WP2 PB2

Kyle D. Stedman has a specific move set in his article, “Annoying Ways People Uses Sources”. He enjoys using parallelism to get his multiple points across, for example his numbering of explanations when he compares

“1. They don’t know that the generally accepted practice of high-way driving in the US is to move to the right if an upcoming car wants to pass. Or,

2. They know the guidelines but don’t care” (Stedman 242)

and also when he goes over The Annoyances. Stedman always starts off with his made up title of the annoyance, and then gives a little example of what that literary annoyance is like in real life. After effectively giving his audience something that they can imagine or relate to, Stedman then introduces a passage that features that annoyance, and clearly examines why the passage features the given annoyance. After presenting these facts, Stedman always uses “The Fix:” to teach his audience how to turn the annoyance into a work of art. Stedman uses a lot of parallelism and for every single one of his annoyances, he follows the same order, 1. Name of annoyance, 2. Relatable experience or an image, 3. An example in writing of the annoyance, and 4. How to fix the annoyance. Stedman also uses a lot of bolded words and italics in his writing in order to keep the attention of his audience, which works quite well. His italics highlight the key points of the annoyance and his bolded words show what he has changed in his fix of the bad passage. These italics and bolded sentences express themselves more firmly onto the reader, which allows them to better understand the changes that Stedman is trying to teach. Stedman also writes as if he’s write next to you and talking to you, much like a teacher talks to a classroom, which is also extremely effective. The way he writes allows the reader to get a great grasp of the knowledge and stay entertained through the whole thing. With a combination of jokes, corniness, and knowledge, Stedman effectively gets through to the reader and enlightens them on how to use sources more completely. He also uses colloquial language to help enthrall the reader, allowing better absorption of his text.

While Stedman is fun to read throughout the whole reading, Rosenberg starts off beautifully in the beginning, but her writing starts deteriorating after the section, If At First You Fall Asleep. Rosenberg starts off as if she’s writing a story, illustrating the first years of her college life, she writes through personal experience, and relates to the reader through her similes, metaphors, and personification. She expresses her love for reading and many hours reading in the “overstuffed red chair in the library that enveloped [her] like the lap of a department store Santa” (Rosenberg 210). But once she reached the English texts, she “curled up, opened a book on the Chinese Revolution, started reading, and fell asleep” (210). She then shows her lack of concentration on the reading by depicting herself holding on for a couple paragraphs, and then day dream. With her similes, metaphors, personification, and especially her vivid details, she relates to the audience, describing the dread of reading academic texts and then appearing as a savior by offering tips on how to make the reading of academic texts more enjoyable.

                Everything falls apart after that section, once she starts the next section, the reading is near unbearable, she rambles on about how reading a scholarly work is a conversation, and multiple examples on how it becomes a conversation. The next section is where it actually becomes helpful, Rosenberg also uses bolds in her writing, and she bolds everything that the reader should look at or think through. After bolding the word that Rosenberg wants her audience to focus on, she then goes on to show why that works. She gives little tips and tricks that she learned after her seven years of college.

                Rosenberg and Stedman both wrote terrific pieces, but Stedman’s piece was by far the best. His understanding of the current student is great, and he’s very good at keeping his audience’s attention with his colloquial language, parallelism, short entertaining stories that relate to the reader, and corniness. His piece of work was much more entertaining than Rosenberg’s was, which had a lot to do with the spacing. Each annoyance of his was short and to the point, telling you a story, then a passage of it being wrong, and finally how to fix the problem. His brilliance in keeping his audience fascinated was through the simplicity of his text and his straight to the point writing style. Rosenberg would have been a much more entertaining read if she had used more dashes, and more spaces in her text. If she had had more paragraphs and borrowed some of the ideas that Stedman used, her piece would have been Justas interesting as Stedman’s.