Analyzing Nancy Mairs 'The Bedford Reader'

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Question #1: Two specific suggestions from Nancy Mairs' essay are: first, assistance with annotation. Mairs states that annotating your work and developing a personal system that facilitates comprehension can enhance your understanding of future work, both your own and others. This is further stated here. “Writing while reading helps you uncover the hidden workings of an essay so that you, as much as any expert, can judge its effectiveness. You'll develop an opinion about what you read and want to express it.” (Mairs 12). Based on Mairs' work, readers are empowered to form their own opinions and articulate them effectively, which fosters a deeper understanding of the text and improves my writing skills. Secondly, Mairs discusses how the language …show more content…

For example, using words such as “irate” and “outraged” can indicate that a character is deeply angered, while words such as “annoyed” represent a milder degree of the same emotion. Both of these tools that Mairs taught me in the first chapter of “The Bedford Reader” will vastly improve my writing. They will teach me how to use annotation to gain a deeper understanding of my own and others' writing. The new knowledge of the language I can employ to infuse deeper emotions into my writing will significantly enhance the work. Question #2: The commentary on Nancy Mairs' essay in "The Bedford Reader" is extensive. Two major pieces of commentary that resonated with me were how she uses different tones to convey various meanings in other situations. Mairs uses a coherent structure in her essay to maintain the reader's interest while ensuring a continuous flow of organized thoughts. Mairs' tones are very ironic, with a touch of humor and intensity. This is further stated here: “She's blunt, too, revealing intimate details about her life. Honest and wry, Mairs invites us to see the media's exclusion as ridiculous and then leads us to her uncomfortable

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