Sometimes, writing can be such a challenge especially when we have a fear of authority. The complexities of the task can be hard to comprehend. I believe reading this article is a crucial tool in a writer’s development of skills. In the article Reading and Writing Without Authority by Ann M. Penrose and Cheryl Giesler, an experiment is conducted to see the differences between two different Research Papers from two people. The authors presented readers with Janet and Rogers’s circumstances. With this information, readers were more familiar with their experiences and literacy in Ethics. Although Janet was doomed from the beginning, I found it interesting to see what exactly she did to guarantee her inferiority to Roger.
Penrose and Geisler state, “Roger knew how to write as an authority inside the conversation of ethics; Janet was an outsider looking in.” (Penrose and Janet, 506). In making this comment, the authors summarized the difficulties of being a writer. For example, in my ethics class, my professor introduced the essay that we will be working on for the entirety of the semester. I am no master in Ethics. I can indulge in the discourse but I am still developing a literacy in the topic. Therefore, in a sense, I’ll be an outsider when writing my essay.
At first, I thought that it must be unlikely that readers take into consideration the circumstances when determining the quality of the text. A reaction I now see as me trying to defend Janet’s situation. Now I believe it is completely separate from the task at hand. You won’t be able to defend your writing due to your lack of knowledge or experience. If you were, no one would take the time to read your work. This has helped me elaborate on these authors’ concepts of writing and reading without authority. Writers won’t always have authority in their writing, but, in a sense, we have to make believe. Convincing yourself and your audience through the resources you use while still being compelling.
Leave a Reply