Lu And Horner Ci Comments

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Elliot Stanley Professor Jan Rieman English 1101x October 28, 2009 Recursiveness Means Practice, Practice, Practice Lu and Horner provide an excellent resource for the college writer in Chapter 1 of Writing Conventions, Composing Our Composing Processes. Lu and Horner define many terms that determine a writer’s composing style. A writer’s composing process is the set of all steps a writer uses from the conceptualization of a paper to the final copy of that paper. The more time a writer spends designing the best composing process for their task, the better their finished task will be. A writer must cater to their imagined rhetorical situation, which is the audience the writer feels they are writing to. Any weakness in a writer’s composing style is strongly reflected in their paper. Every composing method that Lu and Horner propose needs to be heavily practiced and cannot stand on its own. These suggested practices should be considered a small part in a much larger scheme of composition. Lu and Horner describe the immediate language context as a manifestation of the person we are to trying come across as. The broader language context is the product of all our experiences as a human being who conveys thoughts, feelings and emotions through language. Each time we write something, we reread it. We play it back in our heads and try to imagine what image that stream of words creates about ourselves. Often when I post things on Ning I’m self conscience about the image my post makes about me. When I try to use words I think would impress the teacher, I end up feeling these words make me seem pompous to my peers. This is me being aware of and sensitive to my rhetorical situation, therefore my writing is influenced by both an immediate and broader language context. A writer must be comfortable with both the

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message they are trying to say and the light that it puts them in. It is important for writers to practice using different language contexts in their writing. A good use of immediate and broad language context enriches a writer’s content and style, and provides a stable stage for a writer to express their opinions. Writers are consciously and more often subconsciously addressing their rhetorical situation in unexpected settings. Lu and Horner address a writer’s inclination to adapt their “content, style, and process…” in every type of writing they produce (14). They use an example of a biologist’s tendency to write a lab report that reflects the quality of work demonstrated by experts in the field. The biologist is responding to their immediate language context in order to appeal to the mindset of their reader. This is much like what I do when I make a playlist of music that I want my friend to listen to. I have in mind all the types of music that my listener enjoys so I use this knowledge to compose a playlist that suits my listener’s interest. A similar problem arises with composing a music playlist and writing an essay. That is, a writer cannot account for his whole audience, therefore the writer cannot appeal to every person that will read their paper. So it is important that a writer practice to ignore this problem and write a paper that appeals to most, but interests and captivates those that they cannot appeal to. How a writer utilizes their material resources is also a topic touched on by Lu and Horner. These resources are not only research materials, but they are all the physical factors that benefit or constrict the composing process. They consider a writer’s “kind of time, space, energy, and writing tools available…” as their material resources (17). These resources directly influence the quality of a drafts and final essays. Consider the setting you work in as a resource. A quiet library is a better choice than a loud dorm as a place to revise a draft. Ten o’clock in the morning is usually a better time than midnight to compose a draft. A writer’s utilization of resources is key to their composing process and resources should be selected with great care. I had to realize that writing papers at one in the morning does not work very well when I found they lacked

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quality the next day. It takes experience to understand the importance of utilizing resources well. Most beneficial methods like composing in a quiet setting seem like common sense but until they are practiced, someone does not know the true nature of their resources or how they influence the composing process. When Lu and Horner begin the subject of collaboration as a composing method, they state reasons why students may be apprehensive in doing so. Some students may consider receiving help and advice from others as cheating or plagiarism (29). I have never thought of taking advice on a paper as plagiarism. If another student directs their comments towards you in the hope of you using their advice to improve your paper, then I believe you have all the permission to use their advice if you feel it’s valuable. It would only be plagiarism if you change your paper to fit someone else’s ideas when you don’t have permission to do so. Lu and Horner are themselves, collaborators. They worked together to write Writing Conventions and the book is reflective of multiple writers collaborating to compose high quality writing. Collaboration in composition is similar to the concept of synergy, two lesser parts working together to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. Collaboration and synergy as a composing method must also be heavily practiced. As with musical, artistic, and linguistic inspiration, works by multiple authors can suffer the problem of conflicting taste, ideals, and inspiration. There must be a great deal of compromise that occurs with collaboration and compromise is a skill worth practicing. Peer Workshopping is a setting specifically designed for the purpose of students to exchange tips on how they can improve their paper. It is also a setting for great collaboration among students on ideas missed during their composing process. Peer Workshops are most productive when each member of a group is aware of what the assignment entails. It also should be practiced by people who are willing to tell their subjects that they don’t like something they’ve written or that their subject could write it better. I’ve found that if criticizing someone’s

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paper makes me feel uncomfortable then I can start by saying something I liked about their paper and then giving the best advice I know to give. I learned this through practice but I still feel like I’m a novice when it comes to Peer Workshopping. The truth is I don’t know all the things wrong with a paper when I see them. This means that thorough experience with writing papers and the composing strategy, my efforts to Peer Workshop improve immensely. It is important for a writer to practice many types of writing strategies and become experienced with the ones they feel work for them. Lu and Horner consider this as learning a “repertoire of composing strategies” (19). They suggest exploring individual strategies to expand this repertoire and emphasize the concept of individual strategies as a crucial part of the whole composing process. It is the act of composing a composing a strategy that takes much practice. When remembering that writing is recursive, a writer must also remember this means that your composing strategy is also recursive. Being recursive while writing is an extremely effective way to practice on all levels of academic writing. Any place in a paper that you decide to revise will ultimately improve after the first try. Good writing stems from the culmination of a broad repertoire of composing strategies, much practice in individual composing methods, and remembering the recursive nature of writing.

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Works Cited Lu, Min-Zhan and Bruce Horner. Writing Conventions. New York: Deawon (Pearson) Longman, 2008. Print.

Elliot, You do a great job of pulling together many important aspects of Lu and Horner’s chapter while making them come alive with the experiences you offer here. You also make lots of really good connections in your writing of this essay. I enjoyed reading it. I didn’t get your self-assessment, so I’m not sure what you think needs attention here. One area to consider in your revision is working on transitions between paragraphs. Think how you can move your reader from one idea to the next smoothly and logically. You’ll see your essay become even more cohesive if yu pay attention to this aspect of your writing.