Thlog 5

This last week, in Writing 2, I started learning about “moves” and their significance in literary works. Moves exist in any literary work, really. Moves are sort of done—maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously— by the writer to have a specific effect on the reader. This does not necessarily have to do with the content itself, or how one convinces another of a certain fact, for example in academic articles, using rhetorical methods for argumentation; rather, moves are more implicit, such as the way in which a writer presents a certain argument. For instance, in Reading Like a Writer, the writer introduces his piece with an anecdote. This can be seen as a move. Not the content of the anecdote, but the fact that an anecdote was introduced in the first place. This move was done for a specific reason, to have a specific impact on the reader. In this case, it may have been to draw the reader in and engage them in the lesson plan of learning to read like a writer. Learning to read like a writer helps one identify moves, by analyzing—or considering—why a writer did what he or she did to have a specific impact on the reader. Why would a writer start writing in a more colloquial language? To bring the stakes down a notch, and identify on an eye-to-eye level with the reader? Possibly, or maybe it is done to personify a certain type of character being quoted in a text, to make that character recognizable—as he or she may be seen as “representative” of a certain culture, identifiable by the characteristic tongue or slang of that culture—to implicitly indicate to the reader the nature of the source of a specific quote or idea; would you want to hear about the nature of street life from an anthropologist or a sociologist doing his dissertation on the subject, or from a fellow who walks those streets and lives that life daily? It does not matter, but the point is, a writer’s move could be to use the exact quote from the source instead of a paraphrase in order to imply to the reader what sort of source we are listening to—one with an emic or etic approach to the subject. This can make the text more engaging and provide more insight. The decision to use a direct quote instead of a paraphrase is a move. This summarizes what was focused in week 5 of Writing 2.