The Breakdown
In “Ten Ways to Think about Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students“, by E. Shelley Reid, she explains the importance on why students should think of writing as a human communication process instead of an arbitrary of rules. In this chapter, Reid helps students realize that they already know a lot about writing and with that knowledge, they can write rhetorically. This will help with their confidence and allow them to write with authority.
Reid gives her audience three tips to help with the flow of their writing. One tip is to write about what you know about, and curious or passionate about. This allows the thought process an authors writing to flow efficiently because they care about the subject. Another is to “Show, don’t just tell”. Meaning give the audience something to picture while reading. Also to, “Adapt to the audience and purpose you’re writing for”. Reid explains this is writing rhetorically; doing so we pay attention to the needs of the author and the needs of the reader rather than the needs of the teacher. When us student pay attention the the teachers needs, it limits us as the author.
Reid quotes, “because one of the main challenges writers face, when we can’t read someone’s mind or get them to read ours, is learning how to balance the writing that states our theories and arguments with the writing that provides our evidence and examples”. (page 13) She explains it is easier to do one of these things at a time. Moreover, having theories and arguments without evidence and examples will lead to the audience being confused and mislead and even the author themselves.
In conclusion, E. Shelley Reid chapter on ,Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students, is informational and can help many college students or anyone with the foundation in their writing. Personally I will refer back to this article in my future papers.
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