PB1B: 4 Different Ways to Read

          The genre that I am analyzing is something much related to what we discussed in class, an Eagles v. Vikings preview article. In class, we took several articles pertaining to the Eagles loss to the Redskins last week. But this genre is completely different because instead of looking back on a previous game, this genre focuses on future and upcoming games.  I am going to look at how 4 different people could read this article in four separate ways. I analyze how someone could skim this, how someone could read it rhetorically, how someone could scan the article, and finally how they can use visual literacy.                                                                                                                        Scanning                                                    The reader can scan this by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. The reader would do this to quickly get an idea of what’s to come for Sunday’s game without having to read everything word for word. For instance, if you need an idea of the Vikings defense will perform against Carson Wentz and the Eagles, you can just read "The Vikings defense is holding opponents to a league-low 3.5 yards per play on first downs"(Vikings PR). If you wanted to know some personal connections between the two teams, you can scan the text and find, "Vikings LB Eric Kendricks' older brother, Mychal Kendricks, has been a full-time starter for the Eagles since being drafted in 2012"(Vikings PR).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Skimming                                                          Instead of just scanning the text for one particular thing, the reader can also quickly skim through the entire writing to get a general idea of what the purpose of the article is. So if the reader were to skim this particular writing, they would know that the Eagles play the Vikings at 1:00 Sunday on Fox, Sam Bradford is returning to Philadelphia for the first time since being traded and the Kendricks brothers will face each other.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Reading Rhetorically                  The writer is trying to persuade us the reader through logos. There is little to nothing that shows pathos, or emotion in this writing.  There also isn't much ethos either, there's no proof of the author using credibility in his writing. There are however, plenty and plenty of logos. The article, and many articles like it are littered with player and team stats. An example of a team stat  could be:"Against the pass, the Eagles have been much better, allowing only 207.4 passing yards per game." There's also plenty of player stats including, "In the Eagles' last home game against Pittsburgh, had six catches for 128 yards." With these stats, the author can persuade the reader through logos to be more excited to watch the game.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Visual Literacy                                             There is not a whole lot of visual literacy, but the one example of it is a picture of Vikings Quarterback Sam Bradford, and Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz. Both players are shown head to head with all of their stats from this season. The reader can read through visual literacy that the big story of the game is Sam Bradfrord returning to Philadelphia and he will match up against the Eagles rookie quarterback.  

PB2A: Examining Moves

 I’ll be examining moves in “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The first move from “They Say, I Say” that I spotted in Bunn’s writing was “Capturing Authorial Action”. Bunn states, “In 1940, famous poet and critic named Allen Tate discussed two different ways of reading……..”. He uses this move to back up or set up his point/ argument with a well-known writer to give his paper a level of ethos. I feel as a reader that the move is very effective because it gives me the sense that Bunn knows what he is talking about. The second move from “They Say, I Say” spotted in “How to Read Like a Writer” was “Introducing  Quotes.” An example of this would be, “Author David Jauss makes a similar comparison when he writes that. Bunn made this move to avoid having “free-floating” quotes in his writing. Free- floating quotes can cause confusion to the reader as they don’t know where the quote is coming from. As a reader, that move is very effective to me because I know who said the quote so I could refer to it if necessary. A third and final move from the reading would be “Explaining Quotations.” An example of this move is, “As Walker suggests…….” That followed a quote from Nancy Walker in Bunn’s article. The writer would make this move to follow up on the previous quote to try to make it easier for the reader to understand the whole point of the quote. This move can be effective, but not as much as the other moves because the quote could be self-explanatory, and the extra analysis could be unnecessary. One move I’ve come up with in Bunn’s writing, is the “Relatable Hook In.” This move is the entire first page of Bunn’s article as he describes his time of working in a London Theatre and how it related to the main argument of his article. He makes this move to make himself seem like a normal person, finding a part-time job after recently graduating college, in hopes to relate to his audience. This is very effective, as it sets a casual tone for the entire paper and allows me, the reader to relate to Bunn. Another move I’ve examined was the “Sub-Title Questioning” move. In this move, Bunn starts every paragraph with a question. This move allows for him to tell the reader what the point of the paragraph is through a question. As a reader I appreciate this move and find it very effective because I know what the point of the paragraph is and I won’t have to ask myself so many questions as to what is the argument he is trying to make. And the final move I evaluated was the “Bullet Point Analysis” where Bunn follows each of his paragraphs with bulleted questions. He does this in hopes that his audience would be able to dissect and decipher his argument and summarize his words. This could go either way as effective or ineffective because his questions can help the reader summarize his writing through their answers, but the reader may already know what he is trying to explain and the questions could be unnecessary.