Sullivan's Blog vs. Harris's Writing

In Harris’s book on writing, he describes the subject as a process of, “drawing on, commenting on, and adding to the works of others.” While to some this could be seen as plagiarism, he sees it as a chance to revisit the works of other intellectuals. He emphasizes using the writing techniques of others in order to become a better academic writer. His purpose of academic writing is to convey information in response to text, which he shows in five moves; coming to terms, forwarding, countering, taking an approach, and revising. In the coming to terms section, Harris gives a theory for reading. It states that in order to understand a text one needs to rewrite it. I agree with this statement because many texts that are from before our time are often very difficult to understand, but readings from our time are relatively easy to grasp. This is due to the fact that we know how to write in the same ways as authors of our time. In a sense, that our language is the same, and we can for the most part put together sentences in a similar way. Those who are able to write in Elizabethan English will be well equipped to tackle any Shakespearean play thrown their way. Sullivan’s view on blogging easily transfers over to Harris’s definition of writing. In a blog, many times a writer takes information gathered from other sources, such as news articles, and compiles it into their own opinion on the subject. From this point of view, one can easily see that blogging is considered writing in Harris’s definition.