Dawkins Reading Response

Before You Read

#1 Made of wood scraps and cardboard, my sisters treehouse is a great place to play with her friends.
#2 My sisters treehouse, made of wood scraps and cardboard, is a great place to play with her friends.
#3 My sisters treehouse is a great place to play with her friends, even though its made of wood scraps and cardboard.

Summary

His article “Teaching punctuation as Rhetorical Tool” explains punctuation and all of its meanings. He is telling writers how to use punctuation. He uses examples telling the reader the differences that the placement of punctuation can make. Dawkins also tells the reader that not only where you put the punctuation matters, but the type of punctuation also has an impact. What it comes down to is that punctuation determines the meaning the reader gets from the text.

Synthesis

Dawkins' article “Teaching punctuation as Rhetorical Tool” relates to both Bernhardt and Elbow. In Bernhardt's "Seeing The Text" he explains the importance of diagrams, graphs, etc. This relates to Dawkins' article because he used tables to explain and sort different types of punctuation. In Elbow's article "Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries" he explains when to use voice and when not to use it. He explains that voice determines the way the reader interprets the text. This relates to Dawkins because he explains how punctuation determines how the reader interprets the text.  

Thoughts

I thought this article was very helpful because I thought that punctuation was common sense, but I learned things from this article. I agree with him that punctuation can be interchangeable. Some of the different types of punctuation he used would confuse readers that didn't know all the rules of punctuation.

Questions

5. I learned that punctuation is a tool. You can use it to emphasize things and to separate things. This article explained all types of usage for punctuation. 

MM. I think my teacher wanted me to read this article so I have a better understanding of punctuation. This could also help me while writing my essay and help my classmates that are writing about punctuation usage. I gained a better understanding of when and why to use certain types of punctuation from the examples in the text. 

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
Writers should always punctuate according to their intended meaning for the phase. They punctuate to make the readers read the text as they intend it to be read.	“Conventional punctuation is grammar based-marks are prescribed in terms of grammatical structure-but what ‘good writers’ do, writers like Orwell, is punctuate according to their intended meaning, their intended emphasis” (141).
It is important to have emphasis on certain things. You can use types of punctuation to draw emphasis.	“Raising, obviously, calls attention to itself, and thus gains emphasis” (145).
Lowering is used to not draw emphasis. I also noticed that Dawkins used a dash (a raising tool) to put emphasis in the sentence.	“Notice, finally, that lowering-the opposite of raising- is also a natural consequence of understanding the hierarchical system” (146).
By lowering and raising we will be able to “clarify the meaning of sentences and to gain intended emphasis” (153).	“..we will be encouraging students to clarify the meaning of sentences and to gain intended emphasis” (153).