Week 5

There was a lot of interesting thoughts in Bunn’s essay about how to read like a writer. I have never really enjoyed reading and when I read, I often do it to get it done rather than learning something from it.  When you think of every word you read and why the author chose to use that specific word, you get a greater understanding of the message. If you read the text as the author wants you to read it, it will make much more sense and you will most likely learn more, compared to if you are only skimming through the text looking for the key words.

If you learn how to read properly, it will automatically help you develop as a writer as well. Through the reading, you will learn how different authors structure their texts and it will help you understand how to deliver a message as good as possible. Since English is not my native language, I tried to read books in English when I grew up to develop my English vocabulary. After a while I noticed I understood more and more and I believe it works the same way when it comes to reading like a writer. The more you read and think about it, the better you will be able to apply it to your own writing.

In the same way as we earlier have been talking about adapting to the audience, I believe the audience sometimes also has to adapt to the communicator. The writer must write in a way which attracts the reader but the reader must also adapt his or her reading to understand the message in full.

When Bunn interviewed a few students about their tips to how to be successful in college, one of their suggestions really caught my attention. All of the students recommended having a pen and paper available when you read in order to easier remember the main ideas of a text. Earlier when I have been reading, I have never written anything down which resulted in that I was unable to remember anything from the readings. Since I started Antioch, I have begun writing down the ideas I get while reading and it makes it much easier to remember and understand the text. I feel it helps my learning much more compared to how I did it before and it is something I will continue to do to increase my learning.

In Driscoll’s essay, it was interesting to read about how different methods of research will affect the result of your paper. For the most of the time, the only research I do is through Google which limits the research to one specific kind. In the same way as the communicator needs to adapt to different readers, you must also adapt your method of research depending on the purpose of the paper.

You must also be careful when choosing a topic to make sure it is not too broad. A few words in the topic may make a huge difference to the meaning of the topic. Imagine doing a research about students in general compared to students at Antioch. If the topic only says students, it means we must include all students on the planet but if the topic involves students at Antioch, we have narrowed it down to a small number of students which will make the research must easier.