Project 1 Intro/Conversation

Intro

When you think of writing, there are two distinct genres that separate it down the middle. To many, they are as different as night and day, blue and red, hot and cold, sweet and sour, the list goes on. When it comes to writing, you can either write creatively or academically, poetically or rhetorically. This gap between fiction and nonfiction has long been thought to be unbridgeable. This construct; a construct being something that we accept as true due to extensive exposure within our culture or discipline, but was something agreed upon in the first place; has been discussed extensively by ( ) who mention (). I say that this gap is neither as long nor as dark as many people make it out to be. While there are distinct differences between them, by changing the situations, you can understand both. To show how this construct works, I will challenge a second construct that is prevalent in the literary world, on both sides of the issue. The concept of the stereotype has been around for a long time, in both fiction and nonfiction. This construct has two faces, as has been the common theme so far in this paragraph, in that it can be applied to both sides, but from different angles. For the creative side, there is the idea that to have good writing all you need are stereotypical characters to make a good story. For the rhetorical side, there is the concept that an essay must be straightforward and lengthy, as well as use complex vocabulary. The result of testing this construct on both sides will then by default test the original construct that we have set out to prove. Meta much? If so, get ready for the most convoluted set of logic to make sense that you’ve ever seen.

Synthesis

Literature and Composition: Separatism or Convergence? By John Trimbur is a work that supports bridging the gap between the creative and rhetorical. By showing his stated initial want for them to be separate and realization that they can work together. Also, Create Flesh and Blood Characters by William Kowalski illustrates my point of stereotypes for the fiction side. The article Challenging Stereotypes About Academic Writing: Complexity, elaboration, Explicitness by Douglas Biber and Bethany Gray shows the stereotypes found in nonfiction and academic writing and challenges them, thus proving the point I’m trying to make. I also want to look at Greene’s article on conversation, but don’t know how it will fit in if at all. The same goes for Porter’s article on Intertextuality and Elbow’s on Contradictions.

This is a bare bones outline of what I intend to do, but more analysis of the texts is required to know more about what I want to do with what source.