How To Read Like A Writer- Mike Bunn
“When you read like a writer, you are trying to figure out how the text you are reading was constructed so that you learn how to “build” one for yourself” (5).
I found this statement to be very helpful in understanding why I might be trying to Read Like a Writer. The comparison allowed me to visualize the importance of learning this valuable skill. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to read like a writer because I am so used to reading for content and a deeper understanding of the subject material, especially when reading academic materials. If I approach reading in a way that allows me to discover how it was produced or “built” then I will be reading like a writer. I am trying to follow this advice and while reading trying to figure out why an author made a particular choice and what other choices did the author nix in order to come up with this final product.
“...I am encouraging you to question whether aspects of the writing are appropriate and effective in addition to deciding whether you liked or disliked them. You want to imagine how other readers might respond to the writing and the techniques you’ve identified. ... This is important because it’s the same thing you should be thinking about while you are writing: how will readers respond to this technique I am using, to this sentence, to this word? As you read, ask yourself what the author is doing at each step of the way, and then consider whether the same choice or technique might work in your own writing” (12).
The point the Bunn is emphasizing in this passage is to analyze every move the author made, each word, comma, stylistic choice and decide whether you agree or not and how it works with the piece as a whole. The goal is to then implement these ideas into your own work. I think this is very important because not only am I learning how to read like a writer, through learning those skills, I am in fact learning to write like a writer. Being able to read like a writer is essential to learning how to write like a writer.
Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources- Karen Rosenberg
“...consider the audience. When the writer sat down to write your assigned reading, to whom was he or she implicitly talking?” (5).
I find this aspect of breaking down a text very useful to helping understand and approach the reading process. If you can identify who the target is for the piece you are reading, you can draw from different strategies to read, comprehend and understand the writing process. If you can determine that the piece is written for you then you know that it will be easier to understand and will take less effort and dissection on your part to comprehend the text. Whereas if you determine that the text is intended for other scholars you may have to dig deeper to understand the text. An important part of determining your audience is that if you realize that you are not the intended audience you can submit to the fact that you may not know everything that the author is discussing and you don’t need to google every little thing you don’t understand. You can gain much understanding from the different parts of the text. Knowing the intended audience relieves the daunting pressure of reading a scholarly work.
Ways to improve your reading of especially difficult texts are to break it down into its most basic sections. Rosenberg shows us how to break it down into sections such as title, abstract, introduction, section headings and conclusions. Each part contains different critical information. Rosenberg states, “As obvious as it sounds, pay attention to the title because it can convey a lot of information that can help you figure out how to read the rest of the article more efficiently” (7). The title can give you clues to the main idea of the piece and many times the way it is formed can tell what sort of audience it is intended for and perhaps even the genre of the piece. You can decode each section just like this to help you to be a better reader.
