers more personalized, the reader has a easier time relating to what the author went through. Each article helps college students better understand writing as a whole.