250-254 Guiding your reader

I never really have thought about guiding my reader in while writing my papers, but it is a very important aspect of the text. The audience needs to know what exactly they are reading or listening to and why it is important. I also never pay much attention to my title. In fact to me it used to be one of the least important things of my text. However, it is a vital part. I judge what I want to read based on the title, so why wouldn't other people? Another point for the reader to pay attention to is the thesis statement because it is supposed to sum up your whole text in one sentence. This way, the audience can get a taste of what exactly it is you are trying to get at. I'm very bad at transition sentences, but they are also important in telling your reader what is coming up next and also refreshing their memory on what they just read about.

239-249 Strategies

The beginning and the ending of a text are both vital. The beginning needs to grab the reader's attention depending on who the audience is, and the end needs to make sense and satisfy what the reader wanted to know. In a rhetorical situation, the beginning will tell what is going on and kind of have a brief summary about the subject and get the reader up to speed on what he/she is writing about. It also included a thesis statement which in a way sums up the whole text and what you will be talking about. Depending on who your audience is you need to make sure to try to grab their attention and to connect with them. Endings need to state the point that you are trying to make and getting rid of any questions that the reader might have. If these aren't provided, the text was not successful because the audience did not get what they wanted.

266-274 Comparing and Contrasting

Comparing: Looking for similarities. Contrasting: Looking for differences. People do both of these all the time without even realizing it. There are two ways to organize comparing and contrasting: block, and point by point. When you use the block method, you give all the information about your first item and then the next item separately. In point by point, you basically compare them side by side at the same time. Metaphors help compare things by using like or as. This usually isnt contrasting things because it is trying to show how two things are similar.

Classifying and Dividing 260-265

Classifying and dividing are very important. Things need to be grouped together so the reader can make sense of your text. If everything is jumbled and there is no organization then the reader will get bored and not want to see what you have to say. Classifying is when you group things together that are similar and diving is when you go even further and break up what you classified. This also helps you write your paper because it organizes your thoughts and puts them in order. The categories have to be distinct or else there is no point in grouping them. There can't be a lot of gray area.

255-259 Causes and effects

Every cause has an effect. Most of the time, I just want to know the effect and not have to ask myself why something happened. That's just me being lazy. Analyzing causes and effects is very important because without it, our world would not be filled with very much information. "Listing, clustering and outlining" these are three things I can do in order to analyze a cause. Why would I want to analyze a cause? So i get more out of it. So i don't just go the easy way out. In order to analyze a rhetorical situation, you have to have evidence that supports what you are talking about. I couldn't just say "You have the flu" without telling the person why and how I know this information. Obviously there are many effects to certain causes. Using common sense comes in handy here because some are probably more legit than others. If you do research and analyze each one, you can narrow it down to which one fits the best.

Strategies 313-328

I like the points that the first paragraph makes about reading texts. Sometimes I find myself reading pages and pages and not even realizing that I'm not paying attention. Especially if it's something that I'm not interested in. Skimming a text is easy enough. That is usually as far as my reading goes. That way when important things pop out at me, I can read those over again. I actaully do always underline word I don't know, but I never find myself looking them up, so I dont really think that does me any good. I think it's a good idea to read the text and take notes as I'm reading the text. I know I wont read it over again, so there is no point in reading it once then reading it again to take notes over it. "When you summarize, you restate a text's main ideas in your own words, leaving out most examples and details." I agree and disagree with this. Usually when I can sum something up, it means I understand it. If i can restate it in my own words, it will usually stay in my head forever. However, it does leave room for error because what if I sum something up that I think I understand but I don't?

More analyzing 518-553

More interpreting. For analyzing, I think it's easier to ask yourself the questions they have in this chapter. That way, you have something to start with then you can just build upon that. "When you analyze a text, you are basically arguing that the text should be read in a certain way." So i don't know if analyzing is more along the lines of a persuasive essay or a research paper like I thought before. "The sheer volume of it requires us to take in everything as a whole, absorbing much while actually seeing very little." I like this because even though it is actually in an analysis, it explains analyzing as well. I would need to look at the piece as a whole, then see what I want to see and talk about it. That is how I interpret that quote.