I found the reading very helpful. Being a native English speaker makes it easier for me to switch between formal, informal and colloquial levels of use. This can often be an automatic process for native speakers but that certainly doesn’t mean we are unable to benefit from conscious reflection and analysis of this process.
Personally I lack several skills mentioned. For instance, I often make the mistake of oversimplifying my view for sake of clarity. I think this stems from being a teacher of young children. Taking the “audience’s expectation and prior knowledge” (Sawles, 1994 p 7) into account will spare my writing unnecessary diversions.
As I’ve pointed out before I am a novice writer and certainly more so with regard to the academic style. Therefore the article’s quite comprehensive instruction about purpose, organization, flow and presentation was most useful.
Practice, using these guidelines is of course the next step for me. .
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Hi, Natasha
ReplyDeleteI think I am in the opposite habit of writing because I tend to exaggerate or make it emotion-involved rather than simplifing. As long as you do not go to extremes, I don't think you have much to worry about. How about adding more descriptive or clarifying adjectives.
hey Natasha,
ReplyDeleteI think you're absolutely right about the question of native speakers being able to shift from one purpose to another... and I think a lot of what you need to learn in class is part of that "automaticity" that you mention. And of course a part of that has to do with the different genres of writing.
Funny, but you remind me of my own experience from switching to writing for graduate courses in education to writing for my linguistics graduate courses... on at least two occasions, my grades took significant "hits"because of my inability to switch between genre. :-(
cheers,
Eric