Revised SQR 6

Javier Lopez

English 1320/1301  .158

Trang Phan

10/07/10

Closing My Eyes As I Speak (Revised)

S.

In this article, Peter Elbow focuses more on the fact that us, as students, often create a mass overload when speaking uncomfortably around people. As skilled professionals, teachers are often taught to teach their students to block out the audience when the overwhelming feeling of shyness occurs. Elbow compares the audience to a field of force (pg.51 ) that can be good and bad. The audience has a lot to do with the way the reader expresses himself. If you show no sense of interest, the reader will become more reluctant and began to show it by loss of words and ideas. Using tactics to block out the reader, or as Elbow calls it, “desert island mode”,(pg. 56) often deals with the ability to have some kind of  psychological development. “Thought writing is deeply and though we usually help things by enhancing its social dimension, writing is also the mode of discourse best suited to helping us develop the reflective and private dimension of our mental lives.”(pg. 61)

Q. How does Audience Awareness be helpful and hurtful when writing an essay?

R.

In the article the author describes how sometimes the audience cannot help us because they want to much details and at the end we don’t know what to say because i run out of things to say. In my opinion, you should only refer to the audience when you have nothing else to say or for feed back. They can either help us or break us. If we just wright for the audience, our writing is going to lead to many mistakes and more than likely repeat itself. Now the audience can help you by asking for too much details about the topic. Basically you have to be on task and not let the audience overwhelm you. “Ignoring the audience can lead to worse drafts but better revisions.” (pg. 53). Although ignoring the audience can lead to better writing, you have to learn when to and when not to rely on them. Usually when I write my papers, I first think about myself and come back to the audience. That’s not always a good thing to do because it can easily sidetrack a reader. So either way, if u think about the audience or only put your opinion, it will somehow lead to bad writing.