Rene Reyes
Edward Aranda
English 1301.28
Trang Phan
9/28/2010

Summary
Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing

Linda Flower."Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing". College Englis, Vol. 41, No. 1(Sep. 1979), pp. 19-37.

Effective writing is not just only to write down your thoughts and expression. Effective writing is to communicate with the audience. To transform the expressed thought into a descriable complex way.

Writer-Based prose is defined as an expressive style of writing understood only to the writer. The function of this prose is to write to yourself and for yourself. Structured as the writer's narritive path of his own confrontation with his subject. It usaually represents the egocentric or inner speech.

Reader-Based prose is defined as an attempt to communicate with the reader. This porse is understood to both reader and writer by sharing the language and context. Also, it has a rhetorical structure which means it has an intended audience, purpose, and serves as a conversation between reader and writer.

Episodic memory is the memory that recalls past events. Like when you remember something you watch on History Channel that relates to one of the lessons. Semantic memory is the memory that remembers the meaning of symbols. For example, H2O is water or the Quadratic formula.

Short-term memory is all the information you can hold at one time. "Trying to evaluate, elaborate, and relate all that we know on a given topic can easily overload the capacity of our working memory."(pg.36) Using Writer-Based prose helps you eliminate these problems temporarily, and then transform the prose to Reader-Based. This strategy helps teachers teach writing better.

Question
Describe the Writer-Based and Reader-Based prose. Why is transformation an effective writing strategy?

Response

When writes write in Writer-Based prose the text is only clear to the writer. This is because the writer is putting his thouhgts (inner speech/egocentric speech) straight from his mind into text. " The symptoms can range from a mere missing referent or an underdeveloped idea to an unfocused and apparently pointless discussion." (pg.19)

Reader-Based prose has communication between the writer and reader. "To do that it creates a shared language and shared context between writer and reader." (pg.20) The reader has a explicit understanding of the writer's meaning. It has an intended audience and purpose; Reader-Based prose has a rhetorical type of structure.

Transformation of a Writer-Based to Reader-Based prose helps writer effectively. This is because in a Writer-Based prose the writer can list all his thoughts and information without having to think about the reader. Once the writer had something he can understand, then the writer can concentrate on changing (transformation) this porse into something that the reader needs and can use.

SQR2

Summary

Peers Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions

This composition Explains the ways of how peers comment one another when revising each others writings. It explains to you how the PQP technique works and how they categorized the level on how specific the comment was. Also, it shows you examples of the activities they used to help the students give better answers when they're revising other peer's papers.

PQP stands for Praise-Question-Polish. The student will comment on what they liked about the writing, this is the "Praise" part. Next, they will question what they didn't understand in the composition. Followed by polishing, by giving the writer suggestions on what they should change or improve in their writing.

It also explains the manner in which they categorized the level on how specific the comment was. Vague is the lowest specific level, being the useless level. General but useful is the mid level, which is not very specific but useful enough to direct the writer on what to revise. Specific is the highest level because it specifically directs the writer in detail what to improve or change.

Most students were giving mid level comments, some gave specific comments, and a very small amount of students gave vague comments. So, to improve the level of specific comments they had some activities with the whole class, then in small groups, and last individually. The activities were to be given a group of comments and to answer how specific each of the comments were, and if they were useful or useless. After these activities the percentage of specific comments from the students increased, while the mid level comments decreased and the vague comments didn't change. Later on, after a quick drill more than half the students gave specific comments, and the mid level and vague comments decreased more.

Question

Neubert and McNelis categorized student's comments into 3 types: Vague, General but Useful, and Specific. What are the characteristics of each type of comments? Why is it important for comments to be specific?

Response

The comment category is orginaized from least to most specific. Vague is the least specific level in the category. This is because a vague comment won't direct you much on your revising. General but useful is the next level, this comment gives the writer a direction towards what to revise. While, Specific is the most specific level. Specific tells the writer exactly what to revise.

It is important for the comment to be as specific as possible. It helps the write learn what to improve in their writing skill, as well as improving the revising skills of the peers.

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Summary

Understanding Composition

The pattern that occurs while we're writing is called "Recurssiveness". One of these patterns is "felt sense". In addintion, there is a process call "Retrospective Structuring" that uses this felt sense, another called "Projective Sturcturing" that doesn't.

Recurssiveness is found in writers in three forms. First, theres the writer who repeatly rereads what they have already written, so that the following sentence may make sense. Second, are the writers that go back to the topic and changes it to fit what they have written, or changes what they've written to fit the topic. Last, they're the writers that don't go backwards by rereading or topic. Instead, they have a bodily feeling. It's the writer's inner voice, inspiration, and experience, it's the writer's" felt sense".

Retrospective structuring is the process of getting what is imperfectly written and making sense out of it using language structure. In retrospective structuring, meaning is created from what doesn't sound right or make much sense. Then, seeing if what you came up with brings out the meaning that you wanted.

Projective structuring is a way of writing without useing any felt sense. Instead of writing what you want to express, you have to know what the reader wants to read. In order to write in this projective way, its best if your an experience reader. That way you already know what other readers might want to read, and also what they don't want to read or struggle on reading.

Question

What can be compared about "Retrospective Structure" and "Projective Structure"? What can be contrasted between "Retrospective Structure" and "Projective Structure"?

Response

What compares between the retrospective structure and projective structure is that both methods of writing want to get to the reader. Both are trying to sound good, intresting, and get the right meaning out there.

What deffers between them is that retrospective structure use felt sense. In this structure you want the reader to know what you mean to say. However, you don't really concentrate on what the reader wants to read. It's about expressing yourself right, and making the composition send the messege of your meaning.

While in projective structure you already kind of of know what the reader would want to read. In order to use the projective structure for writing you must be an experience reader to know what the reader wants to read, and what the reader might get stuck on or not enjoy reading. There for projective strucure does not use any felt sense.