How to Read Like a Writer

In Mike Bunn’s “How to Read Like a Writer” he says that the reader is already a writer. I think what he means by this is that we’ve been writing all our lives. From letters to loved ones to assignments in school. Ive wrote memoirs, argumentative essays, rhetorical essays and much more. Even things like taking notes can be a way of being an author. This will help me in college because I already have prior knowledge about writing so this will help me in multiple classes not just English class. For example, I may need to write things in my science class or psychology class. However, it will probably help me the most in English class because i’ll be doing the most writing in this class, and the writing strategies we discuss will go deeper. Even later in my career when I need to write things for jobs this knowledge and past experience will help me.

Later in Bunn’s article he mentions how in the beginning of his essay he used formal and descriptive writing to draw in his reader. He added that if uses informal writing in the beginning if his essay this could bore the reader. This was very interesting to me because I’ve never thought of using formal writing to hook a reader. Its a very discrete strategy that is effective. The formal and descriptive way of writing keeps the reader interested to what is being said regardless of the topic really. For example, Bunn was talking about his job in the beginning of the article but to me at least it was very intriguing and I wanted to keep reading. I think i would use this in my own writing instead of using a hook all the time as it can become repetitive.