Sunday, January 13, 2013

Harris VS Sullivan


Much of Harris’s idea of reading and writing is based on the idea he calls rewriting. Rewriting to Harris means drawing from, commenting on, and adding to the work of others. He explains that almost all work has some traces of other texts in it but it is not about reciting the work of others but rather interpreting what they have written for your texts. Harris says that you need to apply what you have learned from someone else’s text and apply it to yours. This also goes along with Harris’s idea of move. Move to Harris means that don’t recite exactly what a text says but you should move past their thesis to the underlining ideas and that is what to include in your text. There are a number of similarities between Harris and Sullivan but a big one to me is how they both say that you need to interpret texts into your own ideas. Harris calls this forwarding, where an individual will insert his or her own opinion on a text and post it back to a particular group of people. This is very similar to Sullivan’s idea of blogging but instead of posting to a small group, individuals will read a text, write his or her own opinion on it, then post it on a blog for everyone to see. Another similarity between Harris and Sullivan is analyzing the texts to see what they are trying to achieve, what position they argue, and the problems they try to explore.  Both Harris and Sullivan believe that you need to look more in-depth into the texts than just what you see on the surface but in blogging you can post your personal beliefs whereas writing needs to be more fact checked. I am starting to see that blogging as writing is a way to post what you believe about a text or event but still referencing that particular text or event. It’s a way to express what the problems are with a text or event in your own words and with your own opinions.

2 comments:

  1. Good connections between blogging and writing. The summary of Harris's idea of rewriting was on point and could have been even stronger with a few select quotes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I personally like your connections between the social networks that we use on a daily basis (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) and blogging, including the use of hashtags to indicate your understanding of the medium. Also, your connection between forwarding and blogging makes sense.

    ReplyDelete