The first hotspot for me was when the book described that the writer answers his own question in the thesis on page 12. I always thought that the thesis was s brief statement at the end of the introduction paragraph that basically described what you were going to talk about in the rest of the essay. I find it kind of odd that you answer the question at the very beginning of an essay, and then only go on for the rest of it to explain your answer. The second hotspot for me was when I learned that writers don't really write for themselves, and instead write for their audience. I always thought that people wrote because they wanted to, and wrote about what they wanted to write about. This is still true, but I never really thought that the author had the audience in mind when writing. I always thought that the audience just formed around a piece of work.
I mostly see myself as an academic communicator, as I have the least trouble with gathering the information. I get problems when it comes to putting what I know on paper, and when it comes down to actually showing what I know. Ideally I would like my audience to see me as a boss; I feel that my best work could be accomplished if I was in that kind of persona. But as of right now I do not write in such a style, right now I’d say that my style of writing is closest to that of an indecisive person, although that’s not spot on. The reason it is closest to an indecisive person is because I use terms like “most likely” and “probably”, although I can make a decision if I know enough about the subject I am writing about.
Chapter 2
The first hotspot in the second chapter for me came on page 29 when it described that college instructors expect students to fight with problems they have using what they learn in the course. I find this to be odd because I always thought that instructors were there to help address problems that arise on their own, not leave us to wrestle with the problems ourselves. The other hotspot was on page 43 when tension was described as a component of surprise, and that it was the author’s goal to create tension and eventually surprise the reader. This was interesting to me because I’m interested in scientific and factual writing, where the facts are laid out simply to inform me about a topic. This particular hotspot made me realize that surprise is needed to keep the reader interested, as I probably wouldn’t have read through “The Count of Monte Cristo” if I wasn’t interested in what happens at the end of the story.
I also took special note of concept 4, as I always thought keeping it simple was better. In my major, the simpler that you can keep the program, the easier it is to debug it and adapt if for later use. I must take the opposite approach when writing an English paper, and put in as much detail as I can. I was always familiar with free writing, but I always knew it as the brainstorming phase and I thought it only served as the part where you simply formulate the general ideas of what you are going to write about. Concept 6 I found to be very informative and I believe that it will help me a great deal in writing future papers. I never really noticed how important surprise and tension are to a story. I also learned that the point of the author’s writing is the change the view of the reader. Concept 7 I already knew a lot about when I read it, as I have always treated the thesis as something that says what is going to be written in the rest of the essay.
Chapter 3
The first hotspot in chapter 3 was on page 50, specifically the part that described the angle of vision. I thought it was interesting because I never really thought about the writer trying to change the way their audience thinks. I always viewed writers as either storytellers or informants, not really as manipulators. The example of stem cell research the book gave really set it in for me, as a writer could write from the perspective of any of the people illustrated in the cartoon and make a valid argument for any one. The next hotspot for me was on page 55, specifically the part about Logos. The reason it stuck out for me was because it made the most sense to me. In my major, programs are broken down into steps of logic, which is the likely reason it stood out to me.
The other parts of the Rhetorical Triangle, Pathos and Ethos, also stood out to me as interesting. This is because the triangle helped my lay out all the different kinds of writing in a simply chart that fully explains everything I need to know. Pathos keeps the audience in mind when a writer is conveying a message, and works best with advertisement. Ethos serves for the writer to present the message the most effectively and present themselves the best that they can.
