Analyzing the texts “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources,” by Karen Rosenberg and “How to Read Like a Writer,” by Mike Bunn was an enriching experience. I began by reading Rosenberg’s text because the introduction got my attention from the very beginning and kept it throughout. Rosenberg’s style of writing felt as if I were conversing with a peer, since the tone of the author’s writing leaned towards an informal and conversive manner. The aforementioned aspect is what I really enjoyed from the writing, and it made sense that the goal of Rosenberg’s essay was to guide and advise the reader on how to achieve “rhetorical reading”- term that is defined in the essay as deliberately looking for what the role and relationship is between the writer, reader, and text. Rhetorical reading is like you are having a conversation with the writer and their text, but how can you do that? Firstly, consider the audience the writer is addressing. One may not always be the intended audience, and actually that’s ok. Although there is no need for discouragement, one must understand that there will be references unbeknownst to us as the unintended audience. Therefore, other characteristics of the text will help us achieve our desired “rhetorical reading” without giving up on the text too easily. The following are points Rosenberg mentioned to look for in the text:

• Title
• Abstract (discusses main points of the text in the beginning)
• Introduction
• Section Headings
• Conclusion

These points may seem basic, but are indeed effective. As a brief example, if you skim through the introduction and ignore most of it, you may find that you missed the content that will help you connect the structure of the article to what you’ve read. The intro is sort of like a “road map,” states Rosenberg. Well, from what I’ve discussed so far, at least one takeaway from Rosenberg’s essay was how the simple techniques to “rhetorical reading” can lead to greater understanding of what may seem to be overly complicated scholarly articles, but truly can be read and enjoyed.

This was my second look at Mike Bunn’s essay, “How to Read Like a Writer.” His method, Read Like a Writer (RLW) can be broken down into the following points:

1. Look for the author’s purpose.
2. Know who the audience is. This will help you understand why the author chose certain techniques, words, or phrases.
3. Determine the genre of the piece of writing.
4. Be well informed of your expectations for the writing. You may be expecting a published article to be a great work of art, but also remember that no writing is perfect, since we can all improve in some area of our writing. Approaching the text without expecting a monumental masterpiece, but instead asking yourself why the author chose a certain technique and why it was a good option or what might have been a better option will be greatly effective to properly employ the RLW method.
5. This is probably the most reiterated point in Bunn’s essay: look for the techniques!
6. Ask yourself what decisions the author made in their writing and why.

I boiled down what seemed to me as the main points from Bunn’s essay. A takeaway from this reading that will help me improve is asking myself why the author chose a certain technique and if I would have done the same. Interestingly, Rosenberg’s advice to read like you’re having a conversation with the text ties to Bunn’s RLW method. If you ask yourself questions about the text and writer, you’ll understand their relationship to each other and to you. Consequently, your reading will become more enjoyable and you’ll be able to get the most out of it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Rosenberg’s style of an essay and the informal tone of voice in the author’s essay was probably the best choice in order to teach the reader such reading techniques.