Reading Response #1

01/26/20

The assigned reading was What is Academic Writing? and it discussed college level essays. The author expressed his sympathy for first year college students. He addressed common myths about writing and if they were true or false. I personally enjoy the reading because the author seems to engage with the readers when referring the readers as the group he is addressing and becoming relatable. The author writes as if he is your peer teaching you, understanding and not acting as if they are superior to you. The myths that the book explained and stuck out to me are how first drafts are not supposed to be perfect and I don’t need to wait to be completely done to start drafting out an essay. Starting an essay and having parts to fill in is better to complete the model you have in your head. It also suggested ways to approach an essay by asking myself questions about the text and relating it to certain prompts in order to align the model essay. Being able to research and then read those higher level texts is necessary in order to interpret and relate it to your essays. The last titles said what all academic writings are in college an argument and an analysis. In which you become more assertive and look for meaning in texts that truly connect and support the argument.

Analyzing is a skill in plenty of things but especially reading and writing due to the fact that many steps are analyzing the texts and then analyzing how you interpret and write it.