In the past, I have written a few research papers and sometimes finding a topic can be the hardest part for me. After reading reading about picking topics in the book, it seemed like a big brainstorming process. I never really considered picking a topic to be a process, to me I thought it was just pick something you want to write about that you can do a good amount of research on. However, I enjoyed the example given by Sharon Freeman. She first started out with a few broad topics, then for each she developed arguments for each topic. In the end she ended up picking germs to write about so she made a list of questions she could free write to. Once she finished her free write she was able to pick out specific questions that she could use to research germs, such as what a germ is. I think this method could really help me pick a topic because it helps me compare all my potential topics to one another and then pick whichever one I think will be the best to write about.
Throughout chapter 1 of “The Bedford Book of Genres,” I learned that there are a variety of ways to improve one’s writing. Several writers tend to get carried away while writing that they forget who their audience is and what message they are trying to deliver. This is when one must ask themselves what their purpose of writing is, do they want to present a narrative/ tell a story, inform, or persuade. After figuring out ones purpose they must choose a genre to be able to shorten their idea and be concise. In order for this to occur one must know the basic qualities and agreed-upon rules about the genre they are composing. Once one makes those decisions they move on to the rhetorical situation which mainly explains the idea. This allows the writer to provide support on their purpose such as saying what is great about it or provide statistics, which will automatically make their writing more interesting for the audience to read, as well as, get t...
I also liked the free writing example because I thought that was only useful when figuring out your topic sentences and thesis, but I like how it was used to help choose a meaningful and narrow enough research question at the beginning of the writing process.
ReplyDeleteSame, I never really go into depth when I pick a topic when I write, but after reading this article, I think it would help tremendously. Her example was seemed like it was difficult to come up with but it definitely gave her a good starting point.
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