Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage
Composition English 1102		Contact Form

On the Relationship
between Reading and Writing

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As the table in the introduction attempts to indicate, readers and writers alike find a reciprocal relationship between the act of reading at different levels and the act of writing. Analytical reading and writing requires us to understand, to interpret, and to evaluate the content of what we read. As we read for understanding, we read for content. Reading for content (main ideas and key supporting evidence) corresponds to the act of writing an abstract (summarizing the author's purpose, scope, methods, results, recommendations, and conclusions). Reading for interpretation corresponds to the act of writing an analysis. Finally, reading to evaluate corresponds to the act of writing an argument or critique.

Furthermore, the different acts of writing build upon one another in analytical writing; for example, when Roger Ebert writes a movie review, he usually begins by summarizing the movie. He gives the readers a sense of the story line, the main characters, and the themes. From that summary he can build his analysis of the film. He explains to us how the film script, the actors, the direction, the special effects, etc work to together (or don't work together) in the film. Finally, he is able to critique the film. Having told us the summary facts, having explained the interconnections between the parts of the film, he can now evaluate — thumb's up or thumb's down.

I wish to emphasize though that the critique just doesn't appear "out of thin air," nor does Ebert praise or trash a film just "because he felt like it." Instead, a good critic, and Ebert is a good critic, bases his critique (his argument about the film's worth) on a thoughtful analysis. The analysis in turn is build upon a solid understanding of the facts in the work (the summary). It is in this way that the summaries we write set the stage for our analytical essays, which allows us to write the argumentative essays.

Thoughtful reading and writing share another trait in common: careful readers and writers question what they are doing. For the careful reader and writer, the act of reading and writing is an active, dynamic, challenging intellectual occupation that allows the reader and writer to question everything. Rhetoricians have developed a series of questions to use as "tests" of the evidence before them in the work.

Testing the Validity and Reliability of the Evidence

If we can determine the type of an argument we are reading or the type of argument we wish to compose, we will better understand the type of evidence the writer will need to support the claim. Readers and writers alike apply the relevant tests of quality, quantity and opposition to analyze and critique the writer's use of reasoning. Our basis for evaluating an argumentative essay depends on how well (or poorly) the argument fulfills the relevant tests.

Ascertain the Type of Evidence:	Test the Quality of the Evidence	Test the Quantity of the Evidence:	Evaluate the Opposition's Position:
Does the writer use an "expert?"	Does the "expert" have experience? objectivity? consistency? access to information?	Does the "expert" have enough authority to trust?	Do better authorities disagree with the writer's expert?
Does the writer try to "motivate" the readers to act?	Is the action a relevant need or want?	Is the writer's claim a sufficiently significant need/want?	Does the opposition make a more significant needs/wants for the other side?
Does the writer present a Cause/Effect or Effect/Cause pattern of evidence?	Are the facts necessary to establish cause and effect?	Does the writer present sufficient evidence to establish cause and effect?	Does the opposition have a good alternate explanation of causality? evidence of multiple causality? counter-causality (to cancel out the writer's evidence)?
Does the writer make a generalization?	Does the writer have a relevant sample on which to base a valid generalization? a typical sample?	Does the writer have sufficient numbers or size of sample on which to base a valid generalization?	Does the opposition have counter-examples to disprove the writer's generalization?
Does the writer use classification?	Does the writer demonstrate the existence of relevant shared characteristics within the class?	Does the writer show sufficient number of similarities within class?	Does the opposition show significant distinguishing characteristics, different from the class, destroying the writer's classification?
Does the writer claim that there is a parallel case?	Does the writer show relevant similarities between cases?	Does the writer show a sufficient number of similarities between the cases?	Can the opposition show significant dissimilarities between cases?
Does the writer use an analogy — an extended comparison?	Does the writer describe and clarify the similarities?	Are the relationships in the comparison proportionally equivalent?	Can the opposition show significant relational differences?
Does the writer suggest that his/her evidence is only a "sign" of the evidence that will prove the claim, but s/he doesn't have the evidence really because the evidence is too difficult to collect directly?	Are the signs consistent and constant?	Is that sign sufficient evidence to go on?	Can the opposition present counter-signs (to indicate something different)?

As you have probably already noticed, our writing assignments in English 1102 build in the same way that I have been describing here. We begin by writing abstracts, to ensure that we grasp content. That is the objective of our first writing assignment. From from that base, we write an analysis of the issues. That is the objective of writing a review. Finally, we are ready to write the argument, our first short researched essay. The first subject we will study include issues such as the legalization of drugs, free speech, privacy, etc,, perplexing subjects that cut across generational, gender, and political affiliations, making "strange bedfellows" of us all. For example, both a politically liberal writer like Gore Vidal and a politically conservative writer like William F. Buckley, Jr. both argue that we should legalize drugs. These are two writers who share nothing else in common on any other subject!

The second short, researched essay, another argument essay, will focus on George Orwell's novel, 1984. In that novel, we again will see a wide range of ideas at play offering us the chance to pick from a wide assortment of topics for our second research paper.

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