SQR5

Jessica Mendoza

 Roxanna Diaz

ENG 1320/1301. 158

Instructor: Trang Phan

Sept. 27, 2010

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

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

SUMMARY:

            Writer-Based prose reflects on its process and Reader-Based prose reflects on the purpose of the writer. In this article Flower want to explore the different ways of writer-based prose. Inner Speech and Egocentrism, talks about how children develop their ways of thought, by observing this they found a child talking only about himself, to himself, and by himself a way that many kids do so not to come of selfish but to plan, organize, and control their activities kind of like a monologue in play. The egocentric talk of kids and the inner speech of adults have some in commended as well, not just in kids but they share some similarities in adults too.   In a case study of a transformation they show two different drafts, similar but the ways the two drafts are written are completely different. Flower also talks about the function, structure, and style of writer-based prose. If people see writer-based prose as a functional system not just many of mistakes that English teaches know then Flower thinks that it would be easier to teach writing itself. And finally Flower thinks that writer-based prose is one of the problems composition courses are meant to fix. She feels that a reader-based prose is better way to write, which includes a reader in the entire thinking process, but it’s not always possible.

Question:

How would you identify a Writer-Based Prose and a Reader-Based Prose?

Response:

Writer-Based Prose reflects on its process and Reader-Based prose reflects on the purpose of the writer. For example writer-based prose is when we are just writing and do not think of what our audience think. And we sometimes tend to elaborate too much that it just confuses the audience and don’t understand what we are trying to get across. It gets to the point that the reader looses interest and doesn’t focus on the writing itself. Sometimes while writing in writing-based prose we tend to use our own language that the audience doesn’t understand.   In the other hand Reading-Based prose is when the writer “includes the reader in the entire thinking process” and by that the audience is able to understand the paper. While writing in reader-based prose the audience is able to understand it because the writer set the paper in stages that make it easier to understand. The writer also gets right to the point that way the audience doesn’t get lost in too much nonsense detail that the message gets across. The use of vocabulary is much more understandable in the reader-based prose as well. In our opinion in order to have better writing we need to have reader-based prose so that our audience can get our point across in an easy way.