PB2B

           Writers make moves to help distinguish their style and put purpose into what they’re writing.  The moves writers make are specifically chosen to serve a purpose in the article or essay.

            A move writers often make is the “adding metacommentary.”  Dirk makes this move in Navigating Genres to follow up a quote.  By introducing the paragraph with “In other words, Bitzer is trying to…,” Dirk is taking the quote she added it and indication the following paragraph will explain it.  Not only does she go on to explain it, she is takes the quote and milks it for all it has to offer and then applies it to her argument to further her point.

            Another move authors make is the “introducing quotations” move.  This move is made because an author wants to add a quotation from another writer to strengthen their own argument and up their credibility.  The move, however, is not the quote itself, but rather the introduction to the quote.  By including “In the article called The Rhetorical Situation, Bitzer arues…,” Carroll is telling the readers who she is quoting so the reader knows it’s a credible source.  The introduction of the quote also makes the article more reader friendly and flow better as apposed to just slapping a quote on to the page with no precursor.

            The “indicating who cares” move is a move authors make to tailor their argument or article toward a certain group of people.  By including the phrase “In recent years, biologists have been calling fat…,” the writer Birkenstein and Graff are quoting—Denise Grady—is making their article one that would be of interest to researchers, athletes, or people trying to lose weight.  In this way, the Grady is making her article of interest towards a certain group of people and establishing a “who cares” about her article.

            Writers will often times make the move of “Introducing Standard Views” when beginning an article or paragraph.  Writers will use this move because they either want to back it up or disprove it.  For example, in How to Read Like a Writer, Bunn opens a paragraph stating that “For most college students, RLW is a new…difficult [way to read],” and then goes on to describe why it can be difficult and why it is new for most college students.  Bunn introduced a standard view and backed it up.

            Another move Bunn makes in How to Read Like a Writer is the “Agreeing—with a difference” move.  In this move, the author agrees with information or a quote, but also adds another bit of valid information or thought.  For example Bunn agrees with his student how RWL can be useful when reading a published novel, but also states that “…RWL can be used equally well with either published or student-produced writing.”  This move is useful for an author because they can take a claim, a quote, or information that is valid and add onto it to tailor it specifically to their purpose, strengthening their paper.  This move can also be used as a segue into another topic.

            A move not listed or named in They Say I Say is a move I like to call “us.”  The move “us” is characterized by the author using the pronouns of you and I.  This move can be seen in Dirk’s Navigating Genres where it is not evident in any particular quote, but rather across the entire article itself.  Dirk uses this move because she is writing to introductory writers in a lower-level college writing class.  By using this move, it seems as if Dirk is talking directly to the reader as if she was lecturing us.  This move also makes the article seem more casual and less heavy, making it less boring to read in my opinion.

            A move writers use to tie to paragraphs and keep an essay flowing is the move I like to call the “Billy Mays (but wait there’s more).”  This move is characterized by authors using transitional words like also or another to begin a paragraph that relates to what is being said above, but is separate enough that it deserves its own paragraph.  For example, in Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis, Carroll made a connection between the rhetorical features of exigence and audience.  These two concepts are both rhetorical features, but are different rhetorical features.  Therefore, they are separated into paragraphs that are connected with a transition that reads “Another part of the rhetorical context is audience…”  This move also introduces the topic of the new paragraph. 

            Another move writers use that I am particularly a fan of is a move that I’ve named the “Too Long, Didn’t Read (TL;DR).  This move is especially prominent in Mike Bunn’s How to Read Like a Writer, and is characterized by a list of bullet points at the end of a series of paragraphs or the end of an article that serve as a summary of the information above.  The bullet points generally lack color and creativity, and are to the point.  They are especially useful when someone who read the article wants to look back and get the gist of what it was about, and are also helpful for the first time reader as a recap of what they just read.  A reader can get almost all the crucial information from the article by reading these summaries.

            A move writers make to make their audience think about what they’ve written or practice the concept is a move I’ve dubbed “And You?”  In this move, the author analyses the concept they’ve laid out, and then turns it over to the reader asking questions like “what do you think about______?” or “how would you characterize______?” This can be seen in Murder where Boyd asks what would we “include in our eulogy?”  This gets the reader thinking about what conventions they include (the concept being analyzed) in their eulogy to make it a eulogy.

            A move that is similar to the “And You?” move but different enough where it is a move of its own is a move the goes by the name of “Credibility Command.”  Writers use this move when they want you to do something that they can’t do themselves through writing to try and prove a point.  For example Dirk tells the reader to “ask [their] classmates” what they think a thesis is.  By asking us to do this, Dirk is getting us to see that our classmates’ definitions of a thesis statement might differ, but all contain certain conventions, proving her point that almost everything has a set of conventions that categorize them into genres.