Assignment: “Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More” “Toolkit of Analytical Methods I: Seeing Better, Seeing More” is an informational text that helps students with their writing along with some facts a college writer should know. The text includes many sets of tools for teaching ways of seeing and making sense of things in writing. The author mentions that the tools mentioned in the text will help a writer discover things to say about whatever a writer wants to write about.
The author mentions that heuristics, the tools that train your way of seeing and making sense of things comes from the same root as Eureka, which means “I’ve found it! ” The two broad categories of heuristics mentioned in this chapter are observation strategies and interpretive prompts. Both of the categories retrain the way a writer focuses on the attention from the general to the local. Heuristics are not used for organizing papers but more of a “thinking move” as the writer says.
The author says that heuristics are made to create better quality material for an essay or any type of writing. Along with stating the importance of heuristics in the text, the author names some great writing methods a writer should know to better their writing techniques. Additionally, the author talks about useful topics, for example: generalizing statements, naturalizing our assumptions, and a lot more that can help a student’s writing. Definitions 1. Heuristics: tools for training your ways of seeing and making sense of things- the world, images, and especially written texts. This term is crucial to understand the article because the author explains how heuristics will help better a writer’s writing.
2. React: Respond or behave in a particular way in response to something •This term is crucial to understand the article because the author explains how reacting is not the same as thinking 3. Over-personalizing: naturalizing our assumptions •This term is crucial to understand the article because the author states how a writer must break the habit of treating our points of view as self-evidently true. . Binary oppositions: pairs of words or details that are opposites 5. Anomalies: expectations to the patterns, things that seem not to fit. 6. Repetitions: The action of repeating something. 7. Observation strategies: one of the two broad categories of heuristics. 8. Interpretive prompts: one of the two broad categories of heuristics. 9. Paraphrase: A rewording of something written or spoken by someone else. 10. Generalize: Make general or broad statements