I deeply appreciate Harris’s approach to academic writing. His book is ironically titled Rewriting. I have experienced many academic writing sessions where I found myself not expanding on what the text meant, but merely regurgitating or “rewriting” the small scope of what I got out of the author’s words. Harris admits in the introduction that academic texts can risk this redundancy. That is the reason he created this book: to not think of the term “rewriting” as something myopic and stagnant, but as a path to expansion of textual meaning. This perspective is very refreshing. Whereas in the past, I have been taught how to write from a mechanical point of view, Harris brings a deep sense of humanity to interpreting academic texts. He admits that writing is not math. The answer is not there. The reader should not search for an answer, but simply seek more questions through introspection and self-critique. Harris’s view of writing is very similar to Sullivan’s. Sullivan speaks of the rawness and humanity of blogging, which he says makes it so relevant and beautiful. Although Harris stands farther on the intellectual side, rather than Sullivan’s common man perspective, both believe that writing is a conversation. Writing is not about making your opinion the one and only. It is rather to use your opinion as a jumping off point to expand your awareness. Both men seem to see variance as a key part of the conversation, for if both sides said the same thing neither side would learn. If both perspectives were perfect then there would be no point.
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