Reading Response #3

My in-class essay generally focused on the idea of how writing is being changed for our audiences today to fulfill a purpose. This is a very natural thing that we do, we alter our tones to please either our professors or peers. For instance I wrote that, “I hadn’t noticed myself doing this, but I know that all of us subconsciously adjust and have different categories in a way of how we write.” Here I was basically pointing out how society has this nature to modify how we get our argument or theme across in the smoothest way possible.

People can comprehend this information differently, and multiple interpretations can come from the same piece. In Sven Birkerts essay “The Owl Has Flown” it is discussed that ways you absorb new knowledge can change how you think about it. Whether it be from reading it in a book or perhaps an online source, and also how you read it. Meaning glancing at the text to get the gist or fully separating into a new world. It has been stated our problem is, “the reader tends to move across surfaces, skimming, hastening from one site to the next without allowing the words to resonate inwardly.” With “the reader” taking in the news this brusque without true sense of what is going on they lean towards losing the passion. This brings up the old issue of quantity over quality. Then “when everything is happening everywhere, it gets harder to care about anything.” So how do we judge what is truly significant, what scale is there to be used in order to place the correct amount of value on any event that has taken place? A “loss of depth” is immerging and this is hard to say if it is good or bad. Because it is also shown in this essay that ones who slant in the direction of more quality information can be missing out on bigger things going on even though it may not be as deep. In my opinion I want to be able to have a better understanding and therefore maybe just getting the headlines won’t be as helpful in the long run.