Chapter 1 Reading for Writing

Reading for Writing

Text-Based and Reading-Related Writing

• Reading effective ( which may include underlining, annotating, and outlining).
• Writing a summary ( main ideas in your own words).
• Writing a reaction ( usually a statement of how the reading relates specifically to you, your experiences, and your attitudes but also can be a critique, involving the worth and logic of a piece).
• Writing a two-part response ( both a summary and reaction, although they are separate).
• Documenting ( giving credit to sources you use).

These kinds of text-based writing have certain points in common, they all

• Originate as a response to something you have read.
• Indicate,to some degree, content from that piece.
• Demonstrate your knowledge of that piece.

Underlining, annotating, and outlining will give you practive in reading annlytically and in recording the main ideas and their support in clear, direct manner.

Underlining
Underlining helps you to read with discrimination.

• Underline the main ideas in paragraphs. The most important statement, the topic sentence, is likely to be at the beginning of the paragraph.
• Underline the support for those main ideas.
• Underline answers to questions that you bring to the reading assignment. These questions may have come from the end of the chapter, from subheadings that you turn into questions, or from your independent concerns about the topic.
• Underline only the key words. you would seldom underline all the words in a sentence and almost never a whole paragraph.

Annotating
writing notes in the margins, Annotating is a practice related to underlining. Annotating enables you to actively engage the reading material.

• Number parts if appropriate.
• Make comments according to your interests and needs.

Outlining

After reading, underlining, and annotating the piece, the next step. relationship od ideas ( sequence, relative, importance, and interdependence).

Summarizing
Summarizing helps you concentrate on main ideas. A Summary

• cites the author and title of the text.
• is usually shorter than original by about two-thirds, although the exact reduction will vary depending on the content of the original.
• concentrate on the main ideas and include details only infrequently.
• changes the original wording without changing the idea.
• does not evaluate the content or give an opinion in any way (even if you see an error in logic or fact).
• does not add ideas (even if you have an abundance of related information).
• does not include any personal comments (that is, do not use I, referring to self).
• seldom contains quotation only infrequently. (If you do use quotation, however, enclose them in quotation marks.)
• includes some author tags ("says York," "according to York" or "the author explains") to remind the reader(s) that you are summarizing the material of another author.

Two other types of text-based writing are

• the reaction, which shows how the reading relates to you, your experience, and your attitudes; also, often a critique of the worth and logic of the piece.
• the two-part reponse, which includes a summary and a reaction that are separate.

Most ideas in text-based papers are developed in one oe more of these three ways:

• explanation
• direct references
• quotations

Documentiong is giving credit to borrowed ideas and words.

Source:Brandon, Lee. Brandon, Kelly. Paragraphs and Essays with Integrated Readings, Tenth Edition. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008