Stephanie Cervantes
Writing 10- Fall 2013
Prof. Andrea Mele
Writing Response #3
Throughout this week, some of the skills acquired and developed over the course
were creating discussions regarding the text in The Shallows and Everything’s an
Argument, as well as the various forms of structuring essays.
Based on the readings and Wordpress discussion, I have a fair understanding of
the 3 primary types of argumentative structures: classical oration, the Rogerian
and invitational, and lastly Toulmin argument. Classical oration is the traditional
type of writing because this style of writing orates persuasive forms of ethos at
the beginning and then pathos towards the end of writings, to help win over the
audience. Rogerian and invitational styles of argument deal with the willingness
of the writer to answer fairly about some of the opposing positions that might
come from the audience. Meanwhile the Toulmin argument can help the writer
come up with ideas for structuring essays as well as testing’s against these ideas
to see how strong the argument is.
Some of the challenges faced throughout the readings were, understanding what
format the text in The Shallows tied into. During discussion I was introduced to a
new form of structure that the author of The Shallows, Nicholas Carr utilized an
associative/digression format. An associative/digressive format or style of writing
embeds different ideas along the text, explains them, and then brings it back to
the main issue. This is a form of identifying structure. To identify structure
successfully, the class was asked to bring a track list from an album of our
preference, and was then asked to interpret the tone, lyrics, or rhythm of the
music and how this helped create an image or feel as a whole for the album. As
for the composure for creating an essay, there was confusion of how the Toulmin
argument distinguished forming a warrant and backing up evidence. After
discussion, warrant was identified as making you claim better meanwhile,
backing up evidence supports the warrant.
Some new thoughts are to become familiarized with the style of writing that an
author is contributing to his/her text, in order to avoid confusion regarding the
context of a book. Strategies that were discussed and practiced throughout the
week were how to interpret readings into our future writings to avoid confusion
from our audience/readers. I am enjoying the material that is being discussed in
the course because I know that I am improving my writing skills by getting a feel
of how different styles of writing can contribute to the message I would like to
deliver throughout my writings in the future.