Week 4 Harkins

How to Write a Sentence

In this week’s chapter from How to Write a Sentence, Mr. Fish goes over the importance of forms over the emphasis on content. He begins by explaining how in the same way that musicians practice scales to improve their musical abilities, writers compose nonsensical sentences to understand and better their use of forms. Forms, he says comes first before content because “without form, content cannot emerge” (27). Using an example from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, Mr. Fish shows that though the stanza was filled with nonsense, the reader was able to replace those words because they knew the “slots” that were being filled and how to fill them with the appropriate part of speech. By understanding forms, one can have an endless possibility of contents. Mr. Fish sums everything up when he says “You shall tie yourself to forms and the forms shall set you free” (33). When one can recognize how a random list becomes a sentence by its form, then they are on their way to being able to create an endless number of sentences.

Craft of Research

Again, much of what The Craft of Research said about connecting with an audience and making claims was review. In my past academic papers, after the initial work of getting the understanding of making an argument, there was the emphasis on making your introduction to your paper interesting and inviting to a reader, giving them a reason to read the paper. Then, within the body of the argument, your points had to be specific and concise. If your reader doesn’t know where you stand because you are too vague or don’t present a significant point, they won’t want to continue reading your paper. The question should not be “why should my audience believe this” but “why do they care?”